Minutes of the Federal Council Meeting April 10, 1996
Attendees -

Noreen Toy-Sneddon, DOS
Eugenia Williams, GSA
Willie McCurdy, DOI
Kay Stone, DOS
William Fouts, DOT
Charles Hill, NOAA
Scarlett Evans, BOP
Jakob Evans, FBI
Harriet Freedman, FAA
Joe Androsko, DEA
Mathis Gardner, GSA
Carla Young, GSA

The meeting was called to order by Carla Young, Centralized Household Goods Traffic Management Program, General Services Administration, Kansas City, Missouri. It was announced that Judy Schroyer had taken a position in another Branch of FSS, therefore Ms. Young will be conducting the quarterly meetings for the time being and will be working with both the domestic and international issues with the assistance of Brian Kellhofer.

1a. Domestic TOS.
At the January meeting Council members were advised that a future DTOS would be forth coming and that Ms. Schroyer was reviewing changes that needed to be incorporated at that time. Council members were also advised that any future comments/suggestions of changes should be provided to the Program Management Office (GSA). Because Ms. Schroyer is no longer involved in the Program, these changes are currently being reviewed by Mr. Kellhofer. Even though GSA has received no comments, they are always welcomed.

1b. International TOS.
Change 1 to the ITOS was provided in hard copy in addition to being available by FTP and the world wide web. Future changes would only be available electronically. Change 1 dealt with changing the shipment charge in paragraph 7.1.12 from $85.00 to $45.00 by reference to Item 57 of the Government Rate Tender and a pen and ink change to paragraph 5.9.1.1.17.

1c. Protective packing material.
Noreen Toy-Sneddon, DOS, presented to the Council information relative to the protective packaging material ventilated foam. Ms. Toy-Sneddon advised that on 200 DOS household goods shipments, there had been no damage reported. Therefore, DOS is going to change the language in their contract to give carriers the option of using this material. Ms. Young provided handouts of current packaging material provisions in the ITOS. Council members agreed to include language in the ITOS to allow carriers the option to use the ventilated foam. Ms. Toy-Sneddon will provide the GSA with the language they will be using in their contract.

1d. Combining Domestic and International TOS's.
GSA regional responsibilities have been realigned. Publication responsibilities have been given to Region 7 (Ft. Worth). Therefore, combining the TOS's will be done by Region 7. The GSA will still be responsible for providing to Region 7 any changes that need to be incorporated.

2. Changes to the 1996-97 Filing Cycle.

2a. Documentation Requirements.
The 1996-97 Request for Offers (RFO) will contain provisions requiring carriers to have on file by approximately September 1, 1996, a current Certificate of Insurance and Performance Bond to indicate it has a policies in force and meets liability requirements. If this requirement is not met, it will be considered a deficiency and carrier rates will not be released to customers until such time the document requirements are met. Current provisions in the TOS's regarding documentation requirements will be waived. By changing this procedure, GSA would no longer be sending out insurance notifications each month.

2b. Additional service area pairs (SAP).
GSA is planning on including all international points and some additional areas in Alaska to the next filing cycle for submission of offers and including in the centralized data base for cost comparisons. One of the reasons is because of the number of one-time-only requests being received, the time frames the GSA has for solicitation and receipt of carrier offers, and the amount of time required by staff members to provide carrier bids to the requesting agency.
GSA will review any comments from the Council. In addition, GSA will be requesting comments from the carrier industry.

2c. Special Services.
The 1995-96 RFO contained a section identifying special services for Customs. The GSA will be incorporating those provisions into the 1996 RFO that will enable all Federal agencies to have these services also. Council members advised that they did not know what those services included because those services had not been presented to them. Ms. Young agreed to distribute to the Council a copy of the section containing those provisions. Ms. Young also advised that if any agency wanted the GSA to address special services, written documentation providing an outline of those services should reach the GSA by the first of May.

3. Restructuring of Off-Shore to International.

At the January meeting the GSA requested comments on whether to move the off-shore (Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Alaska) to the international program from a CSI perspective. No comments were received, so the GSA assumes the Council does not care. Council members can still provide comments as it is anticipated the restructuring will be effective October 1, 1997.

4. International Performance Indexes (PI).

4a. PI's effective October 1, 1996.
Based on discussion held at the January meeting, the GSA provided a form to Council members to evaluate the international carriers that had moved household goods shipments during calendar year 1995. Ms. Young advised that only two Council members had submitted any evaluation forms to the GSA to be used in constructing a PI. The GSA had received some GSA Form 3080's evaluating carrier performance which would be used along with the evaluation forms received from Council members to calculate a PI. However, the GSA would continue to accept any evaluations from Council members until approximately May 1.

4b. PI's effective October 1, 1998.
In order for the GSA to calculate a CSI in 1988, there would have to be the implementation of a evaluation form(s) in place and effective with household goods shipments moving January 1, 1997, and after. A task team was formed and will begin working on how carrier's will be evaluated. The team will consist of Noreen Toy-Sneddon (DOS), Joe Androsko (DEA), and Jakob Evans (FBI).

5. Veterans Affairs Request for Offers (RFO).

The GSA advised that we are currently having discussions with the VA to solicit rates for their agency meeting their specific service requirements.

6. Agency Identification Codes (AIC).

The GSA advised that because of a requirement in the freight program to identify paying from non-paying customers, the AIC was going to change. Due to this change, the GSA will be identifying one AIC per user whether they are requesting a cost comparison for freight or household goods. On the freight issue, the AIC will be effective approximately April 15, 1996. GSA is making every effort to implement this on the household goods side at approximately the same time. The code would change from the current 4-digit to 6-digit.

7. Carrier Affiliation.

(Background: At the January Council meeting Bill Hobson lead a discussion about the need to review the current provisions. The Council requested the GSA take a look at eliminating approved agents of carriers from filing rates. The GSA advised that we could address carrier affiliation as follows and the impact it would have:)

• 1. Leave provision as currently written which would mean that some rate filers would go away, that is if carriers are affiliated then only one carrier of a group of carriers may file rates; or,
• 2. Change rule to identify "independently operated" which would mean that the rate filers that are affiliated with another carrier but operate independently could now file rates and some agents of carriers who do not have independent operates could no longer file rates; or,
• 3. Do away with the rule which would mean that GSA no longer provides what our customers want. The Program would be open to paper companies and would have a major impact on CSI's, scopes, rates. Carriers would probably raise the issue that affiliated carriers would not have to go through the approval process and should be allowed to file rates effective October 1, 1996.

  The Council agreed that they didn't like option 3. After a discussion it seemed that the Council wanted to leave the affiliation rule as it now stands. Ms. Young asked that members take a little time to think about the problems and to provide comments. Willy McCurdy asked members to send comments to him for consolidation and providing to the GSA.

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