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

Joseph Harrison, AMC
Scott Michael, AMC
Don Mensch, HHGFAA
Michael McGowan, McCollisters Moving & Storage
Carla Young, GSA

The meeting was called to order by Carla Young, Centralized Household Goods Traffic Management Program, General Services Administration, Kansas City, MO. 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 reissue of the DTOS would be forthcoming and Ms. Schroyer was reviewing changes that needed to be incorporated at that time. Because Ms. Schroyer is no longer involved in the Program, these changes are currently being reviewed by Mr. Kellhofer.

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.

1b. Protective packing material
The Council was advised that the Federal Council had passed on changing the ITOS packaging requirements to include the protective packaging ventilated foam. This provision will be written based on DOS requirements and will be the option of the carrier.

1c. 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.

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 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
GSA is planning on including all international points and some additional areas in Alaska to the next filing cycle for submission of offers to be included 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.

Comments during the meeting were to leave filings the way they are. GSA asked for any additional comments in writing.

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.

Also, should Canada and Mexico be included in the domestic program. No written comments were received. Those members present provided comments that it appeared to be feasible. Alaska should remain under the domestic program. The commercial tariff has provisions which apply to Canada, therefore, GSA could docket a proposal to include in the GRT. GSA also asked if carriers are satisfied with the way they are currently bidding rates (state to foreign country, weight groups, etc).

Would it be more advantageous for them to bill based on space or measurement then weight of goods? Council comment was to leave it as currently done. The Council brought up the issue that some countries should be broken into more than one area for rate purposes. GSA requested that the Council provide comments to these issues. GSA has no plans to restructure until October 1997.

The GSA has received calls inquiring as to whether GSA is going to solicit for the VA a special rate filing. GSA's only comment is that it has had discussions with the VA on soliciting for special services.

The associations requested GSA review SAP assignments made during the approval process in countries where rates were not solicited and should not count against the carrier's limit of SAP's. GSA is still reviewing this issue, but will have to make a decision before July 1996 when the next filing instructions are made available.

AMC asked if a carrier did not file rates for all SAP's that they were approved for, could they file for those areas in the next filing cycle. Yes, a carrier can file rates for any area that is included in its approved scope of operation. A carrier is not penalized by the deletion of a SAP simply because it chose not to file a rate. The only way a carrier's scope is reduced is through its customer satisfaction index, when applicable.

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