Carla Balakgie, NAMA’s president and CEO, recently submitted comments on behalf of the association to the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee regarding its hearing, “Examining Conference and Travel Spending Across the Federal Government.”
According to NAMA, the purpose of the hearing was two-fold: to determine the current state of federal agency spending on conferences, training and travel and to determine if problems caused by previously documented excessive spending at government conferences have improved.
According to the hearing statement issued by Committee Chairman Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., “The challenging budget climate of the last few years has forced agencies to operate with less federal funding, which has, in turn, curtailed spending on travel, training and conferences, while focusing the dollars that are spent on activities and events whose value to agencies, to organizations and citizens is clear.”
“NAMA is pleased to submit our comments to the Senate Committee on this important issue,” said Eric Dell, NAMA’s senior vice president of government affairs, in a prepared statement.
“We understand that is imperative for the government to examine possible spending cuts in federal agency travel. However, our comments urge committee leadership to consider the value of federal employee participation at association meetings because it allows for the exchange of information between association professionals, members and government leaders on key policy issues,” Dell said.
