Employee Travel

Habersham County School System is required to follow the minimum guidelines outlined in the Statewide Travel Regulations approved and adopted by the State of Georgia's State Accounting Office (SAO) and the Office of Planning and Budget (OPB) when reimbursing school system employees for business-related travel expenses.

Employees are expected to exercise good stewardship of funds when traveling on official school business. Any expense disallowed by state rules is the responsibility of the employee.

Employee travel reimbursements must be approved by an applicable supervisor/designee before submission to the Financial Services Office. By approving travel expenses, the approver is attesting that he/she has reviewed each transaction and the supporting documentation, and has verified that all transactions are allowable expenses.

Employees traveling on official business in Georgia are exempt from county and municipal excise tax and should present a Hotel/ Motel Excise Tax Exemption Certification form to the hotel operator (see Travel Forms below for copy).

The Habersham County Schools Employee Travel Reimbursement form must be completed in its entirety with applicable receipts attached for reimbursement to be processed.  Incomplete or old forms will be returned for correction and may result in delayed travel payment to the employee.  The most current employee travel form is available on this website (see Travel Forms below).  

The Financial Services office processes employee travel reimbursements twice per month. Employee payments are made electronically via ACH typically on the 15th and 30th of the month to the same bank account used for the employee's payroll direct deposit per statewide travel regulation 7.4.

IRS regulations state the employee must adequately account to the employer and submit travel expense reimbursement requests within 60 days of the end of the trip.  Such expenses, if reimbursed after 60 days, become taxable income to the employee and will be included in the employee's next monthly payroll check. 

The Statewide Travel Regulations can be found at:  https://sao.georgia.gov/state-travel-policy.

Reimbursement rates for out-of-state travel follow the published General Services Administration (GSA) rates found at: https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates.

Please email [email protected] if you have any questions.