wisconsin travel reimbursement

Travel Planning and Booking

Plan your business-related trips with up-to-date information on travel contracts, booking methods, and recommended best practices.

Determine the best options for booking and paying for transportation and lodging.

Pre-trip approval

Pre-trip approval requirements vary by Division/Department. Travelers are expected to follow all internal travel approval procedures prior to making trip reservations. Contact your Divisional Business Office for more information on pre-trip approval procedures.

Where to book and how to pay

Using travel, inc. and concur.

Travel, Inc. is the University’s contracted travel agency for individual travel. Concur is the online booking portal administered by Travel, Inc. Employees must set up a profile prior to booking travel in Concur.

• Register for Concur More
• Sign into Concur More
• How to manage your Concur Account More

Payment methods

Payment by UW Purchasing Card or My Corporate Card is preferred for pre-trip expenses (e.g. airfare, registration fees, lodging deposits, rental car guarantees).

• Purchasing Card More
• My Corporate Card More
• Getting Reimbursed More

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Myth: I am unable to get get assistance or ask questions when planning travel.

Busted: UW–Madison has a Travel Manager who can assist with travel/questions and provide travel training to anyone who is interested. Contact Terry Wilson ( [email protected] ) for help. Check out available travel training sessions

Choosing the best travel plan

While making travel arrangements, employees are expected to be good stewards of the University’s money. It’s important to consider different modes of transportation, departure/arrival locations, travel dates, and accommodations in order to determine the lowest cost means of travel.

Modes of transportation

Combining business and personal travel.

If personal travel is combined with business travel, an airfare cost comparison is required . The University will not incur additional expense for personal travel. Airfare payments or reimbursement claims submitted without a valid cost comparison will be paid or reimbursed at a flat rate of 80% of the total cost of the fare, no exceptions.

When traveling with a companion (non-business-related traveler), contact  Travel, Inc.  to reserve flights for both the business traveler and companion.

UW System – Combining Business and Personal Travel webpage

Reserving lodging

How to reserve lodging for UW–Madison business travel, including payment/reimbursement, calculating maximum nightly rates, and finding the best rates.

• How to reserve lodging More

Common Travel Tasks

Meals and incidentals.

Determine which meals and incidentals are approved for reimbursement during business-related travel.

Calculate Reimbursements

Let someone else book

Also called a “travel arranger” or “travel assistant”, allow another UW employee to make travel arrangements for you.

Use a travel arranger

Registration fees

This might include conferences, performances or other business related engagements.

Booking registrations

Group traveling

How to plan for group travel for business-related purposes including booking transportation, lodging, and registrations.

Book Group Travel

Travel to foreign countries

Including visas, passports, foreign exchange rates, insurance and what’s reimbursable.

Travel outside of the US

Once you’re there

Things to remember during travel like changing or canceling flights, using local transportation, and vehicle insurance.

Accessibility accomodations

The University understands the need to accommodate travelers with health issues or physical limitations in accordance with state and federal disability accommodation laws. Please contact your Divisional Disability Representative (DDR) if you need a disability-related accommodation. Travel arrangers can also contact the respective DDR on behalf of the person whose travel is being arranged.

Booking for guests traveling to campus

Arrange travel and lodging for guests coming to, or traveling on behalf of, UW–Madison. Examples include guest speakers, job candidates, or conference attendees.

Remember: guests are always considered non-employees. Employees are never guests.

Booking travel for guests

Travel program and Concur training

This session is designed to introduce UW–Madison’s Managed Travel Program and online booking tool Concur to travelers and travel arrangers. Its purpose is to make managing profiles and booking in Concur as easy and efficient as possible. An overview of our contracted agencies, required travel vendors, and administrative group bookings will be provided. Recommended for frequent travelers and travel arrangers.

Register for Travel Program and Concur Training

Policies and procedures

See all travel policies and procedures

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• Using a My Corporate Card More
• Access Concur More
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• UW TravelWise Guides More

Travelers and departmental staff should contact their Divisional Business Office for policy or procedural questions.

Divisional Business Offices may email [email protected]  with questions.

• Faculty & Staff
• University of Wisconsin System
• Travel Policy

Purchase & Payment Miscellaneous Travel Expenses

UW System Administrative Policy 430: Travel & Expense – Purchase & Payment Miscellaneous Travel Expenses

Policy Highlights

Miscellaneous travel expenses are defined as those costs not considered primary means of transportation, lodging related or included under the University’s meal and incidental per diem allowance.

• Train travel is reimbursable, travelers must use coach unless overnight travel is required, in which case a roomette may be used.
• Bus travel reimbursement shall not exceed lowest cost of the most reasonable form of other public or commercial transportation options.
• Reasonable and necessary charges for taxi, shuttle, airline limousine, or car service (i.e. Lyft) including tips, up to a maximum of 20% of the fare, is reimbursable when other modes of travel are not available or practical.
• Conference fees require adequate documentation such as both a payment receipt and a copy of the applicable page from the brochure, application or registration form.
• Advance deposits placed on individual toll pass accounts are not reimbursable, only the pass dollars used to cover the business tolls for the trip will be reimbursed

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Scientists Fault Federal Response to Bird Flu Outbreaks on Dairy Farms

Officials have shared little information, saying the outbreak was limited. But asymptomatic cows in North Carolina have changed the assessment.

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By Apoorva Mandavilli and Emily Anthes

In the month since federal authorities announced an outbreak of bird flu on dairy farms, they have repeatedly reassured the public that the spate of infections does not impact the nation’s food or milk supply, and poses little risk to the public.

Yet the outbreak among cows may be more serious than originally believed. In an obscure online update this week, the Department of Agriculture said there is now evidence that the virus is spreading among cows, and from cows to poultry.

Officials in North Carolina have detected bird flu infections in a cattle herd with no symptoms, The New York Times has learned — information the U.S.D.A. has not shared publicly. The finding suggests that the infections may be more widespread than thought.

Whether there are asymptomatic animals elsewhere remains unclear, because the U.S.D.A. is not requiring farms to test cattle for infection. It has been reimbursing farmers for testing, but only for 20 cows per farm that were visibly ill. This week, the department said it would begin reimbursing farms for testing cows without symptoms.

Federal officials have shared limited genetic information about the virus with scientists and with officials in other countries, which is important for learning how the virus might be evolving as it spreads.

They are not actively monitoring infections in pigs, which are famously effective hosts for evolving flu viruses, and which are often kept in proximity to cattle. And officials have said they have “no concern” about the safety of milk, despite a lack of hard data.

In joint statements in March, the U.S.D.A., the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assured the public that pasteurized milk was safe. But the F.D.A. is still conducting tests to ascertain whether the process eliminates the virus. The agency declined to say when results from those tests would be available.

Some experts said the agencies should not have asserted that the milk is safe before they had the data in hand, even though there is only a slim chance of risk to people.

“I understand that the milk market is very concerned about a loss of even a few percent of milk consumption,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota.

But, he added, “the idea that you can avoid this kind of discussion by just giving absolutes is not going to serve them well.”

The federal response so far echoes early missteps during the pandemic, he and other experts said. “It seems they learned little from the communication lessons that Covid taught us,” Dr. Osterholm said.

In an interview this week, Dr. Rosemary Sifford, the U.S.D.A.’s chief veterinarian, said that more than a dozen federal epidemiologists, roughly twice as many laboratory employees, field staff members and academic and state collaborators were all involved in the investigations.

“Please recall that we’ve been engaged in this for less than a month,” she said. “We are working very hard to generate more information.”

U.S.D.A. staff are analyzing only viral genetic sequences from sick cows, but will release information for outside experts “in the very, very near future,” Dr. Sifford said.

“We definitely recognize that we need to learn more about the overall picture,” she added.

If the department were more forthcoming, scientists outside the government could already be helping to contain the virus, Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, said.

“The days when it was seen as a good plan or acceptable for a government agency to keep all data to manage on its own are gone long ago,” he said.

Part of the problem, some experts said, is that the U.S.D.A. has long been in the position of both regulating and promoting the business of agriculture.

“We all want farms to succeed, and we want to have that steady food supply for the American consumer,” said Donn Teske, president of the Kansas Farmers Union. “But then when you are also tasked with the oversight, it’s a little bit of an issue there.”

The current version of the bird flu virus has been circulating since 2020 in poultry, wild birds and more recently, a wide range of mammals.

As of Friday afternoon, the outbreak in dairy cows had spread to 32 herds in eight states: Texas, New Mexico, Michigan, Kansas, Idaho, Ohio, North Carolina and South Dakota.

It is unclear how the outbreak began on dairy farms. Early data suggest that there were at least two spillovers of the virus from bird to cow, in the Texas Panhandle and New Mexico, Dr. Sifford said.

So far among cattle, the virus, called H5N1, seems only to affect lactating cows, and only temporarily. There have been no diagnoses in calves, pregnant heifers or beef cows, and no deaths. But the virus appears to have spilled back, from cows to poultry, in at least one instance in Texas.

That infected herd and poultry flock were on different farms. But the virus may have been transported between them by people or animals that had contact with objects contaminated with virus-laden milk, according to the Texas Animal Health Commission.

Infected cows appear to carry large amounts of the virus in their milk. (The U.S.D.A. has tested relatively few animals by nasal swab, however, and is not testing feces, a common repository for viruses.)

Milking equipment on dairy farms is typically deep-cleaned, but not sterilized, at least once a day. People milking cows are encouraged to wear safety glasses, or masks or face shields, but the recommendations are often ignored.

In cows sickened by H5N1, milk production drops sharply, and the milk becomes viscous and yellowish. “We’ve never seen something like this before,” said Dr. Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

(Milk from infected but asymptomatic cows seems unchanged, according to a spokeswoman for the North Carolina agriculture department.)

In interviews, some experts criticized the U.S.D.A.’s testing recommendations, which until this week promised reimbursement only for a pool of animals that were obviously ill. Farmers may not have found many infections simply because they were not looking for them.

Widespread testing of animals with and without symptoms is crucial early in outbreaks to understand the scale and the possible mechanisms of viral transmission, said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Pigs are a linchpin in flu surveillance, many experts noted, as they are susceptible to both bird and human flu. They might act as “mixing bowls,” enabling H5N1 to acquire the ability to spread efficiently among people.

The U.S.D.A. is not testing pigs or asking farmers to do so, Dr. Sifford said.

Testing cows for H5N1 infection requires approval from a state official. Milk samples obtained by an accredited veterinarian are typically packaged in tubes, packed in insulated coolers, and shipped to a U.S.D.A.-approved lab, along with a unique identifier. Positive tests are then confirmed by the U.S.D.A.’s national lab in Iowa.

Each step slows the speedy response needed to contain an outbreak, Dr. Inglesby said. Testing should be easy, free and accessible, he said.

Dr. Sifford said the U.S.D.A. has already received a “small number” of samples from cows without symptoms. The department is “strongly recommending testing before herds are moved between states, which includes asymptomatic herds,” an agency statement said.

Already some state health departments and farmers have grown frustrated with the federal approach. Several farms in Minnesota — not one of the eight states with known cases — are sending samples of cow blood to private labs to test for antibodies to the virus, which would indicate a current or past infection, said Dr. Joe Armstrong, a veterinarian at the University of Minnesota Extension.

Other dairy farmers are reluctant to test, worried that fears about bird flu could hurt their business, said Dr. Amy Swinford, director of the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory.

“I think there’s many more dairies that have had this going on than what we’ve gotten samples from,” she said.

Dairy farmers are grappling with low milk prices and high feed costs, said Rick Naerebout, chief executive of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association.

“It’s already a very difficult economic situation, and then to look at possibly losing 20 percent of your revenue for a period of two to four weeks — that’s really adding a lot of anxiousness to the situation,” he said.

Idaho barred the importation of cows from the Texas Panhandle after news of bird flu outbreak there, but a week too late. Having an infected herd in Idaho despite those precautions “was kind of a gut shot,” Mr. Naerebout said.

Matt Herrick, a spokesman for the International Dairy Foods Association, said that federal officials should provide more resources and equipment for farmers to protect themselves, and should publicize updates more widely, including through social media.

There is no mention of the bird flu outbreak on the U.S.D.A.’s homepage. The last outbreak-related announcement from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, a division of the department, is dated April 2.

The U.S.D.A. is exploring vaccines to protect cattle from H5N1, but it is unclear how long it might take to develop them. Dr. Armstrong, of the University of Minnesota Extension, said many farmers and veterinarians hope the virus will “burn itself out.”

Instead, it may become a long-term problem. “The goal is to prepare for that,” he said. “Not for this wishful thinking of, ‘It’ll just go away.’”

Apoorva Mandavilli is a reporter focused on science and global health. She was a part of the team that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the pandemic. More about Apoorva Mandavilli

Emily Anthes is a science reporter, writing primarily about animal health and science. She also covered the coronavirus pandemic. More about Emily Anthes