Per diem, I believe, is Latin for: “Money in my pocket.” If you are not familiar with how a per diem expense account works, you receive a set amount of money each day — usually for food and other incidentals — whether you incur those expenses or not. It looks like city of Lawrence employees may soon get to experience the ins and outs of a per diem expense account.

I know how such an account works in my world. I pack a suitcase full of Ramen noodles because I like cash better than I like hotel food. (Although, the questions from the airport security folks can get a little odd.)

City commissioners at their meeting tonight were set to discuss a new policy on city travel and expenses, including the use of per diem expense accounts. City Hall this morning, however, announced the item has been removed from tonight’s agenda. No word yet on when it may be put on a future agenda.

Although staff doesn’t make any mention of it in its memo, it probably is not a coincidence that the policy discussion is coming in the wake of former Mayor Jeremy Farmer being required to reimburse the city for some improper travel expenses prior to his resignation from the commission.

The major change is that city employees no longer will be required to keep their receipts for food and meal expenses while traveling on city business. Instead of being reimbursed based on receipts, city employees who are traveling simply will be given a per day allowance for meals.

The allowance will vary depending on what city they are traveling to. The federal government’s Government Services Administration sets recommended per diem amounts for various cities across the country. The city plans to use those amounts.

Doing a quick search on the GSA website, it appears a lot of cities in this region are about $64 a day, or at least that was the case for Kansas City, Omaha and Dallas, for example. In some other cities the amount increases. For example, it is $74 a day in New York, $74 a day in San Francisco and $69 a day in Washington, D.C.

What do you think? Could you figure out how to subsist on $64 a day in a place like K.C., Omaha or Dallas? Remember, it needs to cover your taxes and tips too. The per diem is designed to cover three meals per day. The per diem, however, is only for food. You don’t have to pay tolls, or parking or other such expenses out of the per diem. Given that, if you split your per diem equally per meal, you would need to spend about $21 per meal or less to stay within your allowance. I don’t know about you, but I don’t normally spend $21 on breakfast, unless it is one of those breakfast bars where they charge you by the pound. Figure at even hotel prices, $12 for breakfast, $15 for lunch, and that leaves you with $37 to buy a single meal for dinner. (The closest I’ve ever felt like a Rockefeller is going to a McDonald’s with $37 in my pocket and asking if they’ve got something bigger than a super size.)

The city policy says the city won’t pay for alcohol as a city expense, but the per diem complicates that a little bit.

Bryan Kidney, the city’s finance director, told me employees would be able to purchase alcohol with their dinner, for example, and use the per diem money to pay for it. There are still policies in place that city employees are expected to not consume alcohol while conducting city business, but during those off hours of a convention, there’s no restriction in place on the per diem being used for a glass of wine or such.

“We’re not asking for receipts so what they spend that per diem on is kind of up to them,” Kidney said.

Kidney said he’s recommending the per diem policy, in part, because his staff spends quite a bit of time tracking down receipts and reviewing them. He said he hasn’t done a detailed analysis of whether the policy would save or cost the city money, but he also noted that there is not a large amount of overnight travel that the city does in a year. (The per diem would only be for overnight trips.) The city last year had 85 overnight travels, Kidney said.

Kidney said it appears most of the other large cities in Kansas already have gone to a per diem system, primarily because of the efficiencies it creates for the accounting staffs, plus it also creates more predictable expense for the city to budget for.

As for other details in the proposed policy, they include:

• The policy will apply to all city employees, city commissioners, and board members serving on city boards.

• The city plans to produce a public report detailing the amount of overnight travel that occurs by city employees each month. The report will be published on the Finance Department’s website each month and will include the name, the department, the destination, purpose of the travel and the cost per category of each city-paid trip.

“One of the things I was asked to do when I came on board here was to increase the transparency of some of our financial reporting, and this is an effort to do that,” Kidney said.

• The new policy would allow greater flexibility in lodging choices. It will allow employees to more routinely stay in a hotel other than the host hotel of a convention, and also would allow for the use of a short term rental, if that is more advantageous.

• The new policy makes it clear that the use of ride-sharing services, such as Uber, are an acceptable expense.

• The city would only pay for airline fees for coach travel and will pay an airline charge for only one bag. Additional charges for extra baggage, seat upgrades, priority seating and other such charges won’t be allowed, unless there is a legitimate business purpose for the expense.

• On lodging, the policy allows a companion to share a room with a city employee, but the companion will be required to pay the difference between a single rate and the double/family rate of the hotel.

• Prohibited expenses include: fees for attendance at political rallies; nonemployee travel expenses; entertainment costs; expenses for nonpublic purposes such as clothing, sporting events, laundry services and travel outside of meeting dates; and alcoholic beverages.

You may remember that some of those prohibited expenses became an issue with former mayor Farmer, who ended up reimbursing the city for $1,100 worth of personal expenses that were put on a city credit card. The use of the per diem system also is expected to reduce the use of city credit cards because city credit cards will be specifically prohibited from meal uses, according to the proposed policy.

In other news and notes:

• Since we brought his name up, I can tell you we are still keeping an eye out for any charges related to Jeremy Farmer and his alleged mismanagement at the Lawrence food bank Just Food. No charges have been filed yet. What to make of that is a little bit harder to determine.

I’ve certainly heard that the investigation into the matter would be handled by federal officials, since the allegations involve payroll taxes and other tax matters. At this point, I don’t think the absence of charges means much, other than the federal government doesn’t operate at lightning pace. I think it also is possible that federal officials may be waiting to see how Farmer files his 2015 tax returns. Depending on what income is claimed or not claimed on those returns could have implications on any future actions taken by investigators.

We’re also keeping our eyes open for any signs of a civil lawsuit filed against Farmer. Leaders with Just Food have acknowledged that could be a possibility. My understanding is the filing of a civil suit against Farmer could make Just Food eligible to get a rebate on penalties, fines and other such fees they may have had to pay to the IRS. At the moment, I don’t have word on whether such a suit is forthcoming.

• A quick update on a change along Massachusetts Street. Mobilosity, the wireless phone repair and accessory store at 815 Massachusetts St., has closed, according to a sign in the window. Based on the sign, it looks like the store is not relocating but rather is going out of business. The sign, however, indicated it was still honoring warranty claims on its work. People with warranty issues were directed to send an email to oliver.gans@mobilosityusa.com. No word yet on whether a new tenant has been found for the prime Mass. Street spot.