Transit quandary

In last week's column, Pay and Benefits Watch presented the following quandary from a federal worker and asked for readers' comments:

Sixty-five of the 83 Pay and Benefits Watch readers who weighed in said the employee shouldn't have to pay back the money. Thirteen said that he should and five sat on the fence.

Some employees were incensed that managers would force the employee to reimburse the agency. Their anger focused on four main points: First, the transit benefit program is supposed to cover employees' mass transit commuting costs up to the maximum $100 monthly limit. In this case, the employee's commuting cost is the monthly vanpool charge, regardless of how many days he actually rode in the van. The monthly charge works much like a subway system's monthly pass works. A subway system doesn't care how many times a pass holder uses it during the month. It's the same rate whether the employee rides every day or misses a day or two because of vacation or sick leave. If the vanpool charged a daily rate, then the employee should pay back the two weeks' charge. But it's not.

Second, respondents were surprised that the agency would give the vanpool rider a hard time considering that he was on government-ordered travel for the two weeks that he wasn't riding in the van. "This reminds me of a co-worker that went on travel that required four nights of lodging," a National Park Service employee said. "When she registered, the manager told her that a one-week rental was less than four nights, so she registered for the week. When she filed her travel claim, three-sevenths of her lodging cost was rejected."

Third, respondents said the point of the transit benefit is to encourage use of mass transit. Putting employees through the rigmarole of adjusting the reimbursement rate each month based on travel time (or sick leave or vacation days) discourages people from taking advantage of the benefit. They may just drive rather than deal with the hassle, some respondents said.

Fourth, people said the agency was being penny-wise and pound-foolish. "How much money is the government going to spend chasing the commute benefits?" asked a Navy employee. "This will create a bureaucratic mess that opens the gate for grievances and will cost more than is saved to administer. As usual, Uncle Sam will spend a dollar to chase a dime."

Two of the respondents were actually transit benefit coordinators for their offices. "The agency should not recover any money since the employee was claiming qualifying expenses that were incurred, even though the employee did not ride for part of that time," said one transit benefit coordinator. "If the employee had paid weekly or biweekly, then only the expenses that were incurred could be claimed."

The other transit benefit coordinator said local offices haven't had very good guidance from headquarters officials on how to oversee the benefit. Still, he didn't agree with the vanpool decision, saying, "The critical elements of the program are whether the employee agreed to participate and uses approved mass transit to commute, and what the actual monthly commuting costs are (subject to the $100 limit)." "Trying to prorate reimbursement of a monthly pass is shortsighted and costly (given the expense of reconciling claims with the participant's time-and-attendance), and doesn't meet the apparent intent of the implementing EO. [Executive Order 13150 created the federal transit benefit program.] … I'd love to see that agency's 'return on investment' (how much did they properly recover, versus the cost of the workday verification program)."

Still, some employees had little or no sympathy with the vanpool rider. Some said he should be thankful that he gets any transit benefit at all, since some agencies still don't provide their employees with free transit passes. "Getting a rash over half a month seems awfully petty to me," one Army employee said.

A private sector manager said the government is responsible only for actual travel to and from work. "The employee decision to choose a transportation service that charges a flat rate per month is just that--the employee's decision," the manager said. "It's not the government's responsibility to cover agreements made between an employee and a third party service."

Here is a round-up of some of the many other comments people sent in about the vanpool case:

• "Sounds petty and vindictive to me. I would look for an emotional element somewhere, a dislike of the employee, a lack of appreciation of his or her work, or just plain 'tight-assness' on the part of the manager(s) of his/hers."
• "Refund the agency the money, get over it and be grateful to receive this benefit."
• "The government goal should be to keep vanpools in business because they reduce traffic. The agency in question is very short-sighted."
• "Doesn't this agency have a real mission? Grow up agency officials...we're not in first grade anymore. The sweatshop mentality is alive and well in the federal government. This agency needs to join the 21st century."
• "If the agency's rules specify that he cannot have the transit benefit while TDY [temporary duty], then that's the way the cookie crumbles. From a personal view, it's too bad, but I work too far into the bureaucracy not to see the agency's view also."
• "Micromanaging at its worst!"
• "Nickel and diming the employees is bad management."