WageWorks, MTA Refusing Refunds for Unused Pre-Paid Commuter Benefit

April 22, 2020

AUTHOR Leslie Gersing

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, WageWorks and the MTA are refusing to provide refunds for transit passes of New York City workers who have been ordered to stay home. WageWorks’ Transitchek program enables commuters to use pre-tax dollars of up to $270 a month to pay for subway, bus, train, ferry, car or eligible vanpools, while also reducing payroll taxes paid by their employers.

On March 18, Governor Cuomo ordered the closing of all non-essential businesses, from March 22 until April 15.

The next day, WageWorks sent emails to some of its customers’ benefits administrators, entitled “Update on COVID-19 and your commuter benefit – no action needed.” In three separate bullets it said,

The fulfillment for your upcoming April commuter order will go forward as usual.
Regular established pass return and refund policies remain in effect.
If and when transit and parking providers make changes to their policies in response to COVID-19, we will work with them to extend those to you.
The WageWorks email contained links to summaries of return and refund policies at the MTA and also said, “if you need to make changes to pending elections, please log in to your account by your order deadline.”

However, the MTA’s website says it does not provide refunds for MetroCards “while the transit system continues to operate” and is unable to resolve issues with “pre-tax MetroCards you received through programs like WageWorks.”

“Many workers were essentially forced to go ahead with purchases of MetroCards that they would have canceled if they had a choice,” said Gabrielle Prisco, a WageWorks participant and employee of a New York City-based non-profit. She was particularly riled by WageWorks’ internal policy requiring participants to make changes to their benefits by the 10th of each month. “If the deadline had been extended, rather than paying for a MetroCard they won’t use, some workers would have used that money for actual emergency needs—such as extra food or medicine, or compensating for a family member’s lost income.”

WageWorks sent Debbie Spero’s company a similar email, on the evening Cuomo ordered the “pause.” That version included a bullet that said, “Please note there are no credit or refund options for the Premium TransitChek MetroCard product.” And it said employees had until March 31 to log onto their accounts to make changes to their pending May benefits.

“I called Transitchek on April 9th to see if I could cancel my May (PMC benefit) and they said I could not suspend May on April 9,” said Spero, a new business development manager for a metro area IT staffing firm. That’s when she found out WageWorks required employees at her firm to make changes by the eighth of each month. After several days of calls, Spero says, a WageWorks supervisor told her, “the only thing I could do now was to suspend my June Metrocard and told me I had until the end of April to do so.”

On April 16, Cuomo extended the closure of non-essential businesses to May 15.

It is unclear how many TransitChek participants there are. Sponsors of a 2016 New York City law requiring non-governmental businesses with more than 20 full-time workers to offer the benefit, estimated it would increase TransitChek membership to 1.45 million riders from 1 million.

WageWorks administers consumer-directed benefits and charges companies a fee for every participant in a company’s pre-tax commuter benefits plan, as well as other monthly expenses. WageWorks is a subsidiary of publicly traded HealthEquity.

WageWorks declined to say how many workers receive its commuter benefits in New York or the how many of those may be affected by the governor’s shutdown.

”We have and continue to support transit agency policies like the MTA, NJ Transit and others, related to returning passes. We’re constantly exploring options to ease the burden on people who are unable to use their passes and will continue to support the decisions transit agencies make regarding the return of their passes,” said Maureen Locus, WageWorks’ senior manager of corporate communications in a statement.

“We communicated to all our members regarding future elections and encourage them to determine if they may have a transit need. Members may continue to adjust their account as appropriate, given their commute needs,” said Locus.

Demands for refunds and cancellation of payroll deductions linked to Covid-19 come as the MTA faces huge deficits, and a 60 percent decline in subway ridership and up to 90 percent on commuter railways.

“MTA is in dire straits with money and has asked for another $3.9B from federal government,” said MTA spokesperson Meredith Daniels, in a statement.

“The MTA continues to run essential service for essential employees and those are the people who are, and should be, commuting to their jobs. Companies who have been providing commuter benefits through payroll deductions, and have changed to a telecommuting policy, have a responsibility to notify employees about how to manage their accounts to accommodate their commuting status,” she added.

Daniels says the MTA sells 3 million MetroCards annually to WageWorks for use on MTA subways and buses. It sells 75 million MetroCards overall.

In a statement provided to City Limits on Wednesday afternoon, the MTA said: “It is WageWorks’ responsibility to notify their customers who have changed to a telecommuting policy that they need to adjust their payroll deductions so their employees have enough notice to appropriately manage their accounts during this time. No one anticipated how this pandemic would affect working people and WageWorks, as the benefit provider, has an obligation to accommodate their customers as the MTA focuses on the important job of providing essential service for essential employees.”  

“Now is not the time to point fingers and deflect responsibility on who must refund riders,” said Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, Chair of the Council’s Transportation Committee in a statement. “New Yorkers are going through an incredibly challenging time and we must work together to get them the help they need,” “Our priority is to support and help all workers currently impacted by COVID,” Rodriguez added.

“The bottom line is that this decision risks public safety and is an economic injustice,” says Prisco.

Some transit agencies that partner with WageWorks are taking steps to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on their commuting workers, including those in San Francisco and Philadelphia.

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WageWorks, MTA Dispute Over Refunds for Unused Pre-Paid Commuter Benefits

Upper West Side Mending Lab

Ripped jeans, tattered T-shirts, a moth-eaten sweater, even beloved stuffed animals – all found their way to a one-day pop-up at the shuttered Steven Alan clothing store on Amsterdam Avenue near West 82nd Street.

Graduate students Tara Maurice and Tianyue “Caroline” Zhang hosted the workshop for their thesis called “Pretty/Ugly: Fashion, Waste & Consumption.” Their research for a Masters in Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts focuses on the economic, environmental and human costs of “fast-fashion.” They billed the Sept. 29th event as a way to learn a valuable life skill, while meeting friends, neighbors and others concerned about clothing waste.

“Jeans get better as they get older, right?” said one woman, who spotted the Mending Lab poster and returned with several damaged goods. “It’s always the one you love the most that gets the hole.”

Standing over a sewing machine, Maurice, a former fashion executive, revived piles of shirts and pants that would have become garbage. She sewed cloth patches on the inside to stabilize giant holes, before creating a web of stitching on the outside.

“In terms of solid waste, we basically throw away most of what we buy within a year of its original purchase. So, knowing that and being a designer, it got hard to be a designer,” said Maurice, who lives on the Upper West Side with her husband and children. “I’m trying to do a different kind of designing, which is designing a solution.”

“Extend the Life-Cycle”

The women hung samples of potential art-messaging around the room. “Fashion now is a system that makes things for consumers to throw away,” read one poster, a photo of scavengers on a landfill. Another showed two well-dressed women in winter coats, and a recent claim, “80 pounds: the amount of shoes and clothing the average Western consumer discards per year.”

Caroline Zhang hovered over a growing group of novices and veterans, demonstrating various hand-stitching techniques for mending tears, closing holes and reinforcing frayed seams.

“We buy things and just give them away, so I think it is important for us, not to make a new life, but to extend the life-cycle of all the stuff we’ve bought,” said Zhang, who studied sociology in China before interning at several fashion magazines.

“I can’t find it!” said Mary Beth Lumley, marveling at a once-visible hole in her favorite cardigan. “It’s a nice sweater, and I haven’t had the heart to throw it away or recycle it. I didn’t want to give it to Good Will or Salvation Army because there was a hole in it.”

A Social Experience

Others chose “visible mending,” a technique that uses decorative fabrics and elaborate stitching to show off repairs. Some say renewed interest in this technique is a deliberate rejection of cheap, disposable “fast-fashion,” along with a move toward owning fewer things and living in smaller spaces.

In no time, veterans were helping beginners, and novices were sharing their newfound skills with each other. The social nature of the pop-up surprised several people who grew up mending their belongings at home, often out of necessity.

“This is just great, to get together with other people out to repair things, plus to raise my consciousness about the clothing industry, which I never thought about,” said Amy Stone, an Upper West Sider who learned the skill as a Girl Scout.

“We want to create community where people can connect with each other by doing things with [their] hands, together,” said Zhang. “Not that we persuade people to say ‘you should not buy things.’ It’s impossible. But by making people get together, we … make things happen.”

Financial Opportunity

There’s much to be done right here. The average New Yorker tosses out 46 pounds of clothing and other textiles, or nearly 200,000 tons annually, according the City’s Department of Sanitation (DSNY). This fiscal year, DSNY budgeted more than $412 million to export its garbage to landfills as far away as South Carolina. In 2016, it launched “donateNYC, ” an initiative to prevent reusable electronics, furniture and other items from entering the waste stream. Last year the program diverted more than 11,500 tons of textiles and clothing from landfills.

There’s also a growing financial opportunity in salvaging garments. The sanitation department’s “NYC Reuse Sector Report 2019” found 432 retailers and community organizations engaged in the reuse, recycling or resale of clothing, up from 375 in 2017. Recent surveys suggest more shoppers consider resale value when buying clothes, and big corporations are, at least, talking about “sustainable” production processes.

Zhang and Maurice say solutions will be difficult because the problems are so complex. The thesis of their graduate study remains a work in progress. But they were thrilled with the turnout at the Mending Lab. More than 30 people dropped in for a chance to learn – or remember – how to mend their garments using needles, thread and patches of recycled fabric. So many people took part – and wanted to stay so long – that the three-hour event went on for five hours.

For more information on NYC Sanitation Department’s reuse and recycling programs, visit:

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/services/donate-goods

“I’m trying to do a different kind of designing, which is designing a solution.” Graduate student Tara Maurice

Also published online and in print editions of Chelsea News, Our Town-East Sider, and Our Town-Downtown.

A food pantry on wheels

BY LESLIE GERSING

PUBLISHED MAY 22, 2018 AT 12:11 PM (UPDATED MAY 22, 2018)

The West Side Campaign Against Hunger offers healthy food to low-income residents in a new outreach project

Lincoln Square neighbors try out WSCAH’s new mobile pantry.  Photo: Leslie Gersing

The nation’s oldest supermarket-style food pantry is going mobile. A new mini-mart on wheels will offer low-income residents fresh, healthy food in Northern Manhattan and Bronx communities at the greatest risk of hunger.

The Mobile Food Pantry is the latest outreach project of the 39-year-old West Side Campaign Against Hunger. WSCAH staff, local elected officials and social service providers formally launched the customized refrigerated van on Tuesday, May 15 at Goddard Riverside at Lincoln Square Neighborhood Center on West 65th Street. Volunteers helped eligible neighbors select fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy, grains and canned proteins.

There’s already a waiting list.

“It’s allowing people to do exactly what every citizen in America does these days: getting food delivered,” said Greg Silverman, WSCAH’s executive director. “We want to make sure people have the same dignity as everyone else in the community, so we want to bring healthy, affordable, flavorful food to people, where they live, learn and play.”

WSCAH Executive Director Greg Silverman thanks Upper West Siders and community and government agencies for the 4-year drive to get the mobile pantry on the road. Photo: Leslie Gersing

WSCAH operates a food pantry and social service hub from the basement of The Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew on West 86th Street. Last year, it distributed nearly 1.5 million pounds of food to clients, including working families with children and undocumented immigrants. Clients must prove need for assistance, live in New York City, and have a place to prepare and cook food. They shop the grocery aisles, stocked with produce, meats and other nutritious staples. They also volunteer, get job training, and even sit on the board. Many travel from as far away as Northern Manhattan and the Bronx. But growing numbers of seniors — and others with mobility issues — have trouble making the trip. WSCAH dreamed of bringing the pantry to the people.

Council Member Helen Rosenthal recalls how the community joined forces with WSCAH four years ago, to make it happen. “I remember saying to some of my friends at West Side Campaign Against Hunger, is there some way we could get out into other districts? That would let other people know.” Supporters advocated for the project and shepherded it through a rigorous budget process. During the 2014-2015 round of Participatory Budgeting, Rosenthal’s Council District 6 voted to provide $250,000 to build a mobile pantry.

Council Members Helen Rosenthal and Mark Levine check out WSCAH’s new mobile pantry, which serves clients at Levine’s office in Harlem.  Photo: Leslie Gersing

Test-runs started last October, with staff in a rental van distributing over 150,000 pounds of food to more than 3,000 households. Now, the official mobile truck hits the road four days a week, serving clients at 17 partner organizations. That includes students and young adults taking classes at the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corp. in Washington Heights. “Sometimes people have to make choices between continuing to study with the goal of promoting their careers or continuing to work in more dead end jobs,” said NIMC’s Sara Chapman. “If they’re able to not have make that decision, because they have food on the table, that means they can stay in the program.”

The Food Bank for New York City says more than 1.3 million New York City residents, or 14.9 percent, are food insecure — meaning they lack reliable access to sufficient amounts of affordable, nutritious food. That includes nearly 1 in 5 children. While the improved economy has reduced demand for food assistance, it says, those still getting help are falling farther behind.

WSCAH’s mobile pantry delivers fresh food and high-quality staples to some of NYC’s most  under-served communities.  Photo: Leslie Gersing

New York City Director of Food Policy Barbara Turk called WSCAH a “superstar” for expanding beyond the Upper West Side. “This pantry is going to allow WSCAH to bring food to neighborhoods that are severely underserved and under-supplied,” she said.

Back at Lincoln Square, area resident Celso Ruiz filled his basket with groceries. Speaking in Spanish, he called the mobile pantry a “wonderful” idea “because it helps poor people.”