CTA and Transportation Accounts

November 2007 issue

Human Resources recently sent out an e-mail indicating that due to the university break any change to transportation accounts for February 2008 must be made by December 12th. However, this comes at a time when there is a great deal of uncertainty with regard to transportation costs for both CTA and Metra customers. Metra estimates a change of 8% to 10% in early 2008. It is not possible for consumers to estimate/guess when or what the change will be. What will Payflex do if they have collected $82.35 for my ticket, only to have Metra announce in early January that the February ticket will cost 10% more. Since they can't buy a portion of a ticket will they return the money, send a transit check???? If I estimate on the high end 10% and it is only 8% what will become of the balance? Can someone please check on this and let the university community know. If the actions are going to be financially punitive it would be good to know in time to avoid problems by not purchasing transportation pre-tax. Thank you.

Response

Source: Gary Miller
Title: AVP-Benefits and Staff Compensation
Unit/Department: Human Resources
Extension: 2-8501
Email: gmille11@depaul.edu

Response: The threat of a rate increase has been going on for sometime now. The CTA did not go through with the fare hike as they proposed in November If there is a fair increase to the cost of any passes, the increase amount will show as a debit on the member's account the next ordering month and will be added to the order. Note that previous indications from the CTA suggested they would honor monthly passes purchased at the old rate -- mostly because previously announced rate increases were scheduled to happen after the beginning of benefit month. This means DePaul employees would be fine for the month the rate increase would become effective, however, because they are ordering two months in advance a retroactive charge would have to be made at some point. CTA's policy of honoring monthly passes purchased at old rate was announced multiple times in local media. METRA, however, has never suggested a similar policy because they haven't considered increasing their rates until now -- in spite of all the rumors that started to circulate since last summer -- and thus employees ordering METRA passes could potentially incur in two retroactive charges.