The University will be reimbursed $38,276 from Lane Transit District to make up for the week-long driver strike that halted bus service across the county and the one week of free bus service that followed. The money will be deducted from the amount the University has to pay for spring term service.
Student money finances the free bus
service University students receive from LTD. Andy Vobora, LTD service planning and marketing manager, said the district felt it was necessary to compensate students for the strike and give them the same week of free service given to everyone else in
the county.
“We feel like it’s the appropriate thing to do based on past relationships,” Vobora said, stressing the need to preserve the positive, working relationship that exists between LTD and the University.
Because the money will be deducted from this term’s billing cycle, it will likely end up in the ASUO Student Senate surplus, ASUO Community and Housing Coordinator Scott Lu said.
The surplus is in place to meet the unexpected needs of programs funded by incidental fees, “as well as other minor emergencies,” according to the ASUO rule book, the Green Tape Notebook.
Lu said he will be meeting with ASUO President Adam Petkun and ASUO Vice President Mena Ravassipour today to hammer out the details of the reimbursement process.
“I’m not sure if there’s a way to get it back to students this year, but we’re going to try to find out,” Petkun said.
Vobora said he arrived at the $38,276 figure by taking the quarterly amount for the service contract with the University, dividing it by the number of weekdays in the quarter and multiplying that number by 14, the number of days payment for bus service is to be
reimbursed.
Had the total number of days in the quarter been used rather than the total number of weekdays, the amount
refunded through the spring term contract credit would be $27,218.
Vobora said he chose to use the number of weekdays in the quarter rather than the total number of days because it gives the University a more generous reimbursement amount and preserves positive relations in
the community.
“I just thought it was fair; some people may not,” Vobora said. “I think it’s a reasonable way to do it and we’re doing it consistently.”
Vobora said the LTD Board of Directors had no say in which reimbursement method to use because “we didn’t feel like we needed to go to the board to do this.”
LTD is going through a similar process of reimbursement for businesses in Lane County that pay for bus service, Vobora said.
Vobora said refunding student money to the University is a simpler process than refunding money to businesses because bills for those businesses are based on the actual number of employees who use the service for that billing cycle, something that cannot be determined until the end of the quarter.
“Every other group, you don’t know what the total cost is for the year,” Vobora said. “For them we’re using last quarter’s employee count to determine what the amount would be for the quarter.”

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