University of Manitoba to reimburse students after Transit says it won't honour fall semester passes

The University of Manitoba plans to reimburse students who have to pay out of pocket for bus passes after Winnipeg Transit told students they wouldn't honour fall U-Passes into January.  

"For us it became obvious that to the students pay for extra busing costs for circumstances beyond their control just didn't sit well with us," said John Kearsey, vice-president external at the U of M.

The University of Manitoba Students' Union says Transit told them on Friday the fall U-Passes would not extend into the new year, after a three-week faculty strike in November pushed the end of semester back to Jan. 17.

The U-Pass is issued to full-time students for each semester and is included in their tuition. The fall pass runs from September to the end of December, and returning students are issued a new U-Pass in January.

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Students who were not returning for the second semester were told they would have to pay out of pocket for bus passes in order to finish the term.

UMSU thought the expiry was unfair because the strike was out of students' control and there has already been a lot of stress created by the extended semester.

Kearsey said the U-Pass expiry affects about 2,200 students and could cost the university up to $160,000 but said it seemed like the right thing to do.

He said reimbursement would be assessed on a case-by-case basis and they will work with UMSU and the registrar's office to figure out how to connect with affected students.

​UMSU president Tanjit Nagra said it's a step in the right direction after the strike caused a lot of stress on the student population.

"It's a really nice thing for the university to do and it will help a lot of students," she said.

Cost of U-Pass program coming out of students' pockets

The expiring U-Pass was just another blow to students. Earlier this month, UMSU claims Winnipeg Transit withdrew their support for a grant application that would have helped them recover the costs of implementing the U-Pass bus pass program.

"It's a little bit frustrating because one of our main sticking points in the entire negotiations was that we needed to have some type of mechanism in place that would allow UMSU to recover some of the massive costs we've incurred because of this product," said Adam Pawlak, vice-president internal at UMSU.

The U-Pass program was passed by student referendum in 2014, but took two years to implement because of the technology required to run the program and the costs that would be incurred.

The students' union said it's already paid $43,000 in operational costs, and expects those costs to go as high as $60,000.

During negotiations this past summer, UMSU said they asked Transit for one percent of sales of the U-Passes to help pay for the program. Instead, they say, Transit offered them a chance to apply for a grant with the city — then removed the application from the budget before it even went to city council. 

"UMSU always recognized the political scrutiny that could come of this grant at the committee level, but Transit didn't even support us that far," said Pawlak.

'It's a lot of money'

UMSU appealed to the city's executive policy committee on Dec. 8 to have the grant reconsidered. UMSU asked for $27,000, which works out to less than half a percent return on sales, far less than the one percent they used to get for Transit pass sales before U-Pass was implemented.

Pawlak said their appeal to EPC was denied.

The U-Pass creates $5 million in guaranteed income for Transit each year.

"It's a lot of money that they're getting and we're getting nothing out of," said Pawlak.

But the city says the $5 million is roughly equivalent to the fare revenue previously generated from the sale of post-secondary transit passes and other fare products at the university.

They say the program means more students are riding buses and therefore there is a greater need for services, which has resulted in a net loss of $1.6 million.

The city says it has reached out to the University of Manitoba Students' Union in an effort to find a resolution to this matter.

Pawluk hopes they can resolve the issue so that cuts won't have to be made to student services in order to recoup the costs.

"We have to take that money from somewhere, somebody has to pay and that's going to end up being students," said Pawlak.