Management sent me to an all-day training about 20 miles west of our facility. They paid me for my time attending the training, but I think they shorted me on my mileage. Instead of paying me from my house to the training and back to my house, which is what I drove, they reimbursed me for the 20 miles to and from our facility. In other words, they paid me for 40 miles, but I drove closer to 80 miles. There’s no contract language on this, but there is a policy that says they must reimburse at the IRS rate and that “the most economical mode and class of transportation reasonably consistent with scheduling needs and cargo space must be used, using the most direct and time-efficient route.” Others have told me they’ve been reimbursed from their home and back. Do I have a grievance?
If the contract is silent on the issue, and you have a well-established past practice of paying mileage to employees in a similar circumstance from home to the training, then you may have a grievance. The past practice must have been consistently applied and you will have to be able to provide the specific examples of when another staff was paid to travel from home when that payment was greater than it would’ve been if they’d gone to the training site from the workplace. Professional staff can help draft and present the grievance.
It is common for Agencies to pay the mileage between where you usually report to work and the location of the training session. The distance from your home to work is considered your daily commute and ordinarily is not calculated. The Agency will say they can’t consider where everyone lives and should not have to pay for that difference.