When Mariela Perez became an itinerant speech therapist in September 2022, her supervisor explained that she would need to submit for payment for parking and gas costs using a Travel Reimbursement Approval Certification (TRAC) form since her job required her to travel from school to school.

“I thought I was doing it correctly,” said Perez. Her supervisor was approving the forms, after all. But by April, she said, “the rejections started to trickle in.”

What appeared routine became a time-consuming and onerous task with unreasonable and inscrutable rules. In one set of rejections, she recalled, the DOE said the dozens of scanned parking stubs she submitted had to be combined into one PDF and sent again.

“That first year, I thought it was just me doing it wrong,” said Perez — until she realized all her colleagues were facing similar problems.

Itinerant related service providers describe waiting months — and sometimes years — for reimbursement for travel expenses.

In the past year alone, UFT members have filed 127 grievances about late reimbursements. Each time, the DOE concedes and agrees to pay up.

Fed up with the DOE’s excuses, itinerant members decided to go public with their frustrations. UFT President Michael Mulgrew, UFT Speech Improvement Chapter Leader Caroline Murphy, UFT Occupational and Physical Therapists Chapter Leader Thomas Ayrovainen and others gathered for a press conference on the steps of City Hall on April 23 to call on the DOE to fix its broken system.

“Why should you have to go through a lengthy grievance process when the DOE should simply pay you promptly after you submit for reimbursement?” said Mulgrew. “It is disrespectful and unacceptable for the DOE to treat its employees this way.”

Later that day, members of the OT/PT Chapter and Speech Improvement Chapter protested at the citywide Panel for Educational Policy meeting. Then, more than 2,600 members sent emails to the DOE administrators in charge of these programs to tell them to “do your job.”

Occupational and physical therapists are waiting not only for travel reimbursements, but also for tuition reimbursement for coursework they need to maintain their licenses. Their DOE-UFT contract says therapists are entitled to $1,864 each school year for this coursework.

“Where does that money go?” asked Nadine Morsi, an itinerant occupational therapist who is still owed $399 for a course she took in April 2024.

Morsi has held off taking another course until she is paid for the first one. “It’s a deterrent,” she said.

“It’s not right,” said Erica Wiesel, another itinerant occupational therapist. “I’m owed money according to my contract.”

Ayrovainen accused the DOE of “strategic incompetence.”

“If they can make the process impossible and bog the system down with paperwork,” he said, “employees will give up trying to get reimbursed because they don’t have time.”

Whatever the root cause, itinerant related service providers say it’s fundamentally a matter of respect.

“We’re going to different locations to service these vulnerable kids, and we’re happy to do it,” said Morsi. “In return, we just want to be respected, to be provided with our basic contractual rights.”