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Nick Piato pays almost $1,000 a year to park where he works – Syracuse University.

Several university employees said they experience financial strain from the parking fee system SU has in place. Piato said SU’s parking lot rate system disproportionately impacts lower-wage employees, creating a disparity between the amount they make and what they spend to park on campus.

United Syracuse — a coalition of unionized university employees — is pushing for change to SU’s parking fee system. The group has collected petition signatures and pushed for meetings with university administrators to address the discrepancies.

Parking rates for SU employees are set according to a 14-tier system based on salary, with each tier encompassing a roughly-$5,000 range. This structure results in employees at the lower end of each salary tier paying a larger percentage of their total income than those who make higher salaries within the same tier.

“I tell people who work outside the university that I pay to park, and they’re amazed that I pay it at all,” Piato, who is the program coordinator for the Studying an Environment that Nurtures Self-Exploration in Students lab, said. “And then the fact that it’s such a high amount is really shocking to people.”

SU employees’ parking lot fees are set on a fixed rate within each salary tier. For example, an employee earning $25,000 would pay the same $350 fee as someone making $29,999. At a salary of $150,000 or above, the parking rate caps at $1,525, meaning an employee earning $150,000 pays the same as one earning $300,000.

United Syracuse members say SU’s parking fees have increased steadily since 2012.

In a statement sent to The Daily Orange Wednesday, a university spokesperson said the tier system ensures equitable parking based on position title, available space, work location and years of service, regardless of salary.

The parking revenue funds support SU facilities’ infrastructure, sustainability goals of reducing traffic congestion and efforts to reduce the overall amount of vehicles on campus, the spokesperson wrote.

“University employees are not charged a fee to come to work. Employees who elect to park on university property are required to pay a parking permit fee, which is common practice for employers with limited parking inventory, including Crouse and Upstate Hospitals and the City of Syracuse,” the spokesperson wrote.

Other universities — including SUNY Oswego, SUNY Upstate Medical University and Cornell University — offer employee parking at a fixed rate. Oswego employees do not pay more than $120 annually for parking. Employees at SUNY ESF do not pay parking fees at all.

“For a university that is constantly preaching equity, this is the furthest thing from equity,” Piato said. “They want to talk about equity all the time until it comes to the budget, right?”

Lars Jendruschewitz | Photo Editor

For SU employees on the lower range of a parking rate salary tier, the fee takes a larger percentage of their pay.

Margaret Butler, an interim operations specialist at SU, said United Syracuse began collecting petition signatures in Sept. 2023 to show Chancellor Kent Syverud the number of employees who feel the current parking fee system is unfair.

The petition resulted in a meeting between United Syracuse members and administrators, including Pete Sala, SU’s vice president and chief campus facilities officer, and Joseph Carfi, director of transportation services.

Piato said during this meeting, Sala told the union that Syverud views parking “not as a necessity, but as a service.”

“We live in Syracuse. It’s not like we’re in New York (City). Unless you live in Westcott, how are you going to get into the university, especially in the winter? It snows buckets here,” Piato said. “To me, that was very telling.”

Sala and Carfi agreed to build shelters above shuttle stops for employees who park at the Raynor Avenue Lot on West Campus, which Piato said have not yet been completed.

Butler said the union gave a presentation to USen that outlined the disparities in parking rates and showed the percentages of their own salaries that go to parking.

“We just wanted somebody to look at it and say, ‘Yes, there has to be a better way.’ So that’s why we did the research, to see how other people were doing it, to see if there was something that was a little bit fair, that maybe we could emulate,” Butler said.

The parking fees also impact employees’ raises – even negating raise amounts, Butler said. She said staff typically receive a 2% raise every year. If an employee making $59,999 gets a 2% raise, their salary increases to $60,399. Their parking fee then jumps from $750 to $900, as they move into the next salary tier, according to SU’s Employee Lot Criteria Information page.

Matthew Moon, a carpenter at SU, said maintenance workers like himself have to pay extra to park in campus garages because of the equipment they carry, which comes at a higher fee because of garages’ proximity to campus. He said maintenance workers’ early morning work hours also force them to use the garages because they’re the safest choice.

Parking garage permit rates cost employees $200 more than outdoor parking rates, according to SU Parking and Transportation Services.

“Being in facilities, I have to service these buildings and have a parking pass that gets me everywhere on campus, but we’re still limited with a proximity to certain buildings and where we can actually park,” Moon said. “We have to haul our materials and tools to and from locations. The parking and access on campus is dwindling.”

Piato said employees, including himself, have asked for fee waivers in extenuating circumstances and been denied. In the union’s presentation, which The D.O. obtained, union members shared anonymous testimonies describing their claims of financial strain as SU employees.

“One faculty (member) had appendicitis and had serious trouble walking to campus from her home and requested, if a 2-week pass was possible, to accommodate her health issue. This request was denied,” the United Syracuse presentation claimed.

Moving forward, the union’s hope is to hold consistent meetings with the university to continue expressing their concerns and revise the parking fee system, Piato said.

While students might not be aware of employee parking fees, Piato said it impacts the student experience in ways they may not even notice, like professors arriving late to class because they park far from campus.

Moon said the parking fee is just another bill employees incur from working at the university, like health insurance payments.

“It’s a constant question in employee’s minds. At the end of the day, is it worth working here? Especially for new employees, they really have to take a look,” Moon said. “When you get hired on, you don’t expect to be handed a bill at the same time.”

Published on November 14, 2024 at 3:09 am

Contact Delia: dsrangel@syr.edu