(This is made on a throwaway acc)
Hello everyone, as part of the interview process, I recently went on a campus visit (interview) end February. I kept my receipts, and submitted them promptly. Since that time, I’ve reached out to them multiple times to get my expenses for that trip refunded back to me, and it’s been like drawing blood from a well. Their last update was “it should be a few more days”, but that was now 2 weeks ago. I sent another follow up a few days ago, to no reply. Given that the timeline now is approaching 3 months – I suppose my question is: 1) is it common (or even possible?) to just… not get reimbursed in these situations? 2) has anyone experienced anything similar, or have advice on how long reimbursement normally takes or what next steps I should consider?
If geography matters, it’s a North American context.
Comments
It can take months at some schools!
I just got one… it took 1 month.
Sometimes campus visits aren’t reimbursed but if so they should have been very upfront about that. 3 months is pushing it for reimbursement but isn’t unheard of. I think one of our postdocs didn’t get reimbursed for almost 6 months after his campus interview… Some department admin are just so slow, it’s really aggravating. Keep poking them every couple weeks.
Have you called someone? People feel more shame over voice
Unfortunately, campus reimbursements can sometimes take a very long time. Who have you spoken to about it? The search chair? Or the administrative assistant processing the reimbursement?
If you are applying for a faculty position, it is 100% normal for you to get reimbursed. A month or so is not an uncommon delay. Three months is nuts. If I were you, I would escalate to the department Chair, and, if that doesn’t work, the Dean. It’s time for them to light a fire under someone’s ass.
We take two weeks typically: one week to process the requests/get signatures/forward receipts, and another week for the business office to cut a check (which they only do on Fridays). As search chair I feel it’s my responsibility to make sure people get reimbursed. Reach out to that chair if it’s been this long, that’s really pretty crazy IMO.
If no response from the chair, then contact the dean. Someone should be on this, even if it was delayed for some reason or they held it (???) until the search was completed. Three months is inexcusable.
It’s not unheard of for institutional bureaucracy to make the reimbursement process complicated or lengthy, but I’ve not experienced or heard of simply never being reimbursed.
If it’s not been stated that you wouldn’t be reimbursed, I would not just drop it. I would follow up, perhaps with a phone call and then an email after the phone call confirming what was said in writing. Someone might have dropped the ball or there’s some kind of hiccup with their business dept, and instead of communicating it plainly, they’re stalling and being unprofessional. Not your problem though, you need your money back, and I’d follow up until you have it.
Ask the search chair.
I’ve had something similar happen, at an institution where I was ultimately hired, and it still took ~3 months. The delay was mostly due to an HR staffer not doing their job. I had to keep pressing them as a newly hired employee.
This is actually a good sign. If they don’t reimburse you that means they are expecting to deduct that money from your first paycheck once you get hired! LOL just kidding yeah some schools are simply terrible at everything including admin stuff so just keep pushing and cc the chair or dean to get things expedited..
I actually had to reject a campus visit and withdraw myself from consideration because I was unable to afford to front the cost of a campus visit. They promised they would reimburse me, but that it would be “taxable income.” I had to choose between rent and a plane ticket, and if they delayed paying, I would not have been able to pay rent… Getting the money back would have made it taxable, which is ridiculous, because the money had already been taxed before I essentially loaned it to the school.
Same for my visit in February. I escalated to the department chair but still no word or update or check. I had two other campus visits in January and March, both reimbursed within two weeks. I’m about ready to let this February visit go, since it was only for my travel to/from my home airport. But it’s not fair!!
It’s not totally unusual for reimbursements to take long, but this is criminal. My guess is that something is amiss. Just keep at it. Don’t pester them constantly but email every once in a while and ask for an update. Sorry this is happening to you it’s fckd
Some places are incredibly slow in setting up a new vendor (you). The same thing will happen to invited speakers, etc.
Academia Rule #1 – Everything takes at least 2-3x longer than you are told it will and 4-5x longer than it actually should.
When I’m on search committees and people (very reasonably) ask me the timeline for a decision, I’m only half joking when I tell them sometime between tomorrow and a year from now…
It is VERY unlikely they are actually trying to dodge travel reimbursement unless this is a “strip mall college”. It’s a rounding error in the budget and will unquestionably piss people off. More likely it is dependant on some purchasing manager approval who won’t sign off because the department only submitted the form in duplicate and not triplicate, but also won’t tell anyone they won’t sign off and are just ignoring it….
Dept admin are struggling right now. Most are under hiring freezes so it might be one person doing everything for the department, or somebody who normally doesn’t do these things having to deal with it.
One of the UCs took 3 months to reimburse me I called them every week like clockwork and they finally did it
You’ll get reimbursed eventually. But, do you want to work in a department that can’t reimburse you before the credit bills are due? It’s another sign of inefficiency that you’ll face with everything. (I’ve worked at efficient and inefficient universities and inefficient is usually a sign of too many levels of approval for minor things.
It happens
This is normal. I’ve had it take 5-6 months after campus visits, involving me making multiple phone calls, CCing the entire search committee, and dropping by administrator’s offices.
Three months is way too long, but it’s not absurd. Someone fucked up, or a staff member switched jobs, or there was some kind of funding freeze. It will come through eventually. Sorry your broke postdoc ass has to deal with this.
Normally if they don’t reimburse they tell you ahead of time. It’s rather entitled if they don’t, but they need to be upfront. I just had a zoom interview for a CC where I gave the teaching demo on zoom. That’s the polite way to do it when funds are limited.
There are probably a number of channels they have to go through for reimbursement and if anyone in the process is a new hire or slow, that makes it take longer.
When I ran hires, we normally made all the travel and lodging arrangements for the visit so that the candidate would have little or no reimbursements required. If I didn’t reimburse a candidate for any leftover expenses in 3 months, I would be mortified. This is a red…no, black…flag for hiring. If an institution cares this little about you when trying to attract you, how will they treat you as an employee?
A lot of people are blaming the admin or saying there is an eff up. I can’t speak for everywhere, but at my institution, an external reimbursement requires submission into the system + three levels of approval for payment– that’s four people that need to touch it before the check is cut. Approving/processing reimbursements is not the only thing these people have to do in a day.
Currently at my institution, these three levels of approval are required for ALL reimbursements (including faculty conference travel) bc of travel restrictions related to federal funding cuts. You can imagine how much this increases the workload for these three people and the person that submitted the reimbursement and now needs to track additional approvals, and how that would slow the process down even further.
OP, sorry you’re in this situation. It’s okay to check in with the admin just to make sure it doesn’t fall off their radar (seriously, do keep checking in periodically), but please don’t hold it against them bc it’s largely out of their control how fast it is processed. Just know the delay is not any kind of indication that you won’t be reimbursed.