As a new teacher, the chances are pretty good that you are shuttling between home, work and graduate school. Here is a way to help defray your transportation costs. If you use public transportation you can take advantage of the Transit Benefit Program. Using this program you can save over $250 a year in taxes.

Premium TransitChek Metro Card (hereafter referred to as Premium Card) is a special type of Metro Card available to New York City employees. The Premium Card is good for unlimited rides on local buses and subways 24 hours a day, every day for a continuous 12-month period.

Once you enroll, the card is purchased through payroll deductions. These deductions are made BEFORE TAXES. This means that you won't pay Federal, State, City, Social Security or Medicare taxes on the money used to pay for the card. The card costs $70 per month. That translates to $32.32 being deducted from your bi-weekly paycheck.

If your card is lost, stolen or undelivered, the City will replace it; however you will need to complete and submit a Certification form. You can get this form from the Department Of Education Transit Benefit Coordinators (718) 935-3545, via fax from the Office of Payroll Administration (OPA) Service Line (212) 669-8555, or you can download it from the OPA website:

http://home.nyc.gov/html/opa/html/taxbreaks-transit.html.

Damaged cards will also be replaced; however the damaged card needs to accompany the Certification form.

Your payroll secretary should have the enrollment form you need to start saving.