Plan: Profs to pay more of health bills

Faculty may have to pay more of their health bills if recommendations in a report submitted to the provost are adopted. Currently, the University pays 100 percent of health costs incurred by faculty members. The issue of how much faculty pay, commonly known as a co-payment, led professors to strike at Temple University last year, and faculty leaders said this week that the issue could be devisive at the University. "I expect there will be a lot of flack," said Finance Professor Morris Mendelson, a member of the provost's Task Force on Retirement which completed the report this summer. "A lot of people are going to object. It's going to be a divided faculty." The report, which was issued to the provost July 29, states that "health care, life insurance and dental care premium payments should be changed to incorporate a gentle step-wise escalation of faculty contributions." The recommendation comes from committee concerns that health care costs are increasing while the faculty pool ages, leading to hardships in meeting health care costs unless "some adjustments are made." According to the report's introduction, the task force was designed to examine problems created by a 1986 federal law which bans mandatory retirement ages. Despite a postponement for faculty at educational institutions, the University must drop its mandatory retirement age of 70 by 1994. The report also calls for an unspecified reduction in the amount of money the University contributes to faculty pensions. Currently, the University contributes nine percent of faculty salaries towards pension accounts. Hemetology Professor Peter Cassileth, chairperson of the committee, said yesterday that the president, provost and Faculty Senate Executive Committee have reviewed the report. Neither the president nor the provost was available for comment. Cassileth said the task force recommended that the University look into reducing costs for pensions because "retirement costs are becoming extraordinary." And Mendelson said he does not expect that section of the report to be a problem with faculty because it could not apply retroactively. The report determined that even if retirement age were "uncapped," fewer than 20 to 25 percent of the faculty will remain on staff past age 70. According to the task force's study, the additional faculty will result in a $535,000 increase in salaries. However, the task force's model did not include inflation adjustments or faculty benefits costs. The report also cites a study done by the Administrative Working Group and by committee member Susan Shaman, who is also director of Research and Planning Analysis, which estimates the costs of uncapped retirement totaling between $1 and $2 million. Shaman's report states that the effects of retirement uncapping will not be harmful to the tenure system, "except for a few schools, departments or graduate groups."

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