For Margarida Amaral, an Eliot House dining hall worker, house payments, $400 a month in grocery bills and a son she hopes to send to college next year don't leave a lot of extra money left over from her $1600 monthly salary.

Like all full-time dining hall workers, Amaral earns a total of $15,845 a year. But out of that paycheck comes monthly deductions for health care premiums.

Both Amaral's husband and her 18-year-old son are also insured through Harvard on her Bay State plan, at a total cost of $109 a month.

"My check stays over here [at Harvard]," Amaral says. "It's not enough."

And compared to many staff members around the University, faced with dramatically increased health care premiums and $10 co-payments, Amaral is getting off easy.

A University task force, exclusively made up of 10 top-level administrators, spent most of the last year evaluating Harvard's benefits program for faculty and staff in an effort to cut costs and eliminate a reported $10 million structural deficit.

The myriad of changes resulting from their report, which was released earlier this month, will be phased in over the academic year, administrators say.

The report has not been greeted with enthusiasm by the Harvard community. Those affected by the changes say they fear increased costs and criticize the specifics of the new benefits structure.

In fact, the benefits review process has been somewhat controversial almost since it started. The all administrator makeup of the task force was a point of contention among Harvard's staff from the beginning.

Union leaders say they were deliberately excluded from the task force, although the administration intended to allow them to participate in an advisory committee.

And now that the changes have finally been officially announced, Harvard's staff community seems unsure, and somewhat nervous, regarding the long-term effects of the report.

Health Insurance

Since 1989, Harvard has paid 85 percent of all health care plans for all employees.

But as of January, Harvard's contribution will be a percentage of the lowest cost plan and will be tied to income and full-or part-time status.

The University will continue to contribute 85 percent only for full-time employees making less than $45,000. Contributions will be 80 percent for those earning between $45,000 and $70,000, and 75 percent for those making more than $70,000.