The result is a $52 million cumulative deficit, administrators say.

Currently the benefits pool is about $150 million. Health, pension and Social Security costs absorb about 90 percent of these funds.

More than $40 million is spent each year to insure some 13,000 employees covered by Harvard's seven health plans.

The University's benefits program had not been comprehensively overhauled since 1973, when the University, prompted by changes in national Social Security legislation, announced changes to its retirement plans.

"The benefits programs were a hodge-podge," says Hale Champion, the University's first vice president for finance, who led the review. "They'd been put together by the treasurer who was a member of the Corporation and not an employee of Harvard."

The review was conducted by a subcommittee of the now-defunct University Benefits Committee. Both committees involved a mix of faculty and administrators.

In October 1993, Rudenstine established the most recent task force, made up exclusively of University administrators and originally chaired by Green.

Deans appointed faculty members and exempt staff to form "advisory groups," which gave their input to the task force during an information gathering stage from November 1993 to January 1994.

The task force was originally scheduled to released its findings in May. But the group did not make its preliminary recommendations until June and its final recommendations until August.

The Final Report of the Task Force on Benefits was published early this month, six months after the scheduled release date.

HUCTW vs. Jerry Green

The task force's work may have been delayed by the sudden departure of Green, who left the task force in April when he announced that he would be stepping down as provost.

Leaders of HUCTW faced off against Green last fall, announcing their refusal to serve in an advisory role to the task force and demanding full participation in the review.

The changes will not affect members of unions, except the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Hotel Restaurant Institutional Employees Union (Local 26), which have recently accepted contract extensions. But all the unions have been approached by administrators seeking to implement the changes, union leaders say.

"I think they knew at some point early in the process that they would next propose this to the unions," says HUCTW President Donene Williams.