"This looks like a process that a small group of top-level, highly-paid administrators are trying to control very tightly," said Bill Jaeger, director of the 3,600-member Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers.
Jaeger said he was concerned that the process of finding a solution to the financial crisis is not as inclusive as it ought to be, despite the task force's establishment of various advisor groups.
These groups are supposed to provide vehicles for faculty and union members to offer input to the task force. But Jaeger said these groups are more useful in theory than in practice.
"These are supposed to be advisory groups--but no one even knows who's on them," he said.
"I understand that the burden of increasing costs on the University community is very real," Jaeger said. "But these are not fringe benefits."
"Members of the Harvard community depend heavily on these benefits," he added. "For many Harvard families these benefits are tools for survival."
Jaeger said he would like to see a more inclusive process evolve, and postulated that a careful review must incorporate "real, deep participation from all the important constituencies, not the secondary participation that we're being offered now."
In fact, Jaeger charged that the present construction of the task force is "so confused that it might not be able to produce anything at all."
FAS Budget
All this appears to stand in contrast with Knowles' Faculty of Arts and Sciences budget report, which depicts as promising immediate future.
It is not Knowles' broad statements but in the budget report's numerical details that a picture of the rising payroll benefits and resulting financial disaster emerges.
According to the report (see table, this page), personnel expenditures accounted for 38 percent of total FAS spending in 1993, while employee salaries constituted only 31 percent of spending.
That seven percent gap between personnel salaries and total outlays amounted to $19.3 million. Knowles addressed this situation at the conclusion of his budget letter.
"At the start of this letter I mentioned that there are some thunderclouds in sight," he wrote. "[But] unlike most thunderstorms, we can do more about our problems than merely put up our personal umbrellas and wait for the institutional rain to stop."
Knowles said he was concerned by the fact that fringe benefits are often equal to 25 percent of an employee's salary. The dean said that for each percentage point that the fringe benefit increases, the cost to the FAS is $1.4 million.
"Much work remains to be done," Knowles acknowledged, "but it is clear that the FAS could not sustain large increases in fringe benefit rates."
"All solutions will surely involve some moderation in the benefits that we presently expect," Knowles wrote, "but we must work to minimize the inevitable sacrifices and to distribute them equitably."