*Harvard will lower its annual contribution to the faculty pension plan by one percentage point.

*Future retirees will be responsible for a share of their medical premiums.

*Delta Dental will take over from Prudential as the University's dental care benefits provider.

In July, Corvey described the finished product as "fair." But she also admitted that the changes would be roughest on part-time employees. "The fact that the University's contributions will be pro-rated is going to be very difficult for them," she said.

Corvey said then that feedback received through a special hotline and informational meetings had been fairly positive. But members of HUCTW publicly criticized the plan, despite the fact that their own benefits are set by contract and will not be directly affected by the changes.

HUCTW officials said they feared that in future contract negotiations the University will force the union's workers to accept changes to their benefits similar to those now proposed for other Harvard employees.

"Our sense of people who would make sacrifices for this plan [are] part-time people and retirees," said Bill Jaeger, HUCTW director. "We have some doubts about whether this set of changes asks for greater contributions from the right people."

While union officials quarreled with Green last spring over their participation in the task force, the former provost, if he had remained on, might have proved to be a key ally in the administration.

In fact, one of Green's major criticisms in his June memo to Rudenstine and Zeckhauser could have come straight from a union leader's mouth.

"By violating the principle that all Harvard employees get the same health benefits packages we leave ourselves open to many counterproductive forces," he wrote. "To say that we need a salary-linked benefit policy on the grounds of equity is to ignore the great disparities in means and circumstances that exist within salary groups."

Green also faulted the committee for refusing his proposal to create a separate category for single adults with a child or children. While the former provost did support reducing health care for part-timers, he wanted it directly linked to specific hours worked. He disapproved of creating broadly defined worker categories with different amounts of coverage.

Green's memo makes clear that his influence on the final product of his own task force was far less than he would have liked.

"I proposed and advocated a number of creative ideas, none of which has found its way into the package you offer," he wrote.

The former provost, who has spent most of his career as a professor of political economy, told Harvard Magazine last month that "$4 million a year was being wasted" on benefits. Green's memo also indicates that the economic calculations in the benefits plan may not be sound.

Green's only public statement on his private memo was an brief reply to a reporter's question last month: "I think the memo speaks for itself."