Provost Albert Carnesale says the recent report by Harvard's largest union--which claims a $25 million administrative bloat--is misleading.

Carnesale criticized the report, released Monday by the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), saying it ignores the distinctions between managers, or employees in supervisory roles, and staff.

While managers and staff are known as "exempt" employees, meaning both receive salaries rather than hourly wages, Carnesale protested that the report "lumped these [categories of employees] together."

"[Harvard's] definition of exempt versus non-exempt does not correspond to administrative or non-administrative," Carnesale said.

The provost also said the Union should not consider personnel increases in information technology, regulation compliance and fundraising as administrative bloat.

"We are conscious of the need to spend our money wisely and well," he said. "It is not true that we don't know what deans do or that the deans have an incentive to waste money."

The Union, however, isn't alone in its concern about administrative growth. Faculty members have long expressed concern about a ballooning administration.

William Paul '60, Mallinckrodt professor of applied physics, has been a longstanding critic of the administration's operating costs. Many Faculty members say they appreciate his pointed questions about administrative growth.

"It isn't at all clear how to stop or reverse [the growth]...We are not saying there shouldn't be growth, but it has to be justified," said Paul. "The administration has not been as forthcoming as it might be."

Not only has the Faculty requested answers about growth in Faculty meetings, an FAS committee released a report last year which detailed a steep rise in the number of "administrative" positions between 1990 and 1994.

And HUCTW used the Faculty's definition of administrative staff for its own report.

"We are glad that they [the Union] and we [the Faculty] see this as a problem that has to be talked about," Paul said. "They are in some sense, and in a very welcome way, aligning themselves with a Faculty who has already asked for this kind of information."

Bake Sale for Benefits

Though HUCTW and the University continue to debate the issue of part-time health benefits for union workers, the union sweetened its arguments yesterday.

HUCTW members hawked tencent homemade Rice Krispie squares and 25-cent brownies outside the Sci- ence Center and Holyoke Center during a "Bake Sale for Benefits."

Intended to build community support for part-time workers, who are scheduled to take a cut in benefits on January 1, the bake sale was a symbolic gesture.

"Fiscal Crisis at Harvard; Buy a Cookie," read a banner, while volunteers distributed a pamphlet that included a recipe for "Al's Yummy Provostial Pie," including "[One ounce of] ordinary human decency.

"When we need to take our discussions with the University outside of the room, we try to make them have a point and have fun," said Donene M. Williams, president of HUCTW