Budget & Health Care Matters

To the Editors:

Your reporter’s account of the Oct. 1 faculty meeting on budget and health care matters was almost complete. Almost, but not quite. Since my comments on equity were not reported, I’d like to reiterate them here, as I suspect they have implications for many members of the College community.
The issue of equity emerged from last year’s changes in the faculty health care plan. This was the case because, although most faculty took a relatively small hit from the changes, a few faculty took a huge hit, finding their salary and benefit packages reduced by many thousands of dollars with no warning and no apparent recourse. (The principal culprit was the change in spousal coverage.) As far as I know, there is no reliable information about which, or even how many, faculty members are in the latter category, except that it is a class with more than zero members.
To my knowledge, neither the faculty benefits committee nor the administration took any notice of this consequence. Nor was there any response to this point when made at the meeting.
Are the faculty benefits committee and the administration indifferent to the matter of equity? Could it be that the college can no longer afford considerations of equity? Perhaps students should not worry about such issues, but should faculty and staff not worry about whether equity considerations are being taken into account in the next round of health care plan revisions?
Come to think of it, if student financial aid were somehow cut suddenly and drastically for a few students (without regard to merit) while being retained for the large majority, I’d bet a lot of students would pay attention.

–Harlan Wilson
Associate Professor of Politics