Editor,

Employees must be pleased that the Regents might consider ways of allocating funding to increase wages as a result of the analysis by Mercer Consulting that showed salaries are far below the market. (93106, 10/3/05)

However, the members of the UC Regents Committee on Finance were also told in their briefing that not only will employee healthcare contributions continue to increase, employee payments into the retirement system are expected to resume in two or three years. (See <http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/ regents/regmeet/sep05/re61.pdf>)

I wonder if it is likely, given chronic state budget woes, that any wage increases would be substantial enough to offset the increase in healthcare and retirement contributions, while also closing the gap between current pay levels and market parity? Well, at least I’ll have the full Regents contribution to medical care in retirement. Oops, it looks like the University is going to “adjust” that as well.