by Ardee Napolitano news@dailylobo.com @ArdeeTheJourno After UNM’s Board of Regents approved Tuesday increases in employees’ health insurance costs, President Robert Frank will hold an emergency faculty meeting this afternoon to address community issues about the change. At a meeting Tuesday, the regents approved the changes with a vote of 4-3. Regents Conrad James, Suzanne Quillen and Heidi Overton voted against the motion. Regents Jack Fortner, Gene Gallegos, Bradley Hosmer and Jamie Koch voted for the motion. According to a document sent out by UNM’s Committee on Governance, insurance deductibles for individuals, which currently sit at $200, will triple to $600. Deductibles for couples, which sit at $400, will now cost the same as family deductibles, which will increase from $600 to $1,200, according to the document. Individual maximums will also increase from $1,750 to $2,250, according to the document. Maximums for couples, which now cost $3,500, and those for families, which now cost $5,250, will be fixed at $4,500. According to the Albuquerque Journal, the increases will take effect on July 1. At the regents meeting, people from the UNM community expressed their oppositions with the increases. Former Faculty Senate President Amy Neal said that according to her research, UNM employees’ health care costs are considerably higher than its peer institutions. She said that at the moment, UNM costs average at about $179 per month, while New Mexico State University costs average at $85 per month. Neal said UNM’s increasing health care costs will hurt the University’s push for a better faculty. “In determining its health care benefits, UNM must consider its ability to attract and retain faculty members, keeping in mind that we are dealing with a highly specialized workforce,” she said. “It is not reasonable to compare our health benefits with the general population of New Mexico.” UNM retiree Leslie Easom said the regents should have taken more time to decide on the issue. “I’d ask that you slow this runaway health care train down now,” she told the regents. “If I were sitting in your place, I’d probably want a couple more weeks to make decisions to look at things. I can’t really see why you can’t.” According to a document distributed in the regents meeting, the increases will result to a $745,000 savings in University money, which can be used to pay for proposed salary increases for UNM employees. Last month, the regents approved a 3 percent salary increase for faculty and a 2 percent increase for staff. On Tuesday, the regents voted to increase salary hike for staff to 2.5 percent “in an effort to lessen the effect the health care plan changes would have on take home pay.” The wage hikes will take effect starting next fiscal year. Still, Easom said the wage hikes will not offset the increases in employees’ health care costs. “To a certain extent, I think UNM is making somebody else pay for their promised benefits,” she said. “I feel as if you have my checkbook right now, and you’re just making checkbooks out of it.” Carol Stephens, another retired employee, said she agrees with Easom. “If you look at an employee making $35,000 a year, doubling the deductible from $600 to $1,200 more than swallows up the compensation increase,” she said. “There has to be a different way. There are better solutions, but we need to sit down and look at them.” Stephens said the regents should not continue raising health care costs for the University community, especially after they approved to remove UNM retirees from the health care pool last year. “This year, the negative impact would reach far beyond the pre-65 retirees,” she said. “To the staff and faculty, we are not the enemy. We are the canary in the coal mine. What happens to us is a strong indication of what will to you.” But Board of Regents President Jack Fortner said the increase in health care costs is a dilemma. He said that although UNM’s costs may be considerably higher than other universities, he said they are a lot cheaper than health care plans from a private provider. Frank said that although health care cost increases might seem abrupt, they are necessary because of the dynamic nature of health care. “Many of us would like to slow down, but the rapidity in which the landscape is changing… makes it impossible to slow down,” he said. Today’s emergency faculty meeting will be held at 3:30 p.m. at Woodward Hall Room 101.