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Mostly sunny High in low-80s Friday: Clear High in low-80s "Off the Cuff Live" 8:30 p.m. Cabaret Serving the students and the University community since 1893 Volume 98, Issue 70 Thursday, September 27, 1990 Chapel Hill, North Carolina NewsSports Arts BusinessAdvertising 962-0245 962-1163 ilf SH tt; s,- a 0 in r? a w Bush announces sale of some reserve oil CHICAGO President Bush, say ing there was "no justification" for in creased oil and gasoline prices, said Wednesday he would sell 5 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Tapping the reserve, a move urged by industry analysts and some members of Congress since Iraq's Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, was aimed at driving down the price of crude on world markets. The president is turning to the reserve to stabilize the oil market for the first time since it was created in 1975. Oil was briefly pumped from the reserve in 1 985 to test the physical and bureaucratic systems for moving it. The price of crude oil has edged toward $40 a barrel this week, nearly twice the level when Iraq's occupation of Kuwait touched off the current oil crisis. The oil is stored in a system of salt dome caverns in Louisiana and Texas and represents a bit less than a 90-day supply of imports. Jordan takes Iraqi jets despite air embargo AMMAN, Jordan Three Iraqi passenger planes touched down Wednesday in Jordan, but Jordan later said it would halt all flights to and from Iraq to comply with a U.N. air embargo. Iraq accused Washington of bribing Moscow to back the U.N. sanctions. In a sign that the sanctions are hurt ing Iraqis, Baghdad also announced it would extend rationing to rice, flour and cooking oil. The United States reportedly planned "a show of force" by sending its first American aircraft carrier into the Per sian Gulf in 16 years, and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney warned that an Iraqi military strike was increasingly likely. U.S. officials encountered reserva tions Wednesday by allies on a fund raising campaign to collect the billions of dollars needed in the gulf crisis. The passengers aboard the regularly scheduled Iraqi Airways planes landing in Amman included nine expelled French diplomats and 1 1 Britons stranded during Iraq's invasion of Ku wait on Aug. 2. It was not known what their cargo holds contained. The planes all returned to Baghdad. Earlier Tuesday, Jordanian officials said the passenger aircraft were not included in embargo resolution passed Tuesday by the U.N. Security Council. Soviet law ends era of religious interference MOSCOW The Soviet legislature formally ended decades of religious repression on Wednesday, passing a law on freedom of conscience at a time when Soviets are flocking to churches in record numbers. "Our people suffered to get th is law," said Mikhail Kulakov, a leader of the Soviet Union ' s Seventh-day Adventists, who have been persecuted for evangeli cal activities. The law forbids the government from interfering with religious activities, improves the legal status of religious organizations and gives Soviet citizens the right to study religion in homes and in private "schools. From Associated Press reports Chapel Hill or bused Transit system spruces up with 14 new buses 2 Coke by the pound Promotion to give away students' weights in Coke 3 Textual excitement Professors can now custom-design their own books 4 Campus and city 3 National 4 Sports ...................................... 5 Classifieds .......6 Comics 7 Omnibus insert 1990 DTH Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. mm RealotiiHL By YU-YEE WU Staff Writer The Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) reallocated $ 1 .5 million from University personnel ap propriations to non-personnel categories because of the budget crunch. Ben Tuchi, vice chancellor of busi ness and finance, said the funds were used to pay bills in non-personnel areas of Academic and Health Affairs, which were hit hardest by the budget cuts. Neal Berryman, University control ler, said Academic Affairs was able to pay utility bills with a $500,000 reallo cation, but the $1 million allocated to Research funds' fatore depends on budget accord. By TIM BURROWS Staff Writer Funding for University research programs, which already are plagued by state budget cuts, may be slashed by 30 percent if Congress and the federal administration cannot agree on the na tional budget before Oct. 1. These cuts could amount to $50 million, which is one-third of the University's $150 million in research grants. David Perry, associate dean for ad ministration and planning in the School of Medicine, said many researchers could lose their jobs if these federal grants expired. Chancellor Paul Hardin said he was concerned about those researchers whose salaries depend on this federal funding. The Oct. 1 deadline stems from the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit re duction law, which would prompt across-the-board budget cuts. This could force the National Insti tute of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to reduce their budgets for government-funded Housekeepers call merit By SHANNON 0'GRADY Staff Writer The new system of increasing housekeeping wages based on merit evaluations is an unfair process, Uni versity housekeepers said Tuesday. Housekeeping Superintendent Charles Davis said the evaluation pro cess, which was passed by the N.C. General Assembly this summer, rates employees on work performance, at tendance, attitude and organization. The first evaluation was conducted recently, but Davis said results are not in. Walter Belton, a University house Year-old War By ANDRE HAUSER Staff Writer A year has passed since President Bush's declaration of a national War on Drugs, but experts are still unable to agree on how successful it has been or what its real goals are. The War on Drugs is an especially intensified official effort by just about every agency in the United States to combat the problem of drug abuse," said David Robb, spokesman for drug czar William Bennett. Despite the War on Drugs' apparent disappearance from the news in the wake of recent events in the Middle East, Bush said in a Sept. 5 speech that drugs were still the nation's primary domestic concern. The total international budget of the War on Drugs in 1 990 was $419 million, including $217 million for the "Andean Strategy," the well-publicized arm of the "war" in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, Robb said. This represents an increase of about 38 percent in the total budget from 1989, but an increase of more than 250 percent in South American efforts. For 1 99 1 , the Office of National Drug Control Policy has already requested $609 million from Congress, Robb said, which would be a 45 percent increase from this year. If this increase is ap proved, the Andean Strategy will receive $423 million, an increase of almost 95 percent, he said. "We've gotten a preliminary nod (from Congress), but now it's all pretty much in the air," Robb said. This is because of unexpected increases in de fense spending, he said. Aid to the Andean nations includes Half the people in America are Health Affairs would not be enough to pay its utility bills. "In our allotment process, we had excess money in our personnel catego ries, and they (the OSBM) have allowed us to move that money down," Berryman said. "Every bit of our allotments are being used. It's not going to waste. We're spending every penny we have." Tuchi said the personnel fund pays employees' salaries and wages. The funds originally shifted were allocated for vacant staff positions frozen by the OSBM because of the budget cuts. "The OSBM has frozen 300 state appropriated, non-faculty EPA and SPA research by up to 50 percent, said Mary Coleman, UNC associate provost for research. "It would have a chilling effect on research," Coleman said. Other University administrators were even less hopeful about the cuts. Perry said Gramm-Rudman-Hollings cuts would result in "pandemonium". Many University administrators agree that the UNC research community is in a precarious position and say the present situation is not improving. Perry said although more than 90 percent of the School of Medicine's research was federally funded spe cifically by NIH and NSF the cuts would not have any immediate major effects. Tom Miya, dean of the School of Pharmacy, said if the cuts were enacted, the government first will reject any new federal funding requests, and then sys tematically will deny funding for older grants when they come up for review. If the government continually rejects requests for new grants and discontin- See BUDGET, page 7 keeper, said it was difficult to meet the requirements necessary for merit pay. "I feel like it (the pay increases) should be across the board rather than by evaluation," he said. "You have to exceed expectations in all areas. One mistake and you can't get a raise. "If you were not doing your job, you'd be gone, so why should you be overlooked when it's time to get a raise?" Belton asked. Willie Burnett, a University house keeper, said the merit pay program did not encourage her to work more. "It doesn't make me want to work harder, on Drugs gets mixed reviews economic, military and law enforce ment assistance, he said. Economic aid is mostly education of citizens, funding of public works projects and trade agreements with the United States, while military and law enforcement aid en compasses training South American forces and providing them with equip ment and parts, Robb said. Several U.S. agencies are involved in the War on Drugs, but the main investigation and enforcement agency is the Drug Enforcement Agency, said Con Dougherty, a DEA spokesman. The South American efforts have been successful so far, Robb said. "We've been able to destroy hundreds of processing plants for cocaine with the host countries' permission and help," he said. "We think we've been able to get major financial and operational Medellin Cartel members extradited to the United States." The Medellin Cartel is a major cocaine-producing ring in Colombia. As evidence of the program's success, Robb said average cocaine prices in New York had risen to between $3,000 and $10,000 per kilogram in the last year. While some opponents of the War on Drugs agree that it has been successful, they disagree about what its goals have heljp pay Btlity 'Ml positions," Tuchi said. "This money would normally be reverted to the state, but we have requested the authority to expend a half million dollars in Aca demic Affairs and $1 million in Health Affairs in non-personnel categories." If employees were being laid off at this time, the reallocated funds could prevent the layoffs, Tuchi said. Be cause layoffs have not been planned yet, the money has been allocated to other areas. Funds cannot be reserved to protect employees from future layoffs, he said. The $1.5 million additional funds will not provide enough money to get Death's a beech Arboretum Curator Diane Birkemo inspects a diseased beech tree felled for safety reasons to establish its age but I have to work harder to get a raise." Awarding wage increases for senior ity would be a better policy, she said. But University housekeeper Frank Norwood said the merit pay system encouraged him to try to exceed all the evaluation criteria. "It makes me want to work harder to get more money," he said. "I'm trying to make my attendance better so I can get a raise." Davis said the new evaluation pro cess was the best method of distributing pay increases in the housing depart ment at this time. "The merit system, as been. C. Clark Kissinger, a founder of the anti-conservative group Refuse and Resist!, said the war's goals were not to end drug trafficking, but to increase the government's control of society, strengthen police in the inner cities and get white America to view the drug epidemic as a black problem. Rather than trying to end the drug trade, the U.S. government is a major drug dealer itself, Kissinger said. There is tremendous documentation of the U.S. government's involvement in interna tional drug trade to fund covert opera tions such as the secret war in Laos in the 1 960s and the funding of the Contra rebels in Nicaragua in the mid-1980s, Kissinger said. In addition, many major drug-producing nations are allies of the United States, he said. The main cocaine-producing countries in South America are allies of the United States, and heroin is made mainly in the U.S.-allied nations of Burma, Turkey, Mexico and Mujahadeen-controlled areas of Af ghanistan, Kissinger added. One event that caused many critics of the War on Drugs to doubt its sincerity at first seemed to be just a minor prop in Bush's speech outlining the drug war plan. During the speech, the president held up a bag of crack cocaine that had been bought by undercover DEA agents in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. The 18-year-old dealer, Keith Jack son, was already under investigation for drug dealing, and he had previously sold crack to undercover DEA agents, See WAR, page 7 faking it. Robert Mitchum the University out of debt. It is not unusual for the University to be in debt at this time, Tuchi said. "Those non-personnel funds are still inefficiently covered," Tuchi said. "We need an additional allocation two times the level we've been authorized to have." Berryman agreed. "We will be carry ing over to the next quarter approxi mately a half million dollars worth of bills in Academic Affairs and approxi mately $1 million in Health Affair's." Bruce Harrington, state budget offi cer, said the OSBM gave the University and some other state institutions per mission to move funds. JIT ' 4 , , V pay-raise process unfair it stands right now with all the money problems, I think is fair." When the budget crisis passes, the housing department may look at other forms of incentives and wage increases, Davis said. "At the present time, we've just concluded one evaluation process," Davis said. "It is something we will look forward to seeing results from." Many employees thought the merit pay was a result of the budget cuts at the University. The bill for the process was unrelated to the budget shortfall. Rep. Anne Barnes, D-Orange, said the details of the program may be un Police open position By THOMAS HEALY Senior Writer The application process for crime prevention officer has been reopened to all University employees because of personnel guidelines, said Charles Antle, associate vice chancellor of business and finance, Wednesday. John DeVitto, interim director of public safety, posted the position in the police department this summer and interviewed Lt. Marcus Perry and Officer Keith Edwards for it on Aug. 30. He later learned that the proper procedure would be to post the posi tion for all campus employees, which he is doing now, Antle said. DeVitto sent letters to Perry and Edwards this week stating that the application process would be re opened. All applicants will interview with a panel, which will make a final recommendation to DeVitto. Edwards said she questioned De Vitto's motives for posting the position again. He avoided making a choice because he knew she would file a grievance if the position were given to Perry, she said. "I want him to tell me in his own words why he is doing this, and why he did not do it in the beginning," she said. "I am very curious to see what kind of He he can tell me on that." DeVitto promoted three white males to supervisory positions this year and "We have allowed the Chapel Hill campus to shift funds within allotments between salary and non-salary catego ries," he said. "We're trying to help all we can within the limits of the law." Although Harrington said shifting funds was not that unusual, Tuchi said, "It's a special exception. We do not have the authority to do it on an ongoing basis." Each time the University shifts funds, it must file a special request, he said. This will be the second time that UNC has been allowed to shift funds. See BILLS, page 7 DTHEd Moorhouse Wednesday. Some of the wood will be used to make benches for the botanical garden. clear to employees. "I don't think they (employees) know how it is going to work," she said. "It is not a requirement that they exceed expectations, but that they meet expectations. Maybe that is what they do not understand." Barnes introduced the merit proposal after making several attempts to imple ment pay increases across the board for state employees at the bottom pay scale. "I would have preferred lifting the bottom pay level, but I couldn't get that through the General Assembly," Barnes See RAISES, page 7 did not follow the correct procedure, she said. "This is the first time they have done this. Why do it to me?" she said. "Every time I make amove in my department,! have a stumbling block." Edwards said she is considering filing a grievance against the police department on the grounds that DeVitto followed improper hiring procedures from the beginning and is now changing his tactics. DeVitto said the process for filling the position was continuing, and it was being conducted in accordance with State Personnel Administrative Guides (SPAG) 27. The guide outlines the procedure for filling vacant posi tions at the University. : -; He would not comment on further matters because they were personnel issues, which are considered private understate law. The position of crime prevention officer was originally given to Perry in March 1990. Antle, who supervises DeVitto and the police department, said the per sonnel department told DeVitto he could give the position to Perry without posting it. The personnel department said it was allowable because it was a lateral transfer and not a promotion, Antle said. A grievance was filed by several See EDWARDS, page 4
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