a

LASC
protests
U.S. aid
to Contrcs
By AARON ROBINSON
About twenty protesters braved
sub-freezing temperatures yesterday
afternoon to demonstrate against
additional funding to the Nicaraguan
Contras.
Members of the Latin American
Solidarity Committee (LASC),
which sponsored the demonstration,
joined non-members in a mock
funeral procession to commemorate
victims of the civil war in Nicaragua
and urge an end to U.S. aid to the
Contra rebels.
THE protesters, dressed in black
with faces painted white, carried
wooden crosses and a life-size coffin
from the Diag to the corner of Huron
and Main streets. They were joined
by additional LASC members, who
helped distribute fliers to rush-hour
motorists.
LSA sophomore Matt Palm, a
LASC member who helped organize
the protest, said it was intended to
show students and Ann Arbor
residents that victims of the civil
war "aren't just numbers." He said
he thought this visual demonstration
was more effective than a typical
march because it was "more on a
personal level."
While many of the drivers showed
support for the protests by honking
or clapping, others panned the
demonstrators with downturned
thumbs and shouts for more Contra
aid.
LASC members were apparently
surprised by the low turnout for the
demonstration. "This is pretty
disappointing," said LASC member
Chris Simmons, who added that the
cold probably contributed to the lack
of participation.
The protest yesterday was one of
several activities planned by LASC
in connection with the upcoming
congressional vote on President
I Reagan's $36.25 million Contra aid
proposal.
LASC has planned a rally on the
Diag today against U.S. policy in
Central America followed by a
demonstration at the office of Rep.
Carl Pursell (R-Plymouth).
The group has also organized a
letter writing campaign to urge
Pursell to vote against the aid
package.
"Pursell knows that people don't
want more Contra aid," said Palm,
who said Pursell' s past support of
aid proposals was contrary to the
-wishes of his constituency.

The Michigan Daily-Thursday, January 28, 1988- Page 3
'U' Hospital to
face budget cut
of $15 million

,:..
..

By ALYSSA LUSTIGMAN
University hospital officials are
being forced to trim $15 million
from the hospital's 1988-89 budget
due to decreasing reimbursements
from government insurance agencies
such as Medicare and Medicaid. The
cuts are the largest the hospital has
made at any one time.
Kenneth Trester, director o f
planning and marketing for the
medical center, said approximately
200 current job positions, both filled
and unfilled, will be eliminated. He
said the cuts will probably be made
by April 1.
Although the planned cuts have
not yet been completed, Trester said
they would not affect the medical
staff. Instead, he said the hospital
plans to consolidate patient
treatment programs and eliminate
layers of management.
"We are not reducing the quality
of care," he said. "Instead, we plan to
make department operations more
efficient and more productive."
The hospital's total operating ex-
pense budget this year is $356.6
million. The anticipated $15 million
in cuts would constitute four percent
of the total budget.
Reductions in reimbursements for
government-funded health care forced
the hospital to compensate with the
staff cuts.
"Reimbursements for Medicaid,
Medicare and other insurance
agencies are tightening up. Our

expenses are too high for revenues,"
he said.
Insurance agencies cover many
patients' hospital costs by using the
Diagnostic Relating Groups (DRG)
method to pay for the care.
DRG gives a fixed amount of
money for a patient's specific
treatment. Thus, if a group like
Medicaid gives $2,000 for a n
appendectomy and it costs the
hospital $2500 for treatment, the
hospital loses $500. On the other
hand, if the operation costs $1500,
the hospital earns $500, Trester said.
In the past, agencies reimbursed
hospitals on a cost-per-care basis,
but many 'are adopting the DRG
method. Next year, all Medicare will
be DRG, he said.
The DRG system has been an in-
creasing in popularity nationally for
the last two years, said Trester. Two
months ago, Harper Grace Hospital
in Detroit let off about 600
employees because of decreasing
reimbursements.
University hospital in-patient
volume continues to be as high or
higher than in the past, Trester
added, and diagnostic and treatment
facilities remain on target with
budget projections for the year. More
nursing positions, once in shortage,
have been filled.
"It's not that we have fewer
patients now than before, but rather
we are getting less money per
patient," he said.

Daily Photo by JOHN MUNSON
A car drives through one of the many potholes on Thompson Street. While potholes continue to plague Ann Ar-
bor streets, the city council will decide on Monday whether to include a tax increase for pothole repair on the
upcoming April ballot.
City Couneil to debate millage
increase to repair ci.1ty streets.

By PETER MOONEY
Ann Arbor City Council will
decide Monday whether to solicit
funding from citizens to repair the
city's bumpy roads and potholes. If
the council favors a 2.5 mill tax
increase for road improvement, the
tax hike will become a ballot refer-
endum in the April city elections.
Councilmember Jeannette
Middleton (R-Third Ward) said
potholes are a problem in the city,
and she hopes the city will pass a
millage with a 10-year duration.
In 1984, city voters approved a
1.5 mill property tax increase to pay
for repair work all over the city. The
most dramatic change in the campus
area was the repaving of Packard
Road, part of which was blocked off
during the summer of 1986.
"I THINK that we've done a
good job and have made significant
progress," said City Engineer Leigh
Chizek.
But LSA junior Bob Papp said
there is more to be done. "On Geddes
Road it's awful," he said. "You feel

'On Geddes Road it'st
awful. You feel like your
car's going to be swal-T
lowed up out there.'
-Bob Papp, LSA junior
like your car's going to be
swallowed up out there."
Chizek could not say which roadsI
would be repaired first, as the Trans-I
portation Department determines the,
priority for repair.
CHIZEK said Geddes could only,
be repaired in conjunction with the
Washtenaw County Roads
Commission, which has partial
jurisdiction over it. The city and,
county may tackle repairs, he said, if
the tax increase is passed.
Repairing the roads now would
save the city future expenses, Chizek
said, and eliminating the potholes,
may save citizens money in car
repairs.
A mechanic at Jim Bradley

Pontiac, said, "Sometimes potholes
hurt the car's front alignment."
Lionel Nustad, a traffic engineer
at the Automobile Association of
Michigan's Dearborn headquarters,
said potholes are a major cause of
claims. "Tires are blown out, ribs
are bent," said Nustad. "And I'm sure
it does harm alignments."
N U S T A D said potholes will
always be a problem because salt
used to melt ice and snow decays
roads. "It's a constant problem and
we're never gonna get away from it
as long as we have the climate that
we do," he said.
Mark Williams, an employee at
Weaver's Service Station on Packard
Road, said they haven't repaired any
cars with problems caused by
potholes.
LSA junior Ann Tabatowski said
the area around Oakland and Arch
Streets needs repair, but she said the
city's potholes are not the worst she
has ever seen, and that some local
expressways have very bad pothole
problems.

Bill would require
TA language testing


'U' releases Lake Michig

F By MICAH SCHMIT
with wire reports
The Donald C. Cook nuclear power plant on
Lake Michigan destroys millions of fish, but
apparently causes no other environmental damage
to the lake, according to a ten-year University
study released yesterday.
University officials said the 432-page study
was one of the longest running scientific
investigations of Lake Michigan.
The1969-1987 study investigated the effect of
the Indiana and Michigan Electric Co. plant -
which uses water from Lake Michigan to cool its
reactors - on organisms in the lake and on its
shoreline.

WHEN expelled from the facility, the water
is about 50 degrees warmer than when it is taken
in. The temperature increase contributes to the
high mortality rate for the -fragile larvae passing
through the pipes, said Rossmann, who edited
the book. But most of the fish eggs drawn
through the cooling pipes were unharmed.
The Cook plant, located near Bridgman in
southwestern Michigan, began commercial power
production in 1975. A second reactor went into
operation three years later.
Among other things the study found:
-The number of juvenile and adult fish taken
in and killed in the cooling pipes rose from
53,190 in 1977 to 2.3 million in 1980. David

an study
Jude, a scientist at the University's Great Lakes
Research Division, speculated that considering
the huge size of the lake, the impact on the fish
population would not be detrimental; '
-IN WINTER, water expelled from the plant
melts a hole in the frozen surface of the lake, but
the hole does not affect the ice ridges near the
shore that protect the coast from erosion by
winter storms. Jude said this finding was
foremost because plant officials were initially
worried that the expelled warm water would leave
those shores vulnerable; -
-Most of the fish destroyed were alewives, a
favorite food of the recently boosted salmon
stocks in the lake

By ANDREW MILLS
Teaching assistants at state uni-
versities and colleges would be re-
moved from the classroom unless
they could demonstrate the required
English proficiency, under a bill
currently in the Michigan Senate.
Senate Bill 518, sponsored by
Sen. Joseph Conroy (D-Flint),
would require colleges and universi-
ties to assess the oral proficiency of
TAs by the beginning of the 1988-
89 academic year; any TA who isn't
proficient by that time would be
forbidden from classroom teaching.
CONROY expects swift passage
of the bill through the Senate by the
end of the week, after which it would
go to the House.
"It's pretty clear that it's still a
serious problem," Conroy said about
TAs who aren't proficient in En-
glish. He said some colleges and
universities were already working
toward this goal, but, "they need to
accelerate the adoption (of such pro-
grams)."
Conroy said colleges and univer-
sities could adopt a number of na-
tional standardized tests to help as-
sess the proficiency of their TAs.
CURRENTLY, all foreign-
born TAs in LSA must pass a
proficiency test administered by the
English Language Institute to teach
in a classroom or work in a
laboratory. TAs who teach foreign
language courses do not need as high
a score on the test as the other TAs
do.
In the College of Engineering,
most of the TAs are tested, said
Sarah Briggs, a research associate in
SINGERS

the ELI responsible for TA screen-
ing. Individual engineering depart-
ments require the testing, but there
is no college-wide mandate.
Engineering TAs who are tested
must meet the same standard as TAs
in LSA, Briggs said. She said the
bill, if passed, would not substan-
tially change the process at the Uni-
versity.
ERDOGAN Gulari, associate
dean for academic affairs in the
College of Engineering said the
current policy prohibits foreign TAs
from teaching during their first
semester at the University. However,
Gulari said, in practice, foreign TAs
wait until they've completed one
year at the University.
"Most of our TAs are lab TAs
where clearly lecture skills are not as
critical as lecture skills in front of a
large class... as in LSA," Gulari
said. He said normally professors do
the lecturing while TAs work with
students primarily in the labs.
Gulari said although the Univer-
sity already has testing procedures in
place, "We would prefer the bill not
to pass," citing the constitutional
autonomy the University has from
the state. Constitutional autonomy
guarantees the University protection
from state intervention in internal
policy matters.
Briggs said that the number of
complaints the ELI receives about
TAs who can't speak English has
gone down since they started manda-
tory testing for LSA in 1983.

I

HE LIST
What's happening in Ann Arbor today

Shiites abduct West German

Speakers
Peter Cummings - "Process
Optimization by Simulated
Annealing." Room 1017 Dow
Building, 11:30 a.m.
Karl Fryxell - "The Evolution
and Expression of Eye-Specific'
Genes in Drosophila." Room 2055
Mental Health Research Institute,
at 12:15 p.m.
Judith Krug - "The Impact of
the Reagan Years on Intellectual
Freedom. Vandenberg Room,
Michigan Union, at 1:30 p.m.
Alain Fontain - "In situ X-Ray
Absorption Spectroscopy for
Materials Sciences: Superconduc-
tors, Conductive Polymers, and
High Pressure Induced Phase Tran-
sitions." Room 1200, Chemistry
Building, at 4:00 p.m.
Julie Janata - "Breaking In,
WlX1--..TT- . - . T-Truro..... A

Economics: An Historical Perspec-
tive." Lorch Hall Auditorium, at
5:00 p.m.
Meetings
Coalition for Democracy in
Latin America - Mass meeting,
Pond Room of the Michigan
Union, at 8:00 p.m.
Miskatonic- Society for the
fantastic in literature, Cr o f o o t
Room of the Michigan Union, at
8:00 p.m.
Hillel Happy Hour - U Club of
the Michgian Union, Wolverine
Room. at 5:00 p.m.
Early Evening Devotion -
University Lutheran Chapel, 6:15
p.m, 1511 Washtenaw.
Furthermore

BEIRUT (AP) - Seven terrorists
seized a West German in Syrian-
policed west Beirut yesterday. A
radio report said a Shiite Moslem
militia leader ordered the abduction to
pressure West Germany into freeing
his two jailed brothers.
The kidnapping occurred as
Mohammed Hamadi, accused in a

TWA hijacking, took the stand in the
Duesseldorf trial of brother Abbas
Hamadi, who allegedly abducted the
two West Germans in Beirut last year
in a bid to free him.
The third brother, Abdul-Hadi
Hamadi, heads the security apparatus
of Hezbollah, the most militant pro-
Iranian faction in Lebbanon.

Arbor Forest
721 S. Forest
Ann Arbor. Michi2an 48104