[AromeWahmaron]

If as a part of your employment contract, your employer was paying into your retirement plan and paying your health care, and then you had to pay some of your health care and you had to pay into your retirement, because your employer paid less, your paycheck is smaller, because your pay got cut.

The employer contribution is a part of your pay package.

If it gets cut, that's a pay cut.

Welcome to the new economy. Workers in the private sector have been hit with these sorts of cuts for some time. Public sector budgets are shrinking, so there are two choices:

1. Across the board cuts for public sector workers, or
2. No cuts, but some percentage of public sector workers are laid off.

It's just reality - there's less money for staffing, and that's not going to change any time soon.

Matt