Last week, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Labor issued a report entitled, Changes Are Still Needed in the ERISA Audit Process to Increase Protections for Employee Benefit Plan Participants, which indicates that the Office is gravely concerned about the prevalence of unaudited employee benefit plans.

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Motorola said last week that it would freeze its employee pension benefit plans and stop matching 401(k) contributions.

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Levy has also bought into Caremark Rx , which manages employee prescription benefit plans and is one of the biggest mail-order houses for prescription drugs.

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The slight increases of employee contributions to their benefit plans have allowed the state to stay liquid and actually increase hiring.

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Thanks to a booming stockmarket, firms have been able to reduce their contributions to pension plans, thereby holding down employee benefit costs.

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In fact, the law's stiffer funding requirements for defined-benefit plans will likely push companies with underfunded plans to freeze them, says Jack VanDerhei, a Temple University professor and fellow at the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

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