HARRISBURG — One of Pennsylvania's two largest public-sector retirement systems said it approved the first of what could be more contribution increases taxpayers must foot.

The Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System said Wednesday the composite employer contribution rate for the 2010-11 fiscal year will rise to 5.64 percent.

That's up from the current 4 percent, an increase of more than $100 million over the expected contribution of about $280 million this year. That could change if the Legislature adopts Gov. Ed Rendell's plan to cap the rate at 5 percent.

The board cautioned steeper increases are projected in future years as a result of investment losses, benefit enhancements and a 2003 law that suppresses rates until 2012. Current projections show rates rising above 20 percent for two decades.

HARRISBURG — The Rendell administration is putting more staff on phone-answering duty to handle a torrent of calls from people wanting to take advantage of a new tax amnesty program.State officials said Wednesday they are working to address the jammed phone lines that had left some people unable to get through in the program's first two days.They hope to increase the number of people answering phones from 33 on Monday morning to 93 by Friday. Thousands of phone calls, e-mails and online applications are pouring into the Department of Revenue.The 54-day program is expected to generate an additional $190 million for the cash-strapped state treasury. The initiative allows tax dodgers to pay off tax debts accrued through June 2009 with no penalty and half the normal interest.

PITTSBURGH — Striking cafeteria workers at the University of Pittsburgh went back to work after Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato urged both sides to return to the bargaining table.Two hundred members of the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ walked off the job Monday. The union wants higher wages and lower health care costs from Sodexo, a Gaithersburg, Md., food service company that has the university's catering contract.The workers returned to the job after campus police broke up a strikers' protest that briefly blocked traffic Wednesday morning on Forbes Avenue, a busy street that runs through campus.The union's three-year contract with Sodexo expired Feb. 28. No new contract talks were immediately scheduled.

MIDDLETOWN — A massive turbine generator from the Three Mile Island unit that partially melted down in 1979 is scheduled to begin its journey to a new plant in North Carolina.Pennsylvania State Police said the 465-ton generator set out from Middletown about 8 a.m. today destined for the Progress Energy-owned Harris Nuclear Plant near New Hill, N.C.The generator has been in storage since the accident. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said it was not contaminated in the 1979 accident.Officials for the company moving the generator say it will take about four days to transport the 250-foot behemoth to Havre De Grace, Md. It will then travel by barge to Virginia and then by heavy duty rail car to North Carolina.