Princeton Borough To Hold Vote on DP Benefits

June 23, 2004

Local officials could decide tonight if the borough will join a very short list of New Jersey government bodies that offer health-care and pension benefits to employees' same-sex domestic partners.

Approval for benefits coverage to borough employees' domestic partners would be linked with the state's new domestic partnership law, which takes effect July 10.

Among its provisions, that law would make registered, same-sex partners of state employees eligible for health insurance and pension coverage.

It also would allow municipalities and other government agencies enrolled in the state health-benefits program the option to extend domestic-partner health and pension benefits to their employees' same-sex partners.

Some borough council members said extending benefits to unmarried domestic partners is a matter of fairness.

The issue is on the agenda for tonight's council meeting because it is ideal to include it in a planned broader discussion of the new state law, said borough Clerk Lea Quinty.

The law offers gay and lesbian couples rights currently available solely to married couples such as clearance to make critical medical decisions for an incapacitated partner, hospital visits, a state income-tax deduction for dependents and an inheritance tax exemption.

Most of its provisions also apply to unmarried heterosexual couples age 62 and older.

Many municipalities, school districts and fire departments are among the approximately 900 government agencies that participate in the state health-benefits program.

However, as of yesterday only a few of those had passed resolutions authorizing health and/or pension benefits to their employees' same-sex domestic partners, said Tom Vincz, a state Treasury Department spokesman.

Those that have are the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority and Rutherford Borough, Vincz said.

Princeton Borough could follow suit tonight, when the council is scheduled to discuss a resolution authorizing domestic-partner health insurance and pension benefits for its 140 employees.

Three of the six council members were contacted for comment yesterday and all expressed support for the measure.

Personally, it just seems like simple social justice, said Councilman Andrew Koontz. It's fair and it's the right thing to do.

Councilwoman Wendy Benchley said, I am in favor of it. In this day and age we need to take care of people's partners. It's only fair.

Councilman David Goldfarb concurred, saying he sees no justification in denying benefits to employees' domestic partners that the borough offers to employees' spouses.

While Goldfarb said the borough is much too generous in providing free health-care coverage to spouses and dependents of its employees, that doesn't mean its policy should be different for same-sex couples.

The borough's added annual health insurance cost per employee with a domestic partner would be $3,000 to $4,000, borough Administrator Bob Bruschi said.

There is no way to project what the borough's added yearly cost will be because the number of employees who might seek the domestic-partner benefit is unknown, he said.

Bill Dressel, executive director of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, said he anticipates many other municipalities will offer benefits to their employees' domestic partners.

I have not gotten any indication that there is any broad-based opposition to extending this at all, Dressel said. Local officials are basically gathering the information, trying to find out what is expected of them.

Obviously, they're going to look at the cost implications, he added.

But David Grubb, executive director of the Saddle Brook-based Municipal Access Liability Joint Insurance Fund, countered that most municipal officials he has heard from have expressed little interest in the issue of domestic-partner benefits for their employees.

It's just not an issue that has been raised anywhere, said Grubb, whose employer manages health insurance coverage for 60 of the municipalities that don't use the state plan. I can kind of understand why it might happen in Princeton first because it's a university town.