Ruling hurts some unmarried same-sex partners

Posted on Oct 18, 2009 by Gregg Hennigan.

IOWA CITY — The city of Iowa City and Johnson County began to address an uncommon, and possibly unique, situation after the Iowa Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage last April.

They are working on ways to drop extended health insurance benefits to domestic partners of gay employees who are not married.

“Since same-sex and opposite-sex couples are now treated the same for marriage purposes, they can be treated the same under our policies,” said Eleanor Dilkes, city attorney for Iowa City.

Since last decade, the city and county have extended health insurance benefits to the domestic partners of gay employees but not to those in opposite-sex domestic partnerships. They did that because same-sex couples could not marry in Iowa.

To get the benefit, couples must sign an affidavit declaring their domestic partnership and showing that they meet certain criteria, such as sharing housing expenses and financial accounts.

Now that gays can marry, the city plans to end its program next summer, when its current union contracts expire. Lora Shramek, county human resources administrator, has recommended the county do the same, and that is being discussed in collective bargaining talks.

The Iowa City school district also offers benefits to same-sex domestic partners only, but district leaders have not discussed making any changes.

It’s a situation, anecdotal evidence shows, that few employers across the nation have confronted, with same-sex marriage allowed in four states. The Gazette contacted human resource, gay-rights and insurance organizations in Iowa and nationally and found no other employers changing their benefit plans for same-sex domestic partnerships.

“It just doesn’t come up as a topic,” said Lisa Charnitz, state director of the Iowa affiliate of the Society for Human Resource Management.

That’s not to say the domestic partnership question isn’t occurring elsewhere. But representatives of those groups said they probably would have heard something if it were a major issue.

Part of the reason appears to be that offering domestic partnership benefits is not uncommon. Those plans usually are open to employees regardless of their sexual orientation, not just same-sex employees.

A Society for Resource Management survey showed 36 percent of respondents worked this year for organizations that extended health care coverage to same-sex domestic partners and 37 percent for opposite-sex domestic partners. Same-sex coverage was much less common in the government sector, at 29 percent, than in publicly owned for-profit companies, 52 percent, according to the survey.

That may be the case in Iowa, too. When Iowa City was considering its next step after the Supreme Court ruling, Karen Jennings, city personnel administrator, put an inquiry on the Iowa Public Employer Labor Relations Association’s message board. No one replied.

She then asked Iowa’s 10 most populous cities, which include Cedar Rapids, plus Linn County and none had domestic partner benefits, she said.

“I think sometimes we take for granted how progressive we are,” Jennings said.

The state offers domestic partnership benefits to its employees regardless of sexual orientation. So does the Cedar Rapids school district, the state universities and regents schools and some private employers, such as ACT.

The UI was a leader nationally in 1993 when it began offering benefits to partners of gay and lesbian employees, said Richard Saunders, director of benefits and payroll. “It’s a very attractive recruiting tool,” he said.

The university later expanded the policy to include opposite-sex employees. It is continuing its domestic partnership program for that reason. “There still are reasons that people might have where they could not, or do not, want to get married,” Saunders said.

Wellmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which insures the majority of Iowans, has not seen any big changes since April to benefit plans employers offer. A lot of large employers offer domestic partnership benefits to all employees, so they may not have seen a need to change, spokesman Rob Schweers said.

Only one Johnson County employee and about a dozen City of Iowa City employees are enrolled in a domestic partnership plan. Human resource officials said they have not heard any complaints about discontinuing the policies.

Attempts to talk with city and county employees participating in the policy were unsuccessful.

Jennings said the city chose to not open the policy to all employees because the plan has existed to give same-sex couples an option available to those who could marry.

“So this is just kind of evening the playing field again,” she said.

Shramek said money would be an issue if the policy were expanded, especially given the recession. “Every time you open it up, you’re going to have more people, probably,” she said.