State lawmakers are beginning to tackle Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget proposal. This week, the Joint Finance Committee has been holding public hearings on the plan, with today’s being at State Fair Park in West Allis. One item up for discussion allows state employees to register domestic partners for health insurance and other benefits. The city of Milwaukee has had a registry for its workers since 2001. WUWM’s Marti Mikkelson reports on the differences between the two.
The city of Milwaukee originally established its domestic partner registry in 1999. City employees can enroll either their same sex or opposite sex unmarried partner in the city’s health insurance plan. Employee Benefits Director Mike Brady says in order to qualify as a domestic partner, a couple must register at the city clerk’s office, pay a $30 fee and prove they’re in a committed relationship.
“There’s a series of about six different items, that they have a will in each other’s names, that they own a property jointly, that they have a rental agreement jointly, that they have a checking or savings or credit card with both names on it,” Brady says.
Brady says 30 city employees and their partners are registered. One is Dan Keeley. He works at the Central Library. Keeley and his long-time girlfriend signed up for the registry last September.
“We saw it as a good means of getting her insurance coverage. That wasn’t offered at any type of reasonable rate through her employer,” Keeley says.
Keeley says his girlfriend has asthma and it can be costly to control, so they’ve made good use of the insurance plan during the past six months. The city’s registry offers health insurance to domestic partners, but does not include other benefits married couples have such as family leave or end of life decisions.
Those exclusions make the policy palatable to the group Wisconsin Family Council. Executive Director Julaine Appling says the city’s domestic partner registry does not violate Wisconsin’s ban on same sex marriage, a ban the Council advocated.
“Milwaukee can’t give very many benefits. They don’t have very many benefits to give people in domestic partner relationships. The bulk of the benefits that are given to married people come through the federal or the state government. The state can give things like um, they can give how you buy property, how you handle inheritance, how you go through probate,” Appling says.
Appling says what makes the proposed registry for state employees objectionable to her is that those workers would be allowed to make end of life decisions for their partners. She says that imitates marriage, and her group plans a court challenge if the Legislature approves the measure. State Rep. Mark Pocan of Madison supports the proposed registry, particularly for employees in the UW system.
“We’re literally surrounded by every university system around Wisconsin offers it. We’re the only one in the Big Ten that doesn’t offer it and we’ve had researchers and instructors leave the university system literally with millions of dollars worth of grants because they weren’t offered health and benefits,” Pocan says.
Unlike Milwaukee, which opted to include unmarried opposite sex couples to avoid a discrimination complaint, the proposed state registry would apply only to same sex couples. A spokeswoman for Governor Doyle says if heterosexual couples want to participate in the state plan, they can get married.
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