In 2004, Ohio University revised its health care policy to provide benefits to domestic partners of its employees. Eight years later, the City of Athens is following suit.
In the coming weeks Athens City Council is expected to pass an ordinance that would extend health care benefits to domestic partners of city employees and their children.
This expansion of health care coverage is the final part of a three-step process by City Council to make Athens friendlier to the LGBTA community. City Council has already passed legislation that created a definition for hate crimes and implemented a registry for domestic partnerships.
The Committee to Move Athens Forward — a group of OU students and faculty and local residents — recommended the ordinances as part of its goal to increase LGBTA awareness in Athens.
Members of the committee worked alongside City Council to help write the ordinances, said Tracy Kelly, former president of Graduate Student Senate.
“This (health care ordinance) is the final piece to the puzzle we worked on,” Kelly said.
While designing their own health care plan, city officials used OU’s health care plan as a model, said Councilwoman Chris Knisely, D-At Large.
To qualify for the benefits, employees must live together in a combined household and share living expenses, Athens City Auditor Kathy Hecht said.
Knisely said 39 city employees meet these criteria, but not all are anticipated to use the plan.
Even if all employees chose to use the plan, however, the additional cost would be justified, Hecht said.
“It’s a good precedent, and we should be (implementing the program),” Hecht said.
Health care coverage for domestic partners is becoming more common around the state, said Councilman Elahu Gosney, D-At Large, though neither the city of Bowling Green nor the city of Oxford offer such benefits.
“I think it speaks loudly when any city, big or small, chooses to embrace domestic partnership benefits,” said Virginia Martin, program coordinator for OU’s LGBT Center.
Athens City Council in particular should be praised, Kelly said.
“I think that it has been a long time coming, and I am very proud of the work our community has done,” she said.
While the potential health care benefits affect members of the LGBTA community, heterosexual couples in combined households also qualify.
City Council is doing everything within its power to protect the well-being of all city employees, Gosney said.
“We are treating all our employees fairly and equally in showing them that we care for them and their loved ones,” he said.
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