Cost halts partner benefits debate

Atlantic County officials admit they didn't expect to proceed without some kind of reaction on a proposal to extend benefits to the domestic partners of their employees.

They were right: Opponents and supporters showed up when the measure was introduced at Tuesday's Atlantic County Board of Chosen Freeholders' meeting and have since placed a flurry of telephone calls and sent e-mails to county officials.

While much of the reaction is based on ideology, ranging from charges that the proposal represents an approval of what opponents consider a gay lifestyle to it being a required extension of civil rights, a significant portion of the response involves how much it will cost taxpayers.

That question in part delayed the Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders from approving the measure, which it finally did last week. It's something Atlantic County freeholders also want to find out.

But organizations, such as American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a University of California-Los Angeles think tank and officials in Bergen County, which extended benefits to its employees' domestic partners a year ago, say the cost is minimal, and fewer people than expected are signing up for the program.

Only two Bergen County employees signed up since the program went into effect in January 2005, county spokesman Brian Hague said.

“It's really cost us nothing,” he said. “It hasn't raised our insurance rates. It hasn't affected our pension costs. We have seen no increases.”

“It's actually a negligible cost,” said Steven Kreisberg, a collective bargaining director at the Washington headquarters of AFSCME, a union that represents government employees throughout the country. “ There is no reasonable financial argument that can be made against it anymore.”

When New Jersey passed its Domestic Partnership Act in 2004, it estimated that about one percent of its government workforce would join the program.

A report by UCLA's Williams Project on Sexual Orientation and Law and Public Policy estimates the figure to be much lower at about .03 percent. An exact number wasn't available.

The Williams Project estimate was done as part of a study it did independently to find out how much the program would cost Ocean County. The Williams Project estimated the cost at less than $70,000 a year, significantly less than the $250,000 annual cost predicted by Ocean County.

“A lot of (domestic) partners already have insurance,” said Lee Badgett, a visiting professor who conducted the Williams Project study. “No one has seen higher than expected health-care costs.”

Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson said he sent the measure to the freeholders on Jan. 20 after getting a request for the program from a county employee.

Levinson said there's no way the county can estimate how much the program will cost.

“I don't know the number of homosexuals we have working for us,” he said. “I don't know how many workers there are entering into a legal, binding domestic partnership agreement.”

But the issue of economics is one reason why Atlantic County's freeholders voted on Tuesday to delay action on the measure.

Atlantic County Freeholder James Curcio said most of the freeholders saw the proposal only a few hours before they were scheduled to deal with it during their 4 p.m. meeting.

“I think the county executive has moved too quickly on this proposal, “ Curcio said. “Even if we are going to patch a roof, we refer the matter to committee.

“Unlike Ocean County, we have the benefit of time to really examine the proposal and get some type of idea of what it's going to cost. We have not been provided any information.”

Ocean County approved its measure on Wednesday.

The move came as the condition of Lt. Laurel Hester, a retired 24-year veteran investigator of the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, continued to deteriorate. Hester is dying of lung cancer and had sought since the summer to leave her pension to her partner, Stacie Andree.

As for the action by Atlantic County's freeholders, Levinson said, “If they want more information, that's fine.”

“We got a formal request from an employee,” Levinson said. “I believe it was fair that we gave a response. The right thing to do was to send to the freeholders for them to vote it up or down.

“This is a very conscientious freeholder board. They always have been. I wouldn't expect them to rush to judgement.

“It's not an easy thing, because people are passionate” on both sides of the issue, he said.

That passion is likely to show itself at future Atlantic County freeholder meetings, as opponents said Tuesday's decision to table the measure gives them time to rally supporters.

But others contend their arguments will fall on the face of the financial facts.

“There is an element of homophobia,” said Kreisberg. “People who oppose it on moral grounds always try to fall back on the costs.”