EVERETT — Everett may soon join scores of other Washington cities that offer health coverage to employees’ domestic partners.
The Everett City Council is scheduled today to vote on extending the same medical, dental and vision insurance coverage to qualifying domestic partners and dependents of the city’s 1,100 employees. The new perk would apply to heterosexual and same-sex couples.
“We’re really behind the curve on this in terms of other governments and industry,” City Councilman Drew Nielsen said.
A majority of the council must approve the change. Councilman Arlan Hatloe, who opposes same-sex marriage, said he plans on voting against the measure on moral grounds.
If approved, Everett would only be the third city in Snohomish County to extend domestic partner benefits to its employees behind Bothell and Sultan. Other large regional employers — including Snohomish County, the Boeing Co. and Microsoft — already offer the benefits to employees.
Everett officials say they anticipate about 32 of the city’s 1,108 employees, about 3.4 percent of its work force, will enroll in the new benefits program and it will cost the city about $250,000 more than it pays now for health insurance every year. The new benefits would go into effect Jan. 1.
To qualify for domestic-partner coverage, city employees would have to live with partners, be in an “exclusive and emotionally committed” relationship, not be married to anyone and have a number of shared responsibilities, according to the proposal.
Vancouver, Wash., which has a similar number of employees as Everett, already provides domestic-partner benefits, and 43 of its 1,030 employees are enrolled, according to a recent Association of Washington Cities report.
The proposal to broaden who can receive benefits in Everett comes at a time when the traditional structure of the family is growing more diverse to include unmarried heterosexual couples with children and same-sex couples, Council President Brenda Stonecipher said.
The change was prompted by the City Council and mayor’s office, and not by the city’s employee unions, she said.
This spring, Bellevue extended domestic partnership benefits, less than a week after a gay-rights advocacy group filed suit on behalf of three city employees, who live in same-sex relationships.
No employees have filed discrimination claims against Everett.
“The fact that we haven’t heard about it doesn’t mean there’s not a not fairness and equity issue that we haven’t been meeting,” Stonecipher said.
Karen Baggen, a bus driver with Everett Transit, said she is ecstatic that the city is considering domestic partner benefits. Her former partner avoided doctor and dentist visits because she was uninsured.
“Gays, lesbians and domestic partners all deserve the same rights as everyone else,” Baggen said. “We really couldn’t afford private insurance, so we had to hope she didn’t get sick.”
Baggen said she researched domestic-partner benefits a few years ago and learned that Sound Transit began offering them to employees in 2003.
Her union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 883, raised the issue during the last round of negotiations with Everett, but ultimately took the issue off the bargaining table when it learned of the city’s plans to extend the benefits on its own, said Steve Oss, president of the union that represents about 100 city transit workers.
Everett officials say the changes will keep the city competitive and help it recruit and retrain good employees.
Domestic partnership coverage, often viewed as a gay-rights issue, has grown to include opposite-sex partners who seek medical coverage.
Last year, the state Human Rights Commission investigated a complaint by a heterosexual woman who said her employer discriminated against her based on sexual orientation because it did not extend the same domestic-partner benefits to unmarried, straight couples as it did gay and lesbian couples.
Marc Brenman, executive director of the state watchdog group, said the woman’s case was dropped because the commission had no jurisdiction over her private employer.
Even so, the commission recommends that public employers either offer domestic partner benefits to everyone or not offer them at all.
“Those decisions should be made without regard to sexual orientation,” Brenman said.
Because of that interpretation, the city of Sultan, which began offering domestic-partner benefits to heterosexual couples four years ago, is re-evaluating the policy as it negotiates new employee contracts, city administrator Deborah Knight said.
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com
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