NOREEN: Cost of same-sex benefits? Negligible
Colorado Springs City Hall is considering increases in what its workers must contribute toward their health-insurance premiums starting in 2011, and that’s probably going to happen.
In effect, it is a pay cut for the city’s General Fund employees. The change will carve into raises and bonuses received by employees of Colorado Springs Utilities.
Something else that will happen: The same-sex partners of city workers and those employed by the city’s enterprises still won’t be eligible for health care benefits.
Across Colorado and the nation, same-sex benefits are a growing trend. A majority of the Fortune 500 companies offer the benefits, as do the cities of Denver, Crested Butte, Telluride, Aspen, Boulder and Glendale.
Since July 1, about 32,000 state employees have been eligible for same-sex benefits (see my blog), but only 93 filled out notarized affidavits for the benefits. That’s less than 1 percent.
“There hasn’t been a run on the store,” joked Rich Gonzales, director of the Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration, who added that an estimate for the cost to the state is $274,000. One of Gonzales’s analysts, Jennifer Okes, said the agency had figured on 40-60 workers signing up, but the total of 93 is hardly alarming.
No, Colorado has not tumbled into the sea.
Colorado Springs joined the trend by offering the benefits in 2002, then bucked the trend by eliminating them less than a year later. The number of employees applying for them remained in the single digits.
“The overall budget impact was minimal,” Councilman Scott Hente said.
Even minimal budget impacts are being scrutinized more than ever. This year there are no champions for the issue and “it’s been a while since anyone even suggested it,” Hente observed.
But it is inescapable that “justice for all” is just as subject to the financial uncertainties of the recession as a pothole on Academy Boulevard. See, we’d like to do the right thing, but right now, it’s too expensive.
Kristy Milligan, director of Citizens Project, confirmed her organization has placed the issue “on the back burner for now.”
Politically, it probably makes sense for Citizens Project to wait for another City Council election, because there will be a lot of turnover next year. Mayor Lionel Rivera, who swept into office by making a huge issue out of benefits that were going to just six city employees, will be gone after April, as will Councilman Darryl Glenn, another staunch opponent of the benefits.
Maybe then we can get a council majority to understand that a gay police officer can stop a bullet in the same fashion a straight one does — and that we should protect all city employees’ families in the same way.
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