 "Photo: Jeffrey McWhorter")
The Domestic Partner Benefits Committee presented its 70-page report, "Questions and Answers About Domestic Partner Benefits," to UT President William Powers on Monday.
The committee has worked on the report for about a year as part of UT's Pride and Equity Faculty Staff Association's effort to change the University's health care plan, which does not extend coverage to same-sex spouses or other non-married dependents of UT employees.
"I think their report is all well and they should go on ahead with it," Powers said after the meeting.
Lynne Milburn, co-chair of the association, said she felt momentum behind the change.
"We all left the meeting feeling really positive. He really heard us. We presented the report, and I think the detail level was new to him, and I think he appreciated that," Milburn said. "What's so exciting is that he really cares about this."
Milburn said Powers was planning to research the topic on his own and wants to meet with the group again in two to four weeks.
"I see this as an excellent foundation," she said. "Our next step is to just wait for the two to four weeks."
The report said UT needs to provide health care benefits to employees' domestic partners to maintain equity and competitiveness.
To add domestic partner benefits to UT's health insurance budget would cost an additional 0.58 percent of the current budget.
UT Human Resource Services calculated a hypothetical situation involving two faculty members' situations to compare the differences in compensation between a legally married heterosexual employee and one in a same-sex relationship. The two employees were both 46 years old and had a base salary of $80,000.
With health benefits, the employee living in a domestic partnership earned $8,108 less in total compensation than the married employee. Employees in domestic partnerships earned less because they could not provide health insurance for their dependent others.
The report also contained several faculty and staff narratives and the effects on their lives of the lack of domestic partner benefits. This included stories from professors who left UT because of the issue and faculty who have chosen to not take jobs at UT because of the existing policy.
The Pride and Equity Faculty Staff Association recommended in the report that Powers lead the initiative to offer domestic partner benefits at UT by working with the association, other University administrators and Texas advocacy groups. Together, members of the groups can develop a plan to implement domestic partner benefits and supplement faculty and staff salaries affected by this policy to compensate for the inequity until domestic partner benefits can be provided.
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