Domestic partnership resolution progresses toward Senate floor

More than six months after it had been brought to the Georgia College & State University Senate, the domestic partnership resolution resurfaced in a forum last Wednesday, where faculty discussed the financial and social ramifications of sending the resolution to the Board of Regents.

Hosted by Dr. Jerry Fly, chair of the GC&SU Budget and Planning Committee, the meeting was held to help educate members of that committee, who will decide whether or not to send the resolution to the Senate.

‘This past spring, the budget planning committee, which is one of the four committees of the University Senate, as assigned the domestic partnership resolution to be considered, but at that time it had two features to it,” Fly said at the start of the hearing. “It had the domestic partnership resolution, but it also had something dealing with supporting the SGA’s non-discrimination policy. When it got to the Senate, they decided to separate the two for vote and the Senate approved the non-discrimination policy,” said Fly.

“But they directed us to reevaluate and gain more knowledge and put together a hearing on the domestic partnership part of it.”

Fly said the committee first questioned the cost of implementing the benefits, but

according to art professor Dr. Roxanne Farrar, money is no reason to table the resolution.

“What we are doing is we’re signally our support to the Board of Regents,” Farrar said in the meeting. “The Board of Regents will make the decision about who’s going to pay for it. That’s just a way that’s complicating this issue.”

But for those who asked for specific numbers, music therapy professor Doug Keith came prepared with research on the matter.

” A study that was done by a coalition of people in the University System of Georgia, shows that there really is a minimal impact on overall budgets,” Keith said.

The study suggested that passing the resolution would increase the total number of faculty enrolled by approximately 1 percent.

The final cost, however, cannot be determined until the entire University System is examined.

“Just because you add domestic partners doesn’t mean those partners would want all of the benefits,” said Bonnie Sims, director of Human Resources, “so you really need an aerial view of the entire system of Georgia to determine if there would be a cost at all. Everybody who enrolls in insurance enrolls differently.”

Sims explained the current state of benefits on campus and suggested that the issue is not one of sexual orientation.

“What [domestic partners] cannot get now is medical insurance, dental insurance and dependent life. Dental and dependent life cost the institution nothing. The employee pays 100 percent of the premium. The way the University does it now is that you must be legally married or you must have children. So that means all domestic partners. If you’re making a recommendation, it has nothing to do with whether it’s same-sex or opposite-sex.”

Dr. Susan Cumings, program coordinator of Women’s Studies and professor of English, said diversity, racially and beyond, is critical to GC&SU’s faculty and staff recruitment.

“We’re a campus that stands for diversity of all kinds and it’s important to us to be public about the fact that we are an open community,” Cumings said. “It’s important in our recruitment of good faculty, not just gay faculty, because I, as a straight person, would look a little more carefully at places that did or did not make that a part of who they are publicly. It’s about equality. The impact financially is minimal, and also, that shouldn’t be the question.”

Scott Dillard, a proponent of the resolution from the start, said the hearing went well, but is weary of the resolution getting past the senate.

“I think it went very well,” Dillard said. “My fear is that they’ll bring up what constitutes a domestic partnerships benefits partner and get bogged down on that and that’s not what the resolution asks them to do. People that don’t want to see it happen are going to try to find something to bog it down.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 22 2004. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry