PUBLIC SECTOR PATTERNS Domestic Partnership Benefits

In recent years, a number of cities and counties have been modifying their employee benefit programs to extend coverage that was traditionally limited to the spouse and minor children of an employee to include other persons important in the employee’s life. Such persons are usually referred to as domestic partners. This study examines the ways in which 23 local governments have chosen to define domestic partners and the types of employee benefit coverage that have been extended to them. ne of the fastest changing areas of public personnel ~ ~ ~ management in the past decade has been the field of t N employee benefits. Most of this change has occurred at0 the state and local government levels, although the ~――――――― ~ dramatic changes in the retirement system for federal employees in the mid-1980s are consistent with this trend. Flexible benefit plans, dependent care and medical reimbursement accounts, employee assistance programs, and deferred compensation plans all represent new types of benefit programs for public employees. Replac-ing defined benefit pension programs with defined contribution retirement plans, adjustments in the level of employee contributions toward health care, and providing extended periods of unpaid leave for illnesses represent significant changes in long-standing programs. These changes in employee benefit offerings by public employers result from a combination of factors, including changes in federal law and tax regulations, the benefit needs of a changing workforce versus the changing benefit needs of the traditional workforce, and the efforts of public employers to restrain, if not reduce, costs. In addition to instituting new benefit programs for employees, public sector employers in recent years have been confronted by a different type of demand from employees concerning employee benefits. Whereas many of the new employee benefit programs have responded to changing family responsi-bilities of employees (e.g., dependent care spending accounts, eldercare referral networks, long term care insurance, extended periods of unpaid family leave) (Shafritz, et al., 1992:517-538), some employees are asking em