Palm Beach Gardens, Florida (GayWebSource.com) — Instead of the traditional flowers and chocolates, lesbian and gay employees of the City of Palm Beach Gardens are hoping to give their partners health insurance coverage this Valentine’s Day.
On Valentine’s Day, attorney Jessica Blackman, a Palm Beach Gardens resident and Vice President of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, wrote to City Council Members “to encourage the City of Palm Beach Gardens to join the dozens of Florida public employers that offer their employees domestic partnership health insurance coverage.”
The Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, a non-profit organization, has been the prime mover for domestic partnership benefits for public employers in Palm Beach County for more than two decades.
Accompanying Blackman’s letter was a comprehensive report, Workplace Equality: Domestic Partnership Health Insurance Benefits for Municipal Employees, which was prepared specifically for the Palm Beach Gardens City Council.
Palm Beach Gardens formally recognized employees’ domestic partners since 2006 when the City Council unanimously voted to extend basic domestic partnership benefits.
“Palm Beach Gardens recognizes employees’ domestic partners with regard to personal leave, acute illness leave, bereavement leave and the Employee Assistance Program,” said Blackman. “On Valentine’s Day, it seems appropriate to ask the City Council to now offer the same family health insurance benefits to employees with domestic partnerships as the city has long offered to married employees.”
Although the City Council considered offering a domestic partnership heath insurance benefit in 2006, the City Council declined to do so because of economic uncertainly at that time.
“Fortunately, the economy in Palm Beach Gardens is turning around,” said Blackman. “The City’s fiscal management has succeeded to the extent that there is now a budget surplus.”
Palm Beach Gardens has also achieved savings in its significant health care cost savings through its Health and Wellness Center which provides care for municipal employees and their families.
“Allowing city employees’ domestic partners and their children to utilize the Health and Wellness Center will make that program even more cost-effective,” said Blackman.
The Palm Beach County Human Rights Council is currently working on domestic partnership health insurance matters with the City of Boca Raton and the Town of Palm Beach.
Locally, domestic partnership health insurance benefits are currently offered by the municipalities of Delray Beach, Jupiter, Lake Worth, Wellington and West Palm Beach, as well as by Palm Beach County, the Palm Beach County School District, the Port of Palm Beach, the Palm Beach County Health Care District, Palm Beach State College, the Children’s Services Council, Palm Tran, Seacoast Utility Authority, the Solid Waste Authority and all five of Palm Beach County’s constitutional officers.
More than sixty public employers across Florida now provide domestic partnership benefits to their employees.
Media provided by GayWebSource.com – Gay Media and Press Network.
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