OHIO UNIVERSITIES Some offer benefits to same-sex partners

One outgoing president calls the matter one of 'economic fairness.'
COLUMBUS (AP) -- The manager of chemistry labs at Miami University was suspicious when she read the e-mail that after 13 years of being turned down, she and other employees would be able to add their same-sex partners to their health insurance and other benefits starting Thursday. Now Amanda Whinery is a believer.
Miami and Ohio universities are the first of the state's public four-year schools to offer health and dental coverage, free tuition and other paid benefits to employees' partners. Cleveland State University said it will soon follow.
The forms weren't ready yet at Miami on Monday, so Whinery says she will return to the personnel office Thursday to sign up her partner of 15 years, who has been uninsured for the past year.
"It makes such a big impact on our household, financially and securitywise," Whinery said. "It's equal pay for equal work."
Robert Glidden, who retires today as president of Ohio University in Athens, announced the change at his final board of trustees meeting. "We are doing this as a matter of fundamental economic fairness," he said.
The benefits will help recruit and keep employees, said James Garland, president of Oxford-based Miami.
"The university is not weighing in on the issue of gay marriage and gay rights," he said. "It's primarily a business decision."
Resolutions passed
Trustees at both schools passed resolutions supporting the benefits even though no action was required.
Cleveland State has clauses in three of its four union contracts requiring it to offer paid benefits to same-sex domestic partners if any of the state's other public universities do so. The benefits will be offered universitywide, said Joseph Nolan, vice president of administration. Nolan plans to meet with the unions in about 10 days to negotiate details such as when the plan takes effect and how the benefits will be taxed.
Other four-year universities and Ohio's two public medical schools with partial or no benefits for domestic partners said they have no immediate plans to change, but many are watching the policies of other schools. The issue frequently comes up in contract negotiations at schools with union-represented employees.
Kent State University has had meetings recently on the topic. A faculty-staff committee at Bowling Green State University plans to have a report by fall about whether the benefits should be offered.
"This is an issue of competition with other universities and even private businesses," Kent State spokesman Ron Kirksey said. "It looks like everybody is looking at this now."
The Youngstown State University faculty contract expires next summer, the first of four pacts to come up for negotiation, spokesman Ron Cole said. "Certainly the decisions from the other universities are going to play a role in that."
The state's nearly two-month-old ban on same-sex marriage does not affect universities' employment benefits such as insurance, said Rep. Bill Seitz, the Cincinnati Republican who wrote the law that took effect May 7. It applies to specific privileges granted by law to married people, he said, such as refusing to testify against a spouse in court, transferring pension benefits to a surviving spouse or filing a joint tax return.
"What I think about their decision is not important, because the bill does not preclude them from making that decision," Seitz said Monday. Gov. Bob Taft and the Ohio Board of Regents said the business decisions are up to individual employers.