By Tara Cavanaugh
Shutterstock image
LANSING –Senate Republicans have begun the process of reversing the decision by the Michigan Civil Service Commission to offer benefits to partners of state employees.
The MCSC made the 3-1 ruling in January to offer one "other eligible adult" of state employees benefits. The OEA has to live with the employee, share finances, and not be a tenant. The OEA's dependents are also eligible.
Republicans need a supermajority of support to overturn the MCSC ruling. State Senator Rebekah Warren, D-18, said it will be easy for Republicans to get a supermajority in the state Senate, where they outnumber Democrats 26-12, but she said it might be more difficult to pass it in the state House, where Republicans hold a 63-47 majority.
"The elections were pretty hard on Democrats," Warren said. "We certainly have less allies this year than we've had in a long time. So I'd be nervous that they'd be able to get the vote."
The Senate and the House will vote on overturning the MCSC decision next week.
"I have concerns about stepping in to reverse something that the independent commission put forward," Warren said. She said she does not know of any other instance where the state legislature overturned a MCSC decision.
"I think the appropriate place to handle something like this is at the bargaining table," said Ray Holman, the legislative liaison for the UAW Local 6,000, the biggest union of Michigan state employees. "This was negotiated. We deal with the office of state employer who speaks with the governor and the MCSC, and it's not really appropriate for the legislature to try to overturn the civil service commission."
The MCSC is a state constitution-created entity of four officials that administers civil services and human resource services. It was formed in 1908.
Even though the MCSC decision does not only offer benefits for same-sex partners, it was celebrated by the LGBT community. It was also decried by many state Republicans as wasteful spending. Gov. Rick Snyder said he was "frustrated and disappointed" at the additional cost.
Debbie Drick, chief of staff for Sen. Mark Jansen, R-28, said Jansen believes that "we can't afford what we have, so it just makes no sense to add more widespread debt."
The biggest problem, Drick said, is that the "Other Eligible Adult" label is unstructured, so it seems that nearly anyone could access the benefits. "There's no distinction between partner or roommate or a person off the street," she said, adding that the argument against the benefits has nothing to do with social issues: "It's all about money."
Estimates on the cost vary. Some Republican leaders have projected the cost could be as high as $20 million. Warren said that she's heard estimates that the benefits could cost up to $6 million, but "it all depends on how many of our workers choose to participate. We just don't know.
"But we do know when our workers have good health care, there's less absenteeism," Warren continued, "and if you have a sick partner or child that's another leading cause of absenteeism in workers."
Holman doesn't think the cost would go as high as Republicans think. "I know that other institutions and businesses have similar benefit programs and it's not running them into the ground," he said.
Offering OEA benefits does cost more than just offering same-sex partner benefits, Holman said, because more people are eligible for OEA benefits. In order to make the benefits legal in Michigan, the offer had to be expanded to more than just same-sex partners.
Prior to the MCSC's decision in January, former Gov. Jennifer Granholm negotiated same-sex partner benefits with the state employee union. But in 2008, the state Supreme Court ruled that such benefits, called "domestic partner benefits" or "same-sex partner benefits," were illegal because marriage, and any benefits attached to it, is restricted to one man and one woman, due to a law voted on by Michigan citizens in 2004.
