Township to extend benefits to domestic partners

BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer

Brick may become one of the first municipalities in Ocean County to offer health and pension benefits to township employees who are registered domestic partners.

“I don’t think anybody’s going to have a problem with it,” Township Council Vice President Stephen C. Acropolis said after Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli proposed the resolution at the Jan. 24 council meeting. “It’s very good.”

Same-gender couples and heterosexual couples 62 and over became eligible to register for domestic partner status after a state law was enacted in 2004.

The state law covered state employees but allowed counties and municipalities to decide on their own if they wanted to extend health benefits and pensions to domestic partners.

“It appears the council will approve it,” Scarpelli said. “I think it’s going to make people’s lives better.”

Jackson Township is also considering a resolution to extend health and pension benefits to domestic partners.

The catalyst for this public policy change can be found in Point Pleasant resident Lt. Laurel Hester.

The critically ill officer, who is retired from the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, and gay rights activists began protesting the Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders’ meetings in October after the board denied Hester’s request to extend benefits to her domestic partner.

Protesters encouraged state residents to boycott Ocean County and promised to funnel an unlimited amount of funds into board members’ opponents’ campaign coffers if the board did not fulfill Hester’s request, according to published reports.

Last month, Hester won her battle against the freeholders when they supported a resolution that enabled Hester’s pension system PFRS (Police and Firemen’s Retirement System) to extend the benefits to their members’ domestic partners.

Now municipalities are following the freeholders’ lead.

Brick administrators are using model resolutions from Woodbridge, Asbury Park and Hamilton — towns that have already made the policy change, Township Business Administrator Scott MacFadden said.

Brick employs approximately 430 people, MacFadden said. Health benefits and pension benefits would be offered to the domestic partners of all of Brick’s current or retired employees.

“I think this is a great thing,” he said.

Of the 33 couples who are registered domestic partners in Brick, 26 live in town, Municipal Clerk Virginia Lampman said.

“It’s not like a marriage license,” she said. “You don’t have to be a resident to apply. You can come from anywhere. Sometimes people purposely go to another town for privacy issues.”

The council may vote on the resolution at its Feb. 14 meeting.

Staff writer Joyce Blay contributed to this report.