UGA Offering Some Benefits for Domestic Partners

“If we want to stay competitive for recruiting top faculty, it’s essential that we catch up in this regard.  This is not about leading the pack, it’s about us catching up with what other universities are doing,” says Dr. Janet Frick, with UGA’s Human Resources Committee.  

Some unmarried University of Georgia employees will soon be able to provide benefits for their significant others. WABE's John Lorinc reports.

This is one of the last moves for outgoing president Michael F. Adams and Frick says it took a long time to get to this point.

She says about 75 percent of UGA’s peer schools across the country offer some benefits to employees with domestic partners.

In the state, Georgia State University, Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State University already do.

UGA workers will be paying for these benefits, which means the school isn’t going to need state money to cover the costs.

“At other universities that have implemented these types of programs, it’s typically been between .5 and 1 percent of all benefits eligible employees.  So we’re estimating about 50 people,” says Frick.

The plan is scheduled to go into effect in the 2014 benefit year.  

Frick says is glad to see it come through, even though she won’t be signing up.  She, her husband of 22 years and their two kids are already covered.

“I would not benefit personally, other that knowing that my friends and colleagues, will be recognized in the same way that my family is recognized,” says Frick.

She says this move makes the University of Georgia the first public college in the South to implement some benefits for domestic partners.