When Tampa police officer Lois Marrero was killed in the line of duty last year, the question of who would receive her pension benefits became national news. Marrero's longtime partner Mickie Mashburn filed to receive the benefits|but the pension board denied her claim in a nearly unanimous decision. Mashburn is now taking the matter to the courts.
In the meantime, a coalition of police officers, firefighters, city employees and Tampa residents is putting together a plan that would strengthen the rights of unmarried partners all over the city.
Every Family Counts, along with gay and lesbian rights group Equality Florida, would like to see the city adopt a domestic partner ordinance similar to one recently adopted by the District of Columbia. The ordinance would allow domestic partners of city employees to receive health and death benefits comparable to those offered to married employees, said Karen Doering, an attorney with Equality Florida.
It also would create a registry maintained by the city where domestic partners can apply for a license that acknowledges that in today's society the definition of family has evolved.
It's not like a mini-marriage license, said Doering. "There are about 1,500 rights given to married couples; this would give partners about 15," she said.
Some of those rights are important ones. Unacknowledged partners can be left out of the decision-making process in a medical emergency. Even if patients haven't spoken to their family in years, it's their kin and not their live-in partners who are qualified to make decisions as far as hospitals are concerned. The ordinance would resolve this issue by allowing partners an easy way to let hospitals know who should be calling the shots, said Doering, and the ordinance would require hospitals to comply.
Of course, domestic partners could make those sorts of arrangements without a city registry, Doering admits. But an ordinance on the books would help people avoid excess paperwork and legal fees.
And it's not just a gay or lesbian issue. There are myriad reasons why heterosexual couples decide not to marry. Some elderly couples can't afford to lose their former spouse's benefits, and young couples engaged to be married often live together before taking the plunge.
Those partners should receive some of the same benefits as married employees, said police officer F. Pecora.
City Council member Linda Saul-Sena agrees. Since last year, said Saul-Sena, the city has been making strides to extend benefits to domestic partners. This year Saul-Sena met with representatives of Every Family Counts to put together a preliminary plan. "I very much believe in fairness and this is a fairness issue," said Saul-Sena.
Saul-Sena hasn't given much thought to the registry, but she isn't opposed to it. The city doesn't have an office with a recording function because the county handles land transactions and marriage licenses. But if a fee were charged for registering, the city could implement the program with very little cost involved. "I would support that," she said.
What Saul-Sena has been focused on is benefits. The city currently allows employees to name someone other than their spouse as beneficiary on life insurance policies, said Saul-Sena. Although the wording on the policy for funeral and sick leave refers to immediate family, supervisors are told to interpret that as anyone in the immediate household. The city plans to change the wording to match the reality.
Health and pension benefits are where the issue gets a little sticky. They both cost money and the city council is loath to spend a whole lot of it, said Saul-Sena. While council members were in favor of talking about making changes, they are waiting to hear the final cost before they actually implement any of them.
Some of the preliminary research suggests that when employees are able to extend health benefits to unrelated dependents, same sex partners and unmarried couples, few actually take advantage of it, said Saul-Sena. The role of breadwinner has expanded just as rapidly as the definition of family, she said, and in most households both partners work for employers that offer benefits. The city is considering a survey of employees to see just how many would sign up for extra coverage.
But cost isn't everything, said Doering. In a time when there are millions of uninsured citizens, expanding benefits to a wider pool of people is one step in the right direction, she said. Uninsured citizens eventually cost everyone more money.
And just because employees put a dependent or partner on their health insurance policy doesn't mean that the city would have to pay for it. The city could elect to offer the additional health coverage only to those who are willing to pay the extra costs.
While the city decides who gets health and pension benefits for most city employees, the issue of pension benefits for police officers may have to be decided in court. Chapter 185 of the Florida Statutes regulates municipal police officer retirement and pension plans. New rules passed in 1999 allowed unmarried officers to name anyone they wish as the beneficiary for benefits when an officer is killed in the line of duty.
The Marrero situation was caused by the city dragging its feet, said Doering. The new rule was supposed to go into effect by July 1, 2000, she said, but Tampa police officers weren't given that option until July 3, 2001.
Marrero was killed just three days later.
And that's not the only way the Police and Fire Pension Board bent the rules.
According to Doering, all local plans, including Tampa's, must comply with the minimum standards in Chapter 185. Any variation must be in the direction of providing police officers with greater protections. Tampa's plan provides less. If married officers are killed in the line of duty, their spouse receives pension benefits for the remainder of their lives. If unmarried officers with a domestic partner lose their lives protecting the public, their partner would receive benefits only up to $50,000 or 10 years, whichever comes first.
Police and Fire Pension Board Chairman Tom Singleton said that the law is open to interpretation and the city was remiss only in Doering's legal opinion. The new rule had to be funneled through the proper channels before it was implemented, he said, and that took some time.
"There was some delay," he said. "As an opinion, I would say it wasn't our fault."
No matter who dropped the ball, said Doering, there was a responsibility to get it done by the deadline. The Legislature gave the city an entire year to shuttle it through the proper channels, she said.
But the bad timing is a problem only for Mashburn at this point. The larger issue is the 10-year limit for domestic partners. The Legislature did not give municipalities the option of offering fewer benefits to officers killed in the line of duty, said Doering, and the limit, as it stands, is illegal.
"From the pension board's standpoint, we followed the law," said Singleton. A judge will decide who's right.
Even if the courts agree with Singleton, officers are preparing to push for a change.
Officer Pecora isn't married and she doesn't currently have any plans to get married. Before the death of Marrero, she didn't think about whom her pension would go to if something happened to her. Since then, she's thought about it a lot, and the way unmarried officers are treated is unfair, she said.
Unmarried officers contribute the same amount of money to the fund. When they die in the line of duty, "your beneficiary, who you love no less, only gets benefits for 10 years," said Pecora. "When Lois died, people got a clear picture of just how unfair that policy is."
According to Saul-Sena, the city is still researching the costs and benefits of passing a domestic partnership ordinance, and not all of the facts have been presented to the full council. Although there's reason to be optimistic, she said, it's tough to say which way the council will go. "If constituents want it and they charged a fee, it probably would go through," she said. "But you never can tell."
Contact Staff Writer Rochelle Renford at 813-248-8888, ext. 163, or rochelle.renford@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2002.