A.G. Monaco

"This has been discussed for years among the administrators on this campus," said A.G. Monaco, director of human resources."The employees who have same-sex domestic partners will be treated exactly the same as a married employee."

Monaco said although exact numbers aren't available, the cost of the benefit will be "miniscule."At the University of Illinois, which has thousands more employees than SIUE, less than two dozen people signed up for the benefit, he said.

"We don't even come close to covering all the spouses of married employees, because most are in two-income families," Monaco said.

Safe Zone, an on-campus group advocating equality for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people, has been lobbying for this benefit for some time.Their representatives argued that because health benefits are considered part of an employee's compensation, denying them to gay employees' partners was a violation of equal pay.

But Monaco said it's also good business to offer the benefit.

"In the pool of people we recruit from, this is a benefit viewed by people as an important determinant of whether they want to work there, whether they're heterosexual or homosexual," Monaco said.
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While SIUC has been embroiled in a debate over how to verify a same-sex relationship, Monaco said SIUE has no plans to investigate same-sex couples' commitment.

"I don't want to determine how deeply committed married couples are," Monaco said."I've worked for organizations employing more than 100,000 people, and I've dealt with coverage for same-sex couples for more than 20 years.... I've never seen anyone sign up coverage for a domestic partner when they didn't have one.That's just not something people cheat on."

Monaco said the Faculty Senate and Staff Senate are both in favor of the policy."It was one of those things where I don't know anyone who said no," he said.

A.G. Monaco618-650-2101amonaco@siue.edu

Associate Director ofHuman Resources at SIUE

A.G. Monaco amonaco@siue.edu Director Human Resources