Random Acts of Chaos

Just as social issues are stealing some of the economy’s thunder in the Republican presidential nomination contest, the Obama administration is preparing to finalize regulations that would advance benefits for the same-sex partners of federal employees.

The regulations were proposed many months ago, but plans to make them final in this election year could draw distinctions between the approach President Obama and the GOP hopefuls take on social issues in general and those affecting gay men and lesbians in the federal workforce in particular.

And faced with a Republican-dominated House, the administration believes it must do what it can through regulation while still advocating related legislation, even when prospects for it are dim in this Congress.

“We’ve been working hard on a lot of domestic partner benefits,” Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry said in a recent interview. “We will continue to pursue domestic partner benefit legislation for FEHBP [Federal Employees Health Benefits Program] and retiree benefits as an administration priority.”

The proposed regulations cover five areas:

●Allowing an employee to obtain child-care subsidies for the children of a same-sex domestic partner.

●Providing evacuation pay to cover an employee’s same-sex partner from an overseas location in the event of an emergency.

●Treating domestic partners like spouses for purposes of choosing an insurable interest option at retirement. This could provide a survivor annuity for a same-sex partner.

●●Making same-sex domestic partners of federal employees eligible for noncompetitive federal jobs when a staffer returns from an overseas assignment.

●Clarifying that the domestic partner of an employee may take advantage of an agency’s employee assistance program. The basic program services, according to OPM, include free, short-term counseling and referral for various issues affecting employees, such as substance abuse, stress, grief, family problems and psychological disorders.

“We issued those as proposed last year,” Berry said. “We’ll be going final with each of those this year . . . while we also fight for legislation . . . for FEHBP and retirement.”

(Source: sarahlee310)