CASE: Dying officer
is seeking benefits for lover
PRICE: Would cost
more than $200,000 a year
Kelly: Partner
benefits costly
BY MARGARET F.
BONAFIDE, Toms River Bureau, Asbury Park Press on the Web, December 21, 2005
Reacting to accusations that the
Ocean County Freeholders have no compassion for a dying gay police officer
asking for domestic partnership benefits, Freeholder John P. Kelly said
yesterday that allowing the benefits could cost taxpayers more than $200,000
annually.
"You can't say there is no cost to new exposure," Kelly said about the request
by Lt. Laurel Hester of the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office. Hester, who
has worked for the office for 24 years, is dying of cancer. She wants her
domestic partner, Stacie Andree, to receive her pension.
State law gives domestic partner benefits to state employees and allows counties
the option to do the same. But the freeholders, saying it would cost too
much, have refused.
According to the New Jersey Division of Pensions and Benefits, there would be
some additional cost for the Police and Fire Retirement System benefits to
include domestic partners. But the division said it would be several years
before those costs are incurred and can be determined.
Using what the division calls a very rough estimate, domestic partner benefits
could increase employer contributions to the pension system by one-half to 1
percent of the salary.
The total salary and wages paid to all employees covered by the police and fire
pension system is more than $22 million. It includes the prosecutor's and
sheriff's offices and correction officers. The cost would range roughly
between $114,000 to over $220,000, Kelly said.
"Even if no one participated, we would still have to pay," Kelly said in a
previous interview.
"The pension system's own Web site says it would be several years before the
additional costs are incurred; I tend to doubt the numbers they present," said
Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality. "What in the world
are they talking about? It is yet another lie in the series of lies these
freeholders have told to deny dignity to Laurel Hester. You better believe
if Laurel Hester were married to a man they would not be pulling numbers out of
the air."
Kelly said that Hester's beneficiary stands to receive $350,000 from Hester's
life insurance policy plus the approximate $100,000 that Hester paid into the
system. However, if Hester were married to a man, she would receive the
$350,000 and a lifetime of payments averaging about $30,000 a year.
Sen. Loretta Weinberg of Bergen County said she will continue to fight to help
Hester, even if the local freeholders won't budge.
Time is running out for Hester, who recently learned that cancer now has spread
to her brain. Doctors are treating her with radiation. Her lung
cancer is inoperable.
"They said six months max," she said Tuesday evening.
Hester's plea to the board has garnered worldwide attention as civil unions have
started in the United Kingdom. A search of her name "Laurel Hester" now
receives nearly 49,500 hits on the Internet search engine Google.
Three weeks ago, the count was less than 25,000 before Goldstein and Garden
State Equality made an impassioned plea to the board to pass domestic partner
benefits.
Hester said Tuesday she has "the deepest heartfelt gratitude for even the
thought that Weinberg and Goldstein would continue to try to help her."
Hester is the subject of a documentary being made by Cynthia Wade, an
independent film maker who works with LOGO television. LOGO is a lesbian
and gay network doing a documentary called "Out at Work."
"I am focusing on quality of life," Hester said. "With six months left, my
only concern is to be home with my family."
Margaret F. Bonafide; (732) 557-5740 or
bonafide@app.com
|
