Surviving partners of Gay and Lesbian City of St. Augustine reirees will likely soon be eligible to receive their pension benefits if the city employee dies first.
Proposed City of St. Augustine City Ordinance No. 2014-13 is accompanied by a short but eloquent memorandum from Assstant City Manager Timothy A. Burchfield. It is online in the agenda packet for tomorrow night's City Commission meeting.
Consistent with its including "sexual orientation" in the Fair Housing ordinance by unanimous vote December 10, 2012, Commissioners are being asked to amend pension rules to allow pensions to be left to surviving domestic partners.
Mr. Burchfield's memo states that "Curreently the plan discriminates against those participants who are single and chose not to mary, as well as those who cannot legally marry in the state of Florida....The modification [proposed August 2013 by] the [General Employee] Retirement Board would eliminate this inequity and place all particpants on a level playing field."
The ordinance also provides for cost of living adjustments, which Mr. Burchfield's memo states have not been voted for some 20 years.
Under the proposal, in the future, City employees choosing to leave a survivor benefit -- including both domestic partners and legally married spouses -- would have for the first time a slight reduction in their benefits, but be empowered to leave pension benefits to their surviving spouse. Others would be "grandfathered."
This is not Jacksonville.
This is St. Augustine.
Viva!
"Viva le differance!"
I am proud to live in the City of St. Augustine, where our leaders are listening to the people these days.
The work of extirpating discrimination continues anew, now with pension benefits.
As President Lyndon B. Johnson said after the police riots in Selma, Alabama in 1965, "We SHALL overcome!"
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