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Students lined up to tell Lansing's Board of Education (BOE) what they think about granting benefits to same-sex partners of district teachers.  Senior Tom Kraft presented the board with a petition signed by about 200 students in support of their teachers who do not get family benefits under the current contract.  "How can a system that provides same sex couples with unequal benefits be upheld by such a tolerant community?" he asked.

Students including Hunter Preston, Joshua Darfler, James Lauzun and Kelsy Henne and Lansing Faculty Association (LFA) President Sue Henne told the board they should adjust the contracts to grant the benefits.  But board members said that health and other benefits are a contract negotiation matter, and noted that the LFA did not ask for same sex benefits in the last contract talks.  BOE President Bonita Lindberg offered to reopen the discussion based on the collective bargaining agreement.  "Benefits are governed by the negotiation process," Lindberg said.  "We're perfectly willing to reopen the contract to discuss that issue.  Name the time, name the place and we'll be ready to do it."

But Henne balked, saying, "We've signed our contract and it would not be fair to reopen the whole thing."  She said that the issue slipped through the cracks and should be corrected now.  "To reopen the contract you're saying we would have to give up something financial to make that happen.  That's not the only way it can happen."  She noted that Dryden granted the benefits after their contract had been signed.

The board noted that while Dryden did handle it that way other districts have not.  Members expressed the concern that granting benefits is cumulative, coming to millions of dollars over time.  In an atmosphere in which taxpayers are expressing concerns about high taxes, the board recently struggled to come up with a budget that ended up 7.73% higher than this year's budget. 


That is not the only issue the BOE would have to settle if they decided to grant the benefits.  The Town Board recently added benefits for domestic partners after months of discussion.  A sticking point was in defining what a domestic partnership is.  They decided that the employee and his or her domestic partner must have resided together for a minimum of one year, must live and reside together at the same address, be 18 years of age or older, and of sound mind.  They must not live together for the sole purpose of getting the benefits, be each others' sole partner, not related by blood and intend to continue living together.  It took months of discussion and legal advice before the policy was recently incorporated into Town's regulations and employee handbook.

BOE members Dan Brown and Tom Keane expressed concerns about who else would be affected by the policy and what it would cost the district over time.  BOE member Christine Iacobucci revealed that the board had sought legal counsel on the matter, and had received a letter from the district's attorney advising them of their options.  The BOE chose not to make the letter public as they had just received it and some board members had not had time to read it.

The issue was left at something of an impasse with the Board putting the ball in the union's court by expressing its willingness to reopen the contract, and the union asking them to take something out of the budget to be able to grant the benefits now.  One thing everyone agreed on was their admiration for the High School students who took the initiative to speak up for what they believed in.

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