Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard on Thursday afternoon signed off on a proposal to provide health-care benefits to the domestic partners of city workers.
The Indianapolis City-County Council approved the proposal, 20-8, on Aug. 13.
The ordinance offers insurance coverage to both same-sex and heterosexual unmarried couples. Supporters say offering domestic-partner benefits will improve the city's image with many companies already providing such coverage.
The cities of Bloomington and Carmel and some of Indiana's universities provide benefits for employees' same-sex partners.
Council opponents raised concerns about the estimated $200,000 annual cost for the city and moral implications.
Ballard didn’t officially acknowledge the signing of the domestic-partner ordinance. But he posted on his Twitter account Thursday that “I just signed all 33 ordinances and resolutions passed last week by the City-County Council.”
Among those was the so-caled "Complete Streets" proposal, which calls for future design of city roads to be more friendly to pedestrians and bikes.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.