Palm Beach County – September 10 was a big day for LGBT rights in Palm Beach County.
Boca Raton’s City Council voted unanimously to update its equal opportunity policy for the first time since 1996, voting to include language that states city employees will not face discrimination because of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. During the same meeting, the City Council also voted 4-1 to allow domestic partners of city employees to receive the same benefits married spouses get. The hearing and votes for both issues took just 13 minutes, according to The Sun-Sentinel.
Before Sept. 10, Boca Raton had been the largest and one of the last cities in Palm Beach County to hold out on including sexual orientation in its anti-discrimination policy.
On that same night, the Palm Beach County Commission met and decided that gay and lesbian county government employees will no longer face a tax penalty on health insurance for their registered domestic partners. The tax equity measure uses local money to reimburse employees for additional federal income taxes levied when they accept county health benefits for their significant others.
According to The Sun Sentinel, the reimbursements will cost the county about $136,000 a year. Currently, the county has 48 employees with registered domestic partners, but only nine of them are same sex couples – the other 39 are opposite sex couples.
