The following details the procedure and eligibility criteria for enrollment of domestic partners in the University’s benefit programs.

Registration: To establish the eligibility for University benefits of a same sex or opposite sex domestic partner, an affidavit titled “Statement of Domestic Partnership,”must be completed by the employee and domestic partner, accompanied with supporting documentation of financial interdependence and common residence.

Copies of this affidavit are available at the Human Resources website, www.pace.edu/hr or at your campus Human Resources office.

Benefits Eligibility: Once the “Statement of Domestic Partnership” is completed and approved, the employee’s domestic partner and the partner’s natural or legally adopted dependent children become eligible to apply for University benefits.

You have 31 days from the date of registration to enroll the domestic partner and the domestic partner’s dependent children in the medical and/or dental plans. If you choose not to enroll during these 31 days, you will need to wait until the next open enrollment period. Please see “Changes in Family Status” for other benefit enrollment considerations outside the open enrollment period.

Medical/Dental Plan: As a full-time employee, you may elect to add a domestic partner and/or dependent children of a domestic partner under the “employee plus one” or “family” coverage option of our medical and dental plans.

Tuition Remission: The same eligibility rules that apply to all employees’ spouses and children will apply to registered domestic partners and their natural and adopted children. Applications for on-campus or off-campus tuition remission benefits may be made as soon as the “Statement of Domestic Partnership” is completed and approved for benefit coverage.

Other Benefits: Employees who are not married may name anyone as a beneficiary on life insurance or retirement plans. It is not necessary to register a domestic partner to name that person as beneficiary.

Employees who retire and have sufficient age and years of service, according to policy, to retain medical coverage in retirement, may also retain medical coverage for a registered domestic partner, in the same manner that such coverage is made available to spouses of retiring employees.

Pace University policy language regarding leaves of absence to care for newborn and/or adopted
Children or ill family members, or for purposes of death in a family will be extended to include
domestic partners and children of domestic partners.

Tax Implications: The Internal Revenue Code does not recognize the tax exemption of benefits extended to domestic partners, as such, there will be certain tax consequences to the employee who enrolls a domestic partner. An employee’s contributions for additional medical and/or dental coverage of a domestic partner and that person’s dependent children will be deducted from pay on an after-tax basis. In the case of tuition remission for domestic partners and their children, the value of the tuition will be treated as ‘imputed’ or direct income to the employee and taxes will be withheld based on that additional income.