Due to the legalization of same-sex marriage, Wisconsin has made some big changes regarding domestic partnership in their recently passed 2017-2019 state budget.
Effective January 1, 2018, all municipalities, school districts, and counties can no longer offer employee benefit coverage to registered domestic partners of the employee and the partner’s dependents. Same-sex and opposite-sex couples previously covered will no longer be covered unless they are legally married. Private employers may continue to offer employee domestic partner benefits if they so wish.
In addition, Wisconsin will eliminate their domestic partnership registry effective April 1, 2018. The registry was created to provide some legal rights to same-sex domestic partners when the federal government gave them none. Now same-sex couples can marry and receive the same rights/benefits as (opposite-sex) married couples.
For more information, download the guide.
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