Less than two months after the University of Louisville became Kentucky's first public university to offer health benefits for domestic partners, including those of the same sex, the University of Kentucky will consider whether it, too, should provide those benefits.

The university will study the issue and several others, including affordable child care and tuition breaks for spouses and children, that were identified in a work-life survey completed last year, spokesman Jay Blanton said.

The formation of the committees on those issues will be announced today, when the university's human-resources department reports on the work-life survey to a Board of Trustees' committee at the board's regularly scheduled meeting. The committees are part of the university's response to survey results.

Blanton said university President Lee Todd had not taken a stand on domestic-partner benefits -- or any of the other issues -- but wants to do what would help UK reach its goal of becoming a Top 20 university.

On Thursday, the Staff Senate plans to vote on a resolution asking whether its members support benefits for same-sex partners. Three years ago, a resolution that opposed extending benefits to domestic partners failed.

The new committees on domestic-partner benefits and other issues are expected to make recommendations to the administration. No changes in benefits would occur before July.

After U of L's July decision, several conservative officials publicly denounced the move. Sen. Dick Roeding, R-Lakeside Park, called it "repulsive," saying it attracted "the wrong kind of people" to Kentucky.

A few lawmakers, including Rep. Stan Lee, R-Lexington, said they were considering legislation to bar universities from offering domestic-partner benefits.

Lee said in a July interview with the Herald-Leader that public universities that provide domestic partnerships are using tax dollars to support a lifestyle that an "overwhelming majority of people in this state don't agree with."

"When you're trying to become a Top 20 university, you have to look at all the ways to get there," she said. "I think it's indisputable that offering domestic-partnership benefits is one of the ways to keep and attract quality employees."

She said she hopes the legislature doesn't try to block public universities from joining private institutions, including Berea and Centre colleges, in offering such benefits. In fact, if UK does decide to move forward with offering them, she hopes the state government will provide the same coverage to its 33,000 workers.

"The committee has a responsibility to look at the total impact this is going to have," Crimm said of UK's panel. "How do we define domestic partnerships? If I lost my wife and my mother moved in, would that make her a domestic partner?"

He said without using marriage as a threshold, it would be difficult to determine at what point a domestic-partner relationship would be established.

This is cache, read story here