NEW YORK (UPI) -- New York will became the biggest city in the country
to offer health benefits to the domestic partners of city workers, it
was announced Saturday, just days before the close mayoral election.
	Mayor David Dinkins said full health benefits would be offered for
unmarried partners of retired or active city workers beginning Jan. 1.
	Dinkins, who never delivered the benefits after promising them during
his 1989 campaign for office, made the historic announcement in the last
weekend before Election Day.
	``Today, New York shines like a beacon for the rest of the country,
and we hope that many other cities and localities can soon follow our
steps,'' he said at a hastily called news conference in Gracie Mansion.
	The benefits would be available to domestic partners of city workers
whether gay or straight if they offer certain proof of financial
interdependence.
	The mayor's election opponent, Republican Rudolph Giuliani, denounced
the plan through a spokesman as ``political pandering'' to the gay
community.
	Giuliani, who polls show is running neck-and-neck against Dinkins,
has said he was not sure the city could afford expanded employee
benefits.
	The mayor's legal counsel, George Daniels, said the estimated $30
million cost would be divided between the city and municipal labor
unions.
	Daniels said about 1,300 couples had registered as domestic partners
since the city began a registery last January, and between 150 and 200
registrants were city workers. He could not estimate the demand for the
new program.
	He said less than a handful of other American cities offer health
benefits to the partners of unmarried workers -- Ann Arbor, Mich., San
Francisco and Berkeley, Calif., Cambridge, Mass., and Seattle.
	The benefits extension became possible in New York, Daniels said,
after the state insurance director this month changed relevant policy
regulations and deals were reached with city labor unions and in a
lawsuit with the Gay and Lesbian Teachers Association.