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PHOENIX — The president of the University of Arizona and a Tucson city councilman are among hundreds of Arizonans urging the state to extend benefits to the domestic partners of university employees and other state employees.

If nothing else, backers said the move will help recruit and retain workers.

In a letter to the state Department of Administration, UA President Robert Shelton said most Fortune 500 companies offer such benefits, as do 60 of what U.S. News and World Report says are the top 125 institutions of higher learning.

The same is true of eight of the Pac 10 universities — UA and Arizona State University being the exceptions — as do all Ivy League schools and all but one of the Big Ten schools (the University of Wisconsin being the exception).

"These are our prime competitors for faculty," Shelton wrote. He said the new policy, if enacted, "will greatly enhance our ability to be competitive against these national peers in recruiting and retaining top faculty and staff."

More than 1,000 Arizonans on both sides of the issue filed comments about the proposal by Gov. Janet Napolitano's administration, according to Alan Ecker, spokesman for the Department of Administration.

One of those came from Tucson City Councilman Steve Leal, who said the existing policy is unfair to "unmarried workers, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who are not afforded the same access to benefits as other state employees."

Wayne Ecton, a council member in Scottsdale, which, along with Tucson, Pima County, Tempe and Phoenix already offers domestic partner benefits, said the move "goes beyond 'the right thing to do.' "

Providing the benefits can pay off "in terms of cost savings, employee productivity and loyalty, and employee recruitment and retention," Ecton wrote in his letter.

Key opposition is coming from the Center for Arizona Policy, a group that lobbies for "traditional values," and which questions not just the wisdom of the proposal but its legality.

Ecker said prior to last week more of the comments were in favor of the change than in opposition. But he said the number of responses more than doubled during the last two days before this week's deadline.

He said staffers still are tallying the figures. But Equality Arizona, which bills itself as the state's largest organization supporting rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender individuals, said it knows of more than 670 letters of support submitted to the state.

Despite all the letters, the actual impact on current state employees does not appear to be that great.

Ecker said his agency looked at how many city workers in Phoenix and Scottsdale are taking advantage of similar domestic partner benefits. Based on that, the Department of Administration figures fewer than 1,000 of the nearly 65,000 state employees would opt for the benefits, about 1.2 percent.

But UA spokesman Paul Allvin said it's not a question of pure numbers.

"You may be talking about one key faculty member for this department you're trying to build or one key faculty member for that college," he said. Allvin said potential employees evaluate UA against other key institutions and consider various factors, including benefits.

"The totality of what the university offers . . . becomes their understanding of what the culture of the university is," he said.

The state has not yet set a date for a public hearing on the issue. But the plan is to have the policy in force by Oct. 1.

It was not immediately known whether the presidents of the state's two other universities also came out in support.

The regulation would limit whom employees could name as a domestic partner to get health coverage and other benefits. The couple would have to have been living together for at least 12 months and file a statement saying they intend to do so for at least the next year. They also would need to show some financial entanglements, such as a joint checking account.