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Despite the city's budget crunch, the City Council unanimously approved domestic partner benefits for heterosexual couples on Wednesday — matching the benefits for same-sex couples that was approved in 1997.

Several council members said the move was simply the right thing to do to be fair to all employees.

Councilman Steve Leal said, "Principles matter a lot. It's about doing the right thing."

The timing of the request was not lost on the council, which voted to spend an estimated $220,000-$360,000 more per year for the benefits in the midst of its worst budget crunch in years. The council just got word Tuesday that the projected budget shortfall has doubled for next fiscal year, which begins July 1. The city has cut most of its employee travel and training, canceled outstanding purchases and instituted a hiring freeze to cope.

The council members who brought the issue up, Regina Romero and Karin Uhlich, said the costs could conceivably be much less if fewer people sign up than expected.

"I've been having a difficult time with this," said Councilwoman Nina Trasoff. "Could the timing be worse? I don't think so. But the reality is we are not being fair to our employees."

The City Manager's Office estimated in a memo between 75 and 160 employees can be expected to sign up, based on the experiences of other employers who offer the benefits. Uhlich disputed that figure, contending that the 160 employees will be the total number of domestic partners — both the same-sex partners already getting benefits and the new heterosexual partners

Retirees from the city who receive health benefits are also able to sign up their domestic partners for health benefits, which Councilman Rodney Glassman estimated would cost $800 a month for employees, or about $10,000 a year.

Because of the cost, Glassman suggested that the city create a mechanism to check on domestic partners and married couples to ensure they are not taking the benefits without being together. Romero said that could be an invasion of privacy.

To qualify for domestic-partner benefits, the couple must live together, sign an affidavit that they are domestic partners and share at least one financial responsibility, which could mean: co-signers on a mortgage, co-signers on a lease, a joint checking or savings account, a joint credit card or joint automobile payment.

City Attorney Mike Rankin said the city doesn't check up on domestic partners but said a city employee could be disciplined and fired for continuing to receive benefits for the domestic partner once the relationship has ended.

Tucson was one of the first governments in Arizona to provide domestic-partner benefits when it approved them in 1997. City Manager Luis Gutierrez contended at the time that he favored offering benefits to same-sex partners because "they're legally in a position where they can't marry so they can't get coverage, where heterosexual couples do have that option."

In other business, the council unanimously approved the scope of a joint city-Pima County study to look at regional water supplies and wastewater, which some have said could be the start of better regional cooperation on water issues.