The state of Wisconsin has become the latest to change the rules on domestic partner benefits,with a new statute, Wis. Stat. § 66.0510, prohibiting allmunicipalities, counties and school districts from offeringemployee benefit plan coverage to domestic partners of employees asof January 1, 2018.

The National Law Review reports that in the debates surrounding the statute’s passage,the legislature argued that the state’s recent legalization ofsame-sex marriage eliminated the need for government employers tooffer benefit plans that cover domestic partners.

Related: How much has same-sex marriage changed employeebenefits?

An earlier report from the International Foundation of Employee BenefitPlans found that from 2014 to 2016, the percentage of employersproviding benefits to same-sex partners in legally recognizedcivil unions fell from 51 percent to 31percent. The report says that most states that previously registered civilunions stopped doing so after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling onsame-sex marriage, although not all couples with civil unions havemarried.

Under the old law in Wisconsin, domestic partners were offeredthe state group health insurance program; the state group lifeinsurance program; duty disability benefits; and the deferredcompensation program. Under the new law, as of January 1, 2018,municipalities, counties and school districts are only permitted tooffer such employee benefit plans to their employees, and thespouses and dependent children of such employees.

The new law also, according to the report, “precludes survivorswhose domestic partner died while employed by a municipality,county or school district from collecting survivor benefits, exceptthat the law includes a carve out for all surviving domesticpartners of protective occupation employees receiving dutydisability benefits such that those domestic partners may continueto collect the duty disability benefits until they remarry as longas: (1) the domestic partner was in a domestic partnership with thedeceased protective occupation employee as of the date the employeebecame disabled; and (2) the disability occurred before January 1,2018.”

The new law will not apply to employees subject to an existingcollective bargaining agreement, or to another type of contractthat contains language incompatible with the new law—until thecurrent agreement or contract is modified, expires, terminates, orrenews, whichever occurs first.