Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Stark State Procedures

The Issue The new law redefined full-time to mean averaging 30 hours per week. The College will have to adjust hours of some part-time employees and adjuncts to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s new upper limit for part- time employment. There are severe penalties for not complying with the Act.

$2000 per FTE Penalty All eligible employees must be offered affordable insurance or the IRS will fine us $2000 per employee FTE in The IRS has not finished defining what affordable means. The definition of eligible is based on working an average of 30 hours per week over a measurement period.

$2000 per FTE Penalty The Measurement Period is followed by a Stabilization Period in which SSC must offer health insurance regardless of hours worked. In 2014, they will look back to 2013 to see how SSC measured our employees’ hours. We have to implement these periods in 2013, so we will use two 6-month periods: – January to June, and July to December.

$2000 per FTE Penalty There are 3 safe harbors to determine which employees are eligible for health insurance based on working an average of 30 hours per week.

$2000 per FTE Penalty Safe Harbor #1 Consider an employee full-time for any week in which they worked at least 1 hour. This would result in requiring us to give all part-time employees affordable health insurance. Don’t laugh, they were being serious when they wrote it. This is not a joke.

$2000 per FTE Penalty Safe Harbor #2 Give an employee 8 hours credit for any day in which they worked at least 1 hour. This would result in requiring us to give most part-time employees affordable health insurance.

$2000 per FTE Penalty Safe Harbor #3 Track and record all hours spent on college business. This is the only option that we can use. We have a system for reporting hours worked. We need a system to plan schedules to avoid having part time employees work so much that they become eligible where we never intended to offer them health insurance.

Scheduling Problems We don’t want to convert everyone to be nonexempt hourly employees who have to punch a time clock. Some jobs under contract should be hourly. We don’t know how many hours of work it takes to deliver each course under contract. We don’t have a central scheduling system to plan for employees who may have more than one job (teaching, advising, tutoring, etc.)

Resolving Scheduling Problems Each Department Chair needs to review all their contracts to see if they have any that can be converted to an hourly job. – Examples include situations where there is a contract for work done entirely on campus, such as in a lab or tutoring center.

Resolving Scheduling Problems Each Department Chair needs to review all agreements for Work-Outside-of-Contract where it involves a part time employee. We need to determine how many hours will be spent in 2013 to complete each of these agreements. The Deans must be in agreement with the Department Chairs.

Resolving Scheduling Problems Each Department Chair needs to work with their faculty members to determine how many hours it should take to deliver each course. This would include all time spent to prep, teach, grade, meet with students, etc.

Resolving Scheduling Problems Part-time staff positions with contracts should be reviewed by department heads and VP’s to determine if they should become hourly employees. Converting contracted staff to hourly employees should be done for payroll purposes, but their contract should remain in place to preserve the employee’s job.

Adjunct Contracts Adjunct contracts will be revised to include: – The total number of hours the Department authorized to fulfill the contract requirements – Beginning and Ending dates to work under the contract – Faculty sign-offs that they acknowledge that: They must report their time spent under contract They received instructions for time reporting system Their failure to report time will delay their paycheck

Adjunct Contracts Faculty members are responsible for monitoring their hours used for college business. Faculty members are responsible for not exceeding the maximum number of hours allowed in a Measurement Period (779).

Scheduling System HR will create and maintain a MASTER AUTHORIZATION SCHEDULE – Lists every job for every PT employee – Includes projection of average hours per week – Will be compared to hours worked biweekly Seasonal positions will also be included

Control Procedures HR will assign PT faculty to a Primary Department Chair in consultation with the Department Chairs. Primary Department Chair had the right to authorize work up to the maximum number of hours. The Chair will submit the hours authorized to HR for the Master Authorization Schedule.

Control Procedures Secondary Department Chairs and other non- faculty jobs may then authorize other contracted or hourly hours by notifying HR. Non-faculty Managers will seek approval of Primary Chair when authorizing work between semesters. Accepting additional jobs in the Spring could impact the amount of work the PT faculty member could accept during Summer Term.

Control Procedures HR will review actual hours reported on a biweekly basis and notify the Primary Chair if the PT faculty member is on pace to exceed the maximum hours allowed. Primary Chair will contact Secondary Chairs and Managers to come to an agreement on curtail the PT faculty member’s hours, and report the reduction in authorized hours for each job to HR.

Control Procedures HR will review actual hours reported on a biweekly basis and notify the Primary Chair if the PT faculty member is on pace to exceed the maximum hours allowed. Primary Chair will contact Secondary Chairs and Managers to come to an agreement on curtail the PT faculty member’s hours, and report the reduction in authorized hours for each job to HR.

Control Procedures If all efforts of the Chairs and Managers fail to reduce the PT faculty member’s actual hours worked below the maximum: – The faculty member will be offered health insurance for the remainder of the current semester, and – The faculty member’s name will be put on a list of employees restricted for further assignment, and – The faculty member will not be offered contracted or hourly work until after the next full Measurement Period after the current semester.

Future Changes When the Treasury Department, Dept. of Labor or Dept. of Health and Human Services issue more regulations, we will modify these procedures. Where necessary, we will make changes to protect the financial well-being of the College.

Additional Considerations - Staff The College has not considered taking away benefits from part time employees currently eligible for them. The Primary Department Head for staff members will have first priority in authorizing the hours of all part time staff for each measurement period.