Ohio University’s adjunct faculty and other temporary employees will have their hours monitored for a year before they can be provided health care under the Affordable Care Act.
Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit and Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Golding announced Wednesday via email that OU will track temporary employees’ hours from April 1, 2014 to March 30, 2015 to evaluate whether they work more than 29 hours and therefore qualify for insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
Those who qualify for health insurance will be offered benefits starting July 1, 2015.
“The measurement period really is just an opportunity for us to make sure we’ve considered everyone in the cycle and then make sure people are categorized correctly,” said Laura Myers, chief of staff to the provost.
The federal government mandates an observation period of one year to be sure faculty are actually working more than 29 hours, Myers said.
However, Myers said by the end of the observation period, there will not be many temporary faculty and staff who will be affected by the Affordable Care Act.
“We already know Group I faculty who are tenure-track, Group II who are teaching faculty and Group IV who are visiting faculty, already are benefits eligible, so that doesn’t change,” Myers said.
To calculate the number of hours adjunct faculty are teaching, the university will multiply the number of course credit hours each faculty member teaches by 2.67 — its equivalent in actual hours, said Beth Quitslund, Faculty Senate secretary.
It’s unclear how many temporary employees will be provided insurance under the provision that wouldn’t otherwise, Quitslund said.
Now that the university has decided how to apply this provision, it’s up to OU’s Human Resources and Office of Information Technology to make sure the Workforce payroll system is prepared to closely monitor employee hours, said Greg Fialko, senior human resources director.
Although OU tracks its employees’ hours, it was possible for them to have multiple jobs on campus, and potentially work more than 29 hours, Fialko said.
Previously, students could only work more than 20 hours with a waiver, but now they will be capped at 20 hours for the academic year. During the summer months, students will be able to work 28 hours.
“We are a big employer, we are spread out, and this is something new we have to do,” Fialko said.
Human Resources, Payroll and OIT will meet to make sure the current system can track these hours, Fialko said.
“We all know that we want to have some solution, periodically providing access, so they can see in one place how they’re managing their staff,” Fialko said.
dk123111@ohiou.edu
@DanielleRose84
