Part-time IU employees to face reductions in weekly hour limits

Junior Kelsey Endahl worked more than 30 hours per week at Recreational Sports last year. Accepting a  position as a Residence Assistant this year, she said she knew she would have to cut back her hours to juggle each job.

The change wasn’t drastic, she said, and she would be able to manage the load. Financially, she’d be set. Personally, she’d be working in areas she enjoyed.

That was before IU changed its policy.

Between her two jobs at Read Residence Center and Recreational Sports, she can now only work 29 hours each week.

Now, she said she forfeited one of her jobs at Recreational Sports and significantly reduced her hours because IU must extend health care benefits to anyone working more than 29 hours.

In March 2010, the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. The legislation affects businesses with 50 or more employees, requiring them to provide health care for anyone working a minimum of 30 hours per week — the new standard for full-time employment.

One of the largest employers in Indiana, IU had to make adjustments. Thousands of part-time employees will see their hours reduced in order to avoid extra health care costs should part-time workers like Endahl reach full-time status.

A new University policy declared a 29-hour weekly limit for part-time university employees, originally instated in July, said Mark Land, associate vice president of public affairs and government relations.
 
“We already spend over $200 million a year on health care as a University,” he said. “We’re just trying to be responsible from a spending perspective.”

That’s not to say that health care benefits are being taken away from anyone, Land said. Rather, more employees than ever will be insured this year through the
University.

The ACA is expected to add $3.3 million to IU’s medical costs in the upcoming fiscal year. Health care will now be provided to more than 6,000 full-time hourly workers across campus.

Shortly after the university-wide mandate, the policy was delayed. This resulted in an official implementation date of Sept. 29, which will initiate a trial period for the University until the ACA kicks into gear nationwide in January 2014. 

Much of the University has already been experimenting with the hour limits to flag problem areas within their departments, with mixed results. Many departments will experience hour cuts, and some have had to add additional employees to keep all bases covered.

Residential Programs and Services is one such department responding to the planned policy, said Chris Lucas, RPS assistant director for human resources.

Health care benefits have been added for about 100 positions previously considered part-time, Lucas said. RPS also had to boost recruitment to make up for hours previously worked by part-time employees.

John Applegate, executive vice president for university academic affairs, deals specifically with academic employees for the University. Though the ACA complicates the employment of adjunct lecturers, he said the changes are similar to current standards.

A policy has been in place for years that does not permit part-time instructors to work more than 70 percent of a full-time load, he said.

“It makes it more important than ever that we make sure that we know whether somebody is actually full-time or actually part-time,” he said.

Although the employee mandate hasn’t yet been made official nationally or on the University level, Applegate said academic workers are already knee-deep in implementation, testing the waters to ensure adjustments are made and glitches avoided. That way, when penalties are carried out in 2015, everything should run smoothly, he said.

Some situations have made it clear that such an adjustment period is necessary.
Senior Rachel Kendrick dealt with the change within the academic employee spectrum this summer when her research job was cut back from 40 to less than 30 hours each week. Regardless of the change in hours, though, her workload remained the same.

She put in extra hours to get everything done, unpaid.

“It wasn’t a huge change,” she said. “But I definitely was affected by it.”

Recreational Sports, one of the largest employers on the IU campus, has been minimally affected by the new policy, associate director Jackie Puterbaugh said.
When the news of the ACA and new University policy came out, Rec Sports concluded that of more than 1,000 employees, around 18 averaged more than 29 hours per week.

Since so few would be affected, Puterbaugh said, the issues that arise will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Endahl, however, has felt some frustration. She’s had to adjust for the hour cuts across her jobs as a Residence Assistant and as a Recreational Sports facility support employee. Between car insurance, phone bills and other payments that must be made, it’s been a struggle, she said.

Land said the decentralized nature of the University affects the implementation of the policy as well.

Many students, like Endahl, work two or more jobs on campus. The 29-hour
average per week is across any number of jobs an individual might have within the University, he said.

Without an overarching human resources department to keep tabs on every employee’s hours at each of their jobs, Land said determining a tracking system has proven to be a challenge.

“We just need to be aware of that if this kicks in, because those are the kinds of things that we need to stay away from,” he said.

The University is working to find a balance on all accounts, for part-time and full-time employees and any unique situations that arise, Land said.

“We’ve got a responsibility to live by our budget,” he said. “At the same time, we want to do right by our employees, and we have a lot of work that needs to get done.”

Follow reporter Kourtney Liepelt on Twitter @KourtneyLiepelt.