Spartanburg Community College juggles workloads of part-timers to accommodate health care reform law

Published: Saturday, July 6, 2013 at 8:53 p.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, July 6, 2013 at 8:53 p.m.

Spartanburg Community College officials aren't quite sure how the White House's decision to delay a key element of the health care reform law will affect them, but they are moving forward on changes to employee workloads.

This past week, an announcement was made that the employer mandate portion of President Barack Obama's sweeping health care legislation would be delayed for one year.

That portion of the law requiring medium and large companies to provide coverage for their workers or face fines was the source of headaches for local human resource officers, and the college was no different.

The new requirements, paired with years of state budget cuts that forced the college to rely on hundreds of part-time or adjunct faculty, were set to cost the college hundreds of thousands of dollars this coming fiscal year.

College officials said they had planned to limit the hours of many part-time workers to keep them below the federal threshold for being considered full time to limit the number of employees qualified for health care. Those plans will go forward, officials said, despite the delay.

"We will continue to manage employee work time as planned, so we do not have to go through a similar trauma again," a spokeswoman said.

But, the delay might allow the college to grant a few more exceptions to the policy, the spokeswoman said.

Previously, the school said 23 part-time or adjunct employees would be added to the health care insurance rolls.

That number is now under review. A snapshot of the college's workforce last fall found at least 115 employees who would qualify for health care under the new rules, which define full-time employees as those who work 30 or more hours a week.

Last month, college President Henry Giles said SCC relies on 400 to 500 part-time or adjunct employees each year and that adjunct faculty have taught about 53 percent of the college's classes.

If those faculty had their hours reduced, officials said the school would have to hire even more part-time faculty or cut classes.

Giles said the decision to limit hours was not made lightly.

"You're dealing with people's lives, here," he told the Herald-Journal. "They do a great job, but you've got to balance that."

"That's their livelihood," he added. "I imagine a lot of them will have to find work somewhere else. It's going to be a major challenge to get through this next year."

The employer requirements were among the most complex portion of Obama's health care overhaul, aimed at expanding coverage for uninsured Americans.

But in academia, the requirement caused confusion because faculty work is rarely measured by an hourly rate.

The college began its preparations for the new health care law last year, and the news of the implementation delay was the latest twist to the Affordable Care Act, which college officials previously described as "a puzzle" when speaking of it to the Spartanburg County Commission for Technical and Community Education

Source: http://www.goupstate.com/article/20130706/articles/130709782

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