The first task facing school districts is to confirm hours worked for every classification of employee. Whether an employee is salaried, hourly, works as a substitute, or on extra duty, the district must be able to capture reported time and paid time absences as hours worked for any date-driven time frame. If your district office is resource-limited, the time to assemble this information will detract from other essential district duties.
Complicating the task is the need to correlate hours to salaries because some employees are hired with a fixed salary amount, but not hours. Employee work years may vary between 10 and 12 months. Employees may also get additional pay for extra work such as coaching.
Assessing software to track this information should include the requirement that it tracks all hours and time, in a date driven manner, by FTE. This means all time allocated to extra duties or assignments must be tracked.
This is especially true for those districts that want to limit work hours to less than 30 hours per week. Keeping track of hours worked for eligibility means that districts must be able to “flag” those employees who are on the cusp of eligibility, ensuring that average hours worked over a measurement period are managed accurately and appropriately for cost-effective results.
For a number of school district employees, this will likely mean that those extra hours relied on to supplement their income will no longer be available; it will definitely mean that districts must be able to pull up the data by date, position, and/or employee to manage effectively.
The Importance of Position Control in PPACA Management and Monitoring
When a district has a strong position control system, it can track and control the hours worked by regularly employed staff. This assists districts in managing employee hours for multiple jobs within a school district. Districts also need to look for software systems where they can limit the hours worked by an employee. This is especially true of hourly employees whose hours vary from week to week.
Keep in mind that eligibility for insurance under PPACA can be affected by how positions are set up, including whether or not workweeks are defined for various employee groups.
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