Youngstown State University is among the first schools in the country to announce it will cap the number of hours worked by part-time faculty in response to a mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that could require the school to provide health care to those employees, or face costly penalties.

At the same time, 11 colleges and universities in Ohio — including Clark State Community College and the University of Cincinnati — have requested special counsel from Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine to advise them how to respond to the act, commonly known as Obamacare, said spokesman Dan Tierney.

At issue nationwide is whether part-time instructors, referred to as adjunct faculty, will be included among employees eligible for coverage. Beginning in 2014, the act requires that any employer with more than 50 people on staff provide affordable health insurance for employees working 30 hours or more per week in any given month.

For higher education, that leaves questions about adjuncts, who are not paid on an hourly basis and whose hours worked are not typically tracked, according to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. So far, the Internal Revenue Service has not provided guidelines on how adjuncts will be treated, said association spokeswoman Gayle Kiser. The penalty for not complying with the mandate is as much as $2,000 per full-time employee, according to the association.

Future requirements in the act have left local colleges and universities with questions about how to respond.

“With the election leaving many things up in the air until very recently, we are in the same position as many other organizations that are now working hard to determine ‘what it will all mean’ — there are many facets that need to be considered,” said Liz Cook, an Ohio State University spokeswoman.

‘It’s a big project’

Youngstown implemented a cap on the number of semester credit hours that can be worked by adjuncts this year, because the health care mandate will look back for a year at hours worked by employees to determine who requires health insurance, said university spokesman Ron Cole.

“It’s important that we do this now because the act is going to determine who does and does not qualify for health insurance based on what we’re doing now,” he said.

Youngstown previously did not have a limit, but a Nov. 29 memo indicates adjuncts will be capped at 24 semester credit hours for this academic year. The memo also says adjuncts who exceed that limit will not be permitted to teach in the next academic year, with no exceptions. Last year, Youngstown had 800 adjuncts and 10 exceeded the new limit, Cole said.

Clark State does not currently have a limit for hours taught by adjuncts, though the college has in the past, said spokeswoman Jennifer Dietsch. Clark State’s part-time employees who work more than 960 hours are offered health care benefits. Adjunct faculty do not work that many hours, she said.

Along with UC, Clark State is working with a consultant to evaluate how to implement the act, said Dietsch and UC spokesman Greg Hand.

“It’s a big project just to make sure we’re covering all our bases and making sure we’re doing what’s best,” Dietsch said. “Anyone who is going to be over that 30 hours is going to be eligible for health care, which is obviously an expense. But we want to do right by the people who are working for us.”

Sinclair Community College is still evaluating the act, as well, said spokesman Adam Murka.

Colleges enter the planning process as they face many uncertainties in their financial futures, including how much tuition revenue they will receive from enrollment, whether they will be limited in how much they can increase tuition in the coming years and how much funding they will receive from the state. Gov. John Kasich is preparing his budget to implement a new funding formula to appropriate the $3.5 billion for higher education in the next biennium that will largely be based on student success and improving graduation rates instead of growing enrollment.

The challenge to understand Obamacare’s financial impact comes as colleges have seen its health care costs rise. In the last year, UC spent $73.5 million on medical and pharmacy claims. In 2011, Ohio State spent $246 million. Clark State spent $1.8 million, according to the schools. This year, Youngstown froze wages for all employees, increased employee contributions for health insurance and left 100 positions vacant following retirements, according to the university.

Meanwhile, other universities, including Miami, Central State and Wright State, said they do not expect to be impacted by the law. The University of Dayton will not make any changes because UD currently offers full-time benefits to employees working 20 hours per week, 1,000 hours per year, which is more generous than the requirements of the Affordable Care Act, according to the university.