Wasn't the affordable care act suppose to save jobs? | The Compost Bin | Forums

that reminds me, I need to figure out what we are going to do about insurance

TWIN FALLS -- The Twin Falls School District says the Affordable Care Act is causing them to make tough decisions when it comes to some of their employees' hours.

The school board made the decision this spring to reduce paraprofessional hours from 30 a week down to 27.5 hours a week.

It affected 150 employees throughout the district, including positions like janitors, substitute teachers, and food service workers.

Previously, they were part-time employees receiving part-time benefits, at 30 hours a week.

Now, they are still part-time employees receiving part-time benefits, but working a half hour less each day.

The school board made the decision because under the Affordable Care Act, if an employee works 30 hours a week, they must be be offered full-time benefits.

The district estimated that would cost about $7,000 per employee, totaling more than $1 million.

Shannon Swafford is the Human Resources Director and said it was a tough decision, but one the district had to make.

"It's a huge decision for the district and not something we take lightly at all, we really value our employees a lot and we had 150 paras, which we are fortunate to be able to have a large number of paras on our staff, and if we were going to have 150 paras on full-time that would be a cost of over a million dollars," said Swafford.

Swafford said they did tell the employees last year to prepare them and give them time to look for new work if they wanted to. She said most stayed with the Twin Falls School District.

The issue was brought up at last week's school board meeting.

Members decided to put together a committee to look into the district's salaries for classified workers.

Swafford says they want to make sure that everyone is paid at a fair rate, especially after so much concern over the cut in hours.

http://www.ktvb.com/...../16534967/