Citing rising costs of health care and lack of communication from the federal government, Flathead Valley Community College announced this week it will limit most adjunct faculty members to 10 credit hours of teaching this spring.

The Affordable Care Act’s “pay-or-play” rule mandates that every company that employs 50 or more employees provide affordable health care coverage to its full-time workers or pay a fine.

President Jane Karas said the lack of parameters under the health-care act left the college scrambling to shore up excess costs and hours to avoid the penalties.

“We just don’t know yet,” she said. “We don’t have the regulations from the federal government to determine everything yet. We still have classes to coordinate to meet the needs of our students.”

FVCC employs around 170 adjunct professors and 54 full-time professors, along with scores of other staffers. Karas said roughly 20 adjunct professors were teaching more than 10 credits during the fall semester.

College professors are paid on a course-by-course basis, and monitoring hours to determine which jobs are full time is a tough prospect. An adjunct professor doesn’t necessarily mean part-time, but one who is not on a tenure track.

Kevin McRae, deputy commissioner for communications and health resources in the Montana University System, sympathized with FVCC’s problem.

“How in the heck are colleges going to quantify 30 hours for professors?” he said. “There is a lack of precise answers right now.”

Universities and colleges across the state are looking for that balance of credits. Professors, besides time in class, have preparation, office hours and whatever committees they serve on included in this figure. For that reason, two adjunct professors teaching the same three-credit course could come up with a very different count of hours worked.

FVCC participates in the Montana University employee health benefits program, and pays $806 each month for every insured employee. Because of the pay-or-play rule, any employee found to be working more than 30 hours without being offered employer health insurance could draw a fine of $3,000 from whatever employer was not keeping tabs.

This has left FVCC in a twist as it sorts out faculty hours without paying exorbitant fines when the penalties kick in January 1, 2015.

McRae lauded FVCC for its prudence.

“It sounds like FVCC is taking a cautious approach,” he said. “They are being fiscally responsible. We need a consistent standard and we don’t have that yet. Ten credits might be the right number.”

By limiting the credit hours for adjunct professors, FVCC is hoping to tighten its belt and assuring those adjuncts will not reach the 30 or more hours required to be considered full time. Adjunct professors are hired on a course-to-course basis every semester.

There were no plans to cut positions.

“We value all of our faculty — full time and adjunct,” Karas said. “We are looking for a way to meet our students’ needs as well as be cost-effective.”

Not everyone is so sure. Eric Feaver, president of Montana’s teacher’s union, the Montana Education Association-Montana Federation of Teachers, said he had filed a demand to bargain.

“I believe that cutting hours will harm FVCC’s educational enterprise,” he said. “What we’ll see is a very large number of adjuncts teaching a very small number of subjects. There will be a lot of moonlighting going on. I’m just not sure there are that many interested adjuncts.”

The 10 credit hours (a college course is usually three credits) isn’t a hard cap. Some adjunct professors likely will continue to teach several classes for more than 10 credits.

In a letter to FVCC’s board of trustees, Karas expressed disappointment with the lack of communication from the government.

“We had hoped to have guidance on these issues earlier in the year,” she wrote. “But unfortunately that did not happen.”

“We waited as long as we thought we could for guidance, but we needed to move forward to ensure the spring schedule was completed in a timely manner.”

The issue with adjuncts appears to be an anomaly for community colleges in Montana. Garth Sleight, the associate dean of academic affairs at Miles Community College in Miles City, was surprised by the news.

“For us it’s a non-issue,” he said. “We’ve been very careful in making sure adjunct professors are at nine credits or less. Preferably they teach two classes at most. We’ve been monitoring it very carefully.”

Miles Community College, along with FVCC and Dawson Community College, are the three non-American Indian, non-technical two-year colleges in the state. FVCC dwarfs the other two in student population. Dawson had no plans to cut credit hours, either.

FVCC will have a transition period and Karas said it would abide by federal guidelines to assure a financially viable model for adjunct professors.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.