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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013 019 CC RESO RESOLUTION NO. 2013 - 019 A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BALDWIN PARK, CALIFORNIA,ADOPTING SAFE HARBORS UNDER THE PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT WHEREAS,The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act("ACA")was enacted on March 23,2010; WHEREAS, ACA added Section 4980H, Shared Responsibility for Employers Regarding Health Care Coverage to Title 26 of the United States Code, the Internal Revenue Code(Section 4980H); WHEREAS, Section 4980H imposes an assessable payment on an applicable large employer under the following condition: (1) when the employer fails to offer"substantially all" of its full-time employees (and their dependents) the opportunity to enroll in minimum essential coverage or offers coverage to "substantially all"of its full-time employees (and their dependents)that is "unaffordable"or does not provide"minimum value" and (2) when any full- time employee is certified to the employer as having received a subsidy for coverage through the exchange ("Assessable Payment"); WHEREAS, Section 4980(H) defines full time equivalents for sole purposes of determining whether an employer is an applicable large employer when calculating the number of employees for any month as defined under this act, and such employees shall receive only those benefits as provided under this act; and WHEREAS,the City of Baldwin Park ("the City") qualifies as a large employer because under the ACA because it employed an average of at least 50 full-time equivalent employees on business days during the preceding calendar year; WHEREAS,the Department of Treasury issued proposed regulations regarding Section 4980H, that permit the City to adopt the Look Back Measurement Method Safe Harbor("Look Back Safe Harbor") in order to determine whether an employee qualifies as full-time for purposes of determining and calculating the Assessable Payment (78 Federal Register 218, 243, January 2, 2013); WHEREAS,the City intends to adopt the provisions of the Look Back Measurement Method Safe Harbor in order to determine the full-time status of employees for purposes of the Assessable Payment; WHEREAS,the Department of Treasury issued proposed regulations regarding Section 4980H that permit the City to use one of three affordability safe harbors for any reasonable category of employees as long as it is applied on a uniform and consistent basis for all employees in the category(78 Federal Register 218, 251-253, January 2, 2013); and WHEREAS, the City intends to use the affordability safe harbors as contemplated in the proposed regulations. NOW THEREFORE,be it resolved by the City Council for the City of Baldwin Park as follows: 1) That the City finds all of the recitals set forth above are true and correct; 2) The City hereby establishes the Look Back Measurement Method Safe Harbor with regard to all ongoing employees as follows: a. The City establishes a twelve (12) month standard measurement period for ongoing employees. b. Starting with November 2, 2013, a standard measurement period will start each year on November 2"d and end the following year on November l". c. The standard measurement period is be the period during which an ongoing employee's hours are measured. d. The City establishes an administrative period of sixty(60) days. e. The administrative period associated with the standard measurement period will start each year on November 2nd and end on December 315`. f. The City establishes a twelve (12)month stability period for ongoing employees. g. Starting with January 1, 2014, the twelve(12)month stability period for ongoing employees will start each year on January lsc and end on December 31st. h. For purposes of the 2014 stability period, a transitional measurement period started on May 1, 2013 and will end on November 1, 2013. i. The administrative period associated with the transitional measurement period will start on November 2, 2013 and end on December 31, 2013. j. If an ongoing employee's employment status changes before the end of a stability period, the change in status will not affect the classification of the employee (as full or part time) for the remaining portion of the stability period. 3) On the start date of a new employee, the City will make a determination as to whether that new employee is reasonably expected to be a full-time employee. If the new employee is reasonably expected to be a full-time employee and is not a seasonal employee, the City will offer minimum essential coverage to that employee before the end of the employee's initial 60 days of employment. 4) If,based on the facts and circumstances at the start date of a new employee, the City is unable to determine that the employee is reasonably expected to be employed an average of at least thirty(30) hours of service per week over the initial measurement period, then the employee is considered a variable hour employee. 5) The City establishes the Look Back Measurement Method Safe Harbor with regard to new variable hour employees as follows: a. The City establishes a twelve(12)month initial measurement period for each new employee. b. The initial measurement period will start the first day of the first calendar month after the start date,unless the start date is the first of a calendar month in which case the initial measurement period will start on that date. c. The administrative period shall start the day following the last day of the initial measurement period and shall end no later than the last day of the first calendar month beginning on or after the first anniversary of the employee's start date. d. The City establishes a twelve(12)month stability period associated with the initial measurement period. e. If the new variable hour employee does not measure as a full-time employee during the initial measurement period, the stability period associated with the initial measurement period must not exceed the remainder of the standard measurement period (plus any associated administrative period). 6) A new employee's hours will be measured during the first complete standard measurement period for which he/she is employed. This means that a new employee's status may be tested under an initial measurement period and at the same time be measured under the overlapping standard measurement period. a. If an employee measures as full-time during the initial measurement period, he/she will retain full-time status for the entire associated stability period (even if the employee does not qualify as full-time during the standard measurement period). b. If an employee does not measure as full-time during the initial measurement period,but qualifies as full-time during the standard measurement period, the employee must be treated as full-time during the stability period associated with the standard measurement period (even if that means coverage must be offered before the end of the stability period associated with the initial measurement period). 7) When an employee experiences a break in service in which not one hour of service is rendered, upon return,the employee will retain the status the employee previously had with respect to any stability period, except that the employee will be treated as a new employee: a. If the employee resumes employment after a period of at least 26 consecutive weeks with less than an hour of service; or b. If the period (measured in weeks) during which no services are performed is at least four consecutive weeks long and exceeds the number of weeks of that employees period of employment immediately preceding the period during which the employee was not credited with any hours of service. 8) When an employee takes special unpaid leave (i.e. unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993,unpaid leave under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, or unpaid leave on account of jury duty),to determine hours of service the City will compute the average after excluding any periods of special unpaid leave during the measurement period and apply that average for the entire measurement period. 9) For each reasonable category of employees, the City, at its sole discretion,but on a uniform and consistent basis for all of the employees in a reasonable category, will apply one of the following safe-harbors to determine the affordability of the minimum value coverage that it offers its full-time employees: a. Form W-2 Safe Harbor i. The City measures whether the employee's required contribution for the calendar month for the lowest cost self-only coverage that provides minimum value exceeds 9.5 percent of the W-2 wages (as reported in Box 1) for the employee from the employer for the calendar year in which coverage is offered. ii. The coverage offered by the City will be deemed affordable if the employee's contribution is equal to or less than 9.5% of the employee's Form W-2 wages as reported in Box 1. b. Rate of Pay Safe Harbor i. The City measures whether the employee's required contribution for the calendar month for the lowest cost self-only coverage that provides minimum value exceeds 9.5 percent of an amount equal to 130 hours multiplied by the employee's hourly rate of pay as of the first day of the coverage period. ii. For salaried employees, the monthly salary amount will be used instead of 130 multiplied by the hourly rate of pay. iii. The City may use this safe harbor only if the City does not reduce the employee's wages (with respect to the employees for whom the City applies the safe harbor). iv. If rate of pay increases during the year, the City will use the lowest rate of pay for the year in the calculation. v. The coverage offered by the City will be deemed affordable if the employee's monthly contribution is equal to or less than 9.5 percent of the monthly wage. c. Federal Poverty Line Safe Harbor i. The City measures whether the employee's required contribution for the calendar month for the lowest cost self-only coverage that provides minimum value exceeds 9.5 percent of a monthly amount determined as the Federal poverty line (FPL) for a single individual for the applicable calendar year. ii. The coverage offered by the City will be deemed affordable if the employee's monthly contribution does not exceed 9.5 percent of the monthly FPL for a single individual for the applicable calendar year. PASSED,APPROVED AND ADOPTED this 19`h day of June 2013. MAN LOZANO MAYOR STATE OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES ss. CITY OF BALDWIN PARK I, Alejandra Avila, City Clerk of the City of Baldwin Park, do hereby certify that the foregoing Resolution was duly and regularly approved and adopted by the City Council of the City of Baldwin Park at its regular meeting of June 19, 2013 by the following vote: Marlen Garcia, Mayor Pro Tern Monica Garcia, AYES: COUNCILMEMBERS: Mayor Manuel Lozano, Ricardo Pacheco, Susan Rubio NOES: COUNCILMEMBERS: ABSENT: COUNCILMEMBERS: ABSTAIN: COUNCILMEMBERS: 1 Alejandra Avila CITY CLERK