Mathias, J.
Facts, Procedural History, and Issue on Appeal
The facts in this expedited appeal are not in dispute. Keith Huck is an elected member of the Perry County Common Council. In June 2023, during his term as a councilman, the Perry County Board of Commissioners (“the Board”) publicly voted to no longer provide health insurance coverage to part-time employees effective January 2024. As Huck averaged only nine work hours per month as a councilman, he lost his insurance coverage. He did not obtain alternative coverage following the Board’s June 2023 vote.
Huck filed a petition for a preliminary injunction to require the Board to provide him with health insurance coverage on the theory that, as an elected county official, he is necessarily a full-time employee, regardless of his actual hours worked. The trial court agreed and entered a preliminary injunction in Huck’s favor. The Board then moved for expedited consideration of this interlocutory appeal, which we granted.
We consider the following dispositive issue: whether elected county officials are per se full-time employees such that counties must provide them with health insurance coverage. We conclude that they are not. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s preliminary injunction for Huck and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Indiana Code chapter 5-10-8 (2022) describes health insurance benefits for public employees…
We conclude that, as an elected official, Huck is an employee under those statutes. But that is not the end of the inquiry. The statutes confer on local boards the authority to exclude employees from health insurance coverage based on their status as full-time or part-time employees, and the statutes neither define “full-time” and “part-time” employees nor exempt elected officials from that consideration. See I.C. § 5-10-8-2.6(b). Thus, under the plain language of the statutes, the Board had the authority to discontinue health insurance coverage for an elected official who was also a part-time employee.
Absent clear direction from our General Assembly to the contrary, the definition of “full-time” and “part-time” employees here is controlled by federal law..
The evidence here is undisputed that Huck’s actual work hours averaged about nine hours per month. He is therefore not a full-time employee. And that enabled the Board to exclude him from future health insurance coverage. I.C. § 5-10-8-2.6(b).
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Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
Tavitas, J., and Weissmann, J., concur.