Indiana justices to decide if elected officials are full-time employees

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indiana Supreme Court will decide if county elected officials count as full-time employees.

The state’s highest court announced Tuesday it will hear the case of Keith Huck, an elected member of the Perry County Council.

Huck sued after the county’s Board of Commissioners declined to offer him health insurance in 2023.

The board argued Huck only worked about nine hours per week at the position and did not qualify as full-time under county regulations.

Huck argued that the role of an elected official is necessarily a full-time position regardless of hours worked.

A three-judge panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals sided with the county, ruling that state law considers elected officials as employees and that federal labor law would not consider him a full-time worker.

“The General Assembly intended to allow local boards to exercise their common-sense discretion in determining full-time and part-time elected officials,” Judge Paul Mathias wrote in the ruling in April.

No date has been announced for oral arguments in the case.