Topeka ? More than 2,000 state, municipal and school district employees in Kansas will become eligible for full-time health benefits starting Jan. 1, at a cost of about $5.3 million a year to state and local government taxpayers, state officials said Tuesday.

Mike Michael, director of the Kansas State Employee Health Plan, told a legislative committee that the increase is the result of the federal Affordable Care Act, which requires large employers to provide health benefits to full-time employees.

The federal law classifies anyone who works at least 30 hours a week as a full-time worker. Previously, the state required people to work at least 36 hours a week to be eligible for full-time benefits under its health plan.

The State Employee Heath Plan is open to state employees as well as employees of municipal governments and local school districts that choose to participate.

Michael said the law also requires colleges and universities to offer health coverage to student employees and adjunct professors who work at least 30 hours a week. Those people previously had not been eligible for coverage under the state plan.

Health plan officials estimated that about 500 students and adjunct professors will become eligible for full-time health benefits next year, at a cost to their employers of about $3.5 million a year.

But Kansas University spokesman Gavin Young said that will affect very few KU employees because the university has a policy of not allowing students to work more than 30 hours per week.

Young said some student workers may slip through the cracks if they work two or three different part-time jobs on campus. But he said KU has been trying to tighten its policy to prevent that from happening.

Outside the university system, Michael said about 84 percent of all state employees who are now considered part-time, or about 1,680 people, will become classified as full-time for purposes of health benefits starting Jan. 1. He estimated that will cost the state about $1.5 million in additional premiums.

Michael did not have estimates for the number of local government and school district employees who will be affected, but he estimated the cost to those employers at about $300,000 a year.

Douglas County, the city of Lawrence and the Lawrence school district all operate their own employee health plans and do not participate in the state plan.