An incentive program has helped city employees stay safe while on the job.
By Scott Taylor
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – City employees made it through July and August without work-related injuries. It was the longest span in a decade.

They had their first injury-free week in 10 years in April. A decade worth of weekly injuries and claims have driven city workers compensation costs sky high, said City Administrator Jim Bennett.

“If we weren’t self-insured, we couldn’t even qualify for workers compensation insurance,” he said.

Lewiston pays its claims out of a reserve fund. The number of claims have given the city a workers compensation rating of 1.86 over the last three years.

A 1.0 rating is considered average and higher numbers mean lower ratings. A 1.2 rating is equal to a failing grade, Bennett said.

He began an incentive effort to encourage workplace safety in spring 2002. Departments that make it through months without injuries get gift certificates for their employees. Every employee gets a $100 gift certificate to Lewiston restaurants if their department goes a full year with no injuries.

Department heads also file regular reports every time a workplace injury occurs. That report is reviewed by the city safety officer and Bennett.

“If we get several reports from one manager’s people, we know there is a problem,” Bennett said. “That can come up in that manager’s performance evaluation. So we have the carrot and the stick approach.”

Employees in the Public Works, Police, Fire and Parks and Recreation departments received gift certificates from the program this summer.

“Everything we’ve spent on gift certificates so far, that’s not equal to one MRI,” Bennett said.

“If everybody gets gift certificates after a year, that would cost between $30,000 and $50,000. But we’d save on all those claims. I figure we’d save about a $1 million. So we end up in the money.”

staylor@sunjournal.com

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