County Commission | The Magazine May 2019 | Page 27

FROM THE COVER
his or her regular duties with a
range of additional responsibilities,
including:
• Organizing a county-wide safety
committee that meets at least
twice a year;
• Overseeing efforts in safety-
sensitive departments, which must
have departmental safety meetings
at least four times a year;
• Ensuring participation in required
outside training.
The Funds’ reinsurer, which
exclusively serves county self-
insurance pools, creates a forum for
insurance leaders to network, problem
solve and share ideas. The SIDP was
modeled on a similar program next
door in Georgia, van Arcken said.
When he started his job in 2009,
it had been more than a dozen years
since the ACCA had anyone on staff
devoted 100 percent to insurance.
The Funds’ trustees established
the SIDP, and there’s definitely a
note of pride in van Arcken’s voice
when he speaks of its successful
implementation.
“It’s just being proactive,” he said.
“You’re trying to prevent losses, and
the majority of counties are swinging
that way now.” n
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injuries, van Arcken said.
The SIDP is rooted in a broad
understanding of safety that
encompasses all manner of costly
risks and liabilities, not just bodily
injury or property damage. As
employers, counties are vulnerable
to lawsuits arising from personnel
practices, so the SIDP requires
human resources training to improve
safety from that angle.
In the most recently completed
year, 92 percent of eligible Fund
members participated in the
SIDP. But even van Arcken, a
self-proclaimed “numbers guy,”
said the figures do not reveal the
transformative shift in safety culture.
“There’s an old saying my dad
used to always tell me,” he said. “He
would say ‘not everything that can be
counted counts, and not everything
that counts can be counted.’”
Commissioners truly set the
tone for a county’s attitude toward
safety, and much of the day-to-day
responsibility for carrying out their
priorities rests with the county’s
safety coordinator, designated by
commission vote.
The staff member serving as
safety coordinator, effectively the
point person for the SIDP, combines
Houston County
Safety Pays in
the Wiregrass
Houston County’s constant
attention to safety has
paid off in many ways –
including an across-the-
board pay raise for full-time
employees.
From 2010 to 2016,
the county’s premium-
contributions to the ACCA
Funds dropped nearly a half-
million dollars a year. Those
savings, in combination with
money from successfully
completing the Safety
Incentive Discount Program
and other funds returned
to insurance program
members, were enough to
fund a 1 percent raise for
roughly 380 employees.
COUNTY COMMISSION | 27