SMITHTOWN — CSEA members are helping to reduce the Town of Smithtown’s workers’ compensation expenses by playing a key role in the town’s new health and safety program.
“Since 2014, our workers’ compensation claims have gone through the roof,” said CSEA Town of Smithtown Full-Time Bargaining Unit President Kelly Brown. “The premiums have increased by 28 percent and more workers are getting hurt.”
Brown noted the 2017 workers’ compensation premium for the town is more than $2 million.
“We’re working with a skeleton crew,” said Brown. “With the amount of workers we have and the amount of work they have to do, they are stretched very thin.”
So when town officials approached Brown about establishing a safety and health assistant title, Brown was thrilled.
With Brown’s help, the town worked with civil service to create a duty statement and advertised for an opening, thereby creating a civil service list for the position.
It took some time, but town officials eventually filled the job.
“Our new employee, Katherine Boroski, files all of the paperwork, notifies Wright Risk Management Group, the firm that manages many municipal and school district claims in New York and gets the employees into the system so they can start seeing doctors,” said Brown.
Boroski will also be following up with employees by calling them and asking them if they have everything they need to address their worker’s compensation needs.
“A lot of times, there are major delays in getting tests and proper treatment for surgery because there is a backlog at the workers’ compensation office, which keeps employees out longer,” said Brown. “That drives up the cost of the claims for the town.”
The safety and health assistant acts as a liaison between the worker’s compensation company and town employees to prevent those delays from happening. She will make sure there is a steady flow of information, so employees can get back to work as soon as possible.
Also part of the position responsibilities is keeping track of the type of injuries employees are getting.
“If the same type of injuries keep coming in, it will ring a bell as to how people are getting hurt,” said Brown. “It will give us a strong argument for getting better equipment and training so we can reduce the number of claims.”
Our members are very happy to have someone to help them with paperwork and get claims through the system more quickly.
“It’s really a win-win for the employees and management,” said Brown. “Our claims will go down by getting employees back to work, returning employees will be back to getting their full pay and we’ll be relieving our already overworked staff who have to cover those positions.”
— Wendi Bowie
