1. CIMCITY COMMISSION INFO RMATION MEMORANDUM
March 19, 2018
ADMINISTRATIVE BRIEF FROM NATALIE FISCHER
HUMAN RESOURCES
Workers’ Compensation Report
As a self-insured organization, the City of Salina is required by the State of Kansas to carry an
excess policy for workers compensation. It is a condition to the State of Kansas granting an
entity a permit to self-insure. This policy provides protection for our organization and our fund
balances in the event of large claims. The City of Salina has purchased this coverage from
Midwest Employers Casualty Company (MECC) for over 18 years. One value-added service
that MECC provides is a benchmarking analysis report that provides a comparison of how we
are doing versus other organizations with similar mixes of job classifications. Three areas
compared include:
1) Number of Claims (Frequency)
2) Average Cost Per Claim (Severity)
3) Total Losses
MECC provides both a benchmark comparison (organizations with similar job classifications and
work scope) and a best practices comparison (20% below benchmark in both frequency and
severity of claims). The Best Practice category includes performance in the top 10%. Over the
past 13 years, the City of Salina has recorded a higher number of claims in comparison to both
the benchmark and the best practice. The graph below looks at the last five years of claims
data.
Although our aim is to reduce the number of incidents, the trend of higher frequency is not as
concerning as it initially appears. Our work comp philosophy with incidents is to proactively treat
them, even if minor. We err on the side of proactive treatment rather than not addressing the
incident or injury until it turns into a larger, more serious issue. We believe this early intervention
to be effective since our trend for claims severity reflects that we outperform both benchmark
and best practice. Over the past five years, we have averaged 33% above benchmark and 67%
above best practice in frequency but 49% below benchmark ($8,977) and 36% ($7,181) below
best practice for average claim cost or severity. In the 2012 claims year, we incurred a very
large spike due to a serious accident involving a gunshot wound as well as a few other claims
that were above average in severity for our organization.
In looking at total losses, we have performed well over the past several years. Our 5-year trend
reflects 32% ($127,861) below benchmark and 6% ($15,657) above best practice. When we
look at the four years after the 2012 spike, for the average claim cost the City of Salina is 173%
($5,743) below benchmark and 119% ($3,932) below best practice. When analyzing the total
direct losses for those same four years, the City of Salina’s average is 103% ($197,511) below
benchmark and 29.92% ($57,369) below benchmark.
Our overall performance was benchmarked against other self-insured government agencies.
The City of Salina outperforms 75% of other agencies in terms of total losses. We are looking
for ways to reduce the frequency of incidents and maintain the low severity of our injuries and
incidents in efforts to move us into the top 10%.
MONDAY’S MEETING
Enclosed are other items on the agenda. If any Commissioner has questions or cannot
attend the meeting, please contact me.
Jason A. Gage, City Manager