In recognition of their dedication and commitment to risk management and employee wellness, MIIA recognized member communities and municipal entities during the MIIA Annual Business Meeting held on Jan. 21.
Risk Management
MIIA’s Risk Management Team recognizes the following members for their commitment to safety and renewed emphasis on compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards.
Chelmsford: The town of Chelmsford demonstrated its commitment to building a culture of safety by hiring a municipal safety specialist a few years ago. The safety specialist identifies risks and coordinates safety efforts across all departments. He facilitates OSHA compliance and ensures there’s a collaborative effort to eliminate or reduce the risk when safety or risk issues arise, often using internal expertise to develop tailored departmental training programs. The town holds monthly safety committee meetings where all departments participate in safety-related discussions and share successes.
Plymouth: The town of Plymouth is one of MIIA’s most active members focused on risk management and safety. This commitment crosses all departments and all levels of management. The Department of Public Works stands out with its focus on monthly training for all staff led by a dedicated safety coordinator. This year, the DPW and Risk Management partnered to provide regular training tailgates focused on injury prevention and conducted proactive training refreshers, based on injuries sustained locally, to help reinforce safety procedures.
West Springfield: The town of West Springfield continues to maintain a successful risk management program. Central to this are regularly scheduled safety committee meetings held in conjunction with their risk manager and focused on property surveys, OSHA compliance and overall public safety. To further advance their OSHA knowledge base, two town employees are enrolled in the MIIA-sponsored OSHA Public Sector Safety and Health Fundamentals Certificate Program. Additionally, West Springfield has redoubled its commitment to Department of Labor Standards compliance for employee work areas across all departments. As evidence of their commitment to safety, the town successfully planned and hosted the Eastern States Exposition, New England’s largest state fair that attracts more than a million people.
Wilbraham: The town of Wilbraham provides valuable safety resources and goes one step further by sharing these resources with neighboring towns. At the heart of this effort is Public Works Director and town engineer Tonya Basch, who, in addition to completing the 110-hour OSHA Public Sector Safety and Health Fundamentals Certificate Program, also serves on the Department of Labor Standards Advisory Committee. She drafted and implemented numerous safety protocols during the pandemic that were deployed within the DPW and shared and implemented by several neighboring communities. Town officials meet with Risk Management on a regular basis and are committed to ensuring full compliance with DLS-required training for all departments.
Health and Wellness
This year’s winners were recognized for their steadfast participation in wellness activities during fiscal 2021.
Over the last two years, MIIA Well Aware dramatically increased the quantity and quality of remote programming. Each of the winners participated in nearly all Well Aware activities and took advantage of many of the unique resources offered.
These groups remained actively involved in employee health and well-being, despite challenging times and the lack of on-site opportunities:
MIIA recognizes the leadership of these groups for their steadfast support and encouragement for wellness.
Preventative Maintenance Can Help Prevent Costly Sewer Backup ClaimsStephen Batchelder, MIIA’s VP of Claims Operations and Risk Management
There is no more challenging and stressful claim than having to assist someone who has had their home flooded with raw sewage, which is an environmental hazard and public health risk.
Sewer backups to private property account for approximately 40% of general liability insurance losses incurred by municipalities each year. And they are expensive. MIIA’s average sewer loss is just over $12,000 for an unfinished basement area. And they go up from there. According to an article in Claims Journal, a typical claim averages in the mid $30,000’s, and the cost is increasing annually at a rate far more than inflation.
If you do the math — take your deductible per claim and multiply that by 20 sewer claims a year — you could be talking hundreds of thousands of dollars your community will need to pay out. And that doesn’t include the personnel hours and overtime often required to fix the problem.
It’s far better to do the preventative maintenance now than pay later.
Municipalities should include the following minimum preventive maintenance components in their sewer system program:
• Implement schedules for planned inspection in every area of the sewer collection system, including all utility access holes and pipelines. Local conditions will determine the type and frequency of inspection needed for sewers and utility access holes. As a general guide, it is recommended that inspections of the public sewer system take place every 18 to 36 months.
• Implement schedules for planned maintenance in every area of the sewer collection system, including cleaning of sewer lines, where evidence of impeded water flow is identified. Local conditions and equipment will determine how frequently sewers and utility access holes should be scheduled for cleaning.
• Implement schedules for more frequent inspection and cleaning of known or potential problem areas, as identified by sewer staff or consulting engineers (e.g., sewers with excess debris accumulation, intruding tree roots, flat slopes, etc.).
• Implement schedules for inspection and cleaning of pump stations and equip them with alarms that ring to a staffed location or on-call pager in the event of a power failure or high wet-well level, as well as an alternative power source to maintain a minimum level of service during outages.
• Develop a process and schedule for inspection, maintenance and improvement of municipally-owned portions of sewer service connections (if appropriate).
• Develop a process for monitoring and gauging the impact of rainfall on the sewer system, so that appropriate actions can be initiated as necessary to prevent or mitigate surcharging and sanitary sewer overflows.
• Develop procedures for avoiding an excess surge in downstream lines when removing blockages.
• Implement a plan to identify, prioritize and fund the repair or replacement of deteriorated system components.
If preventive maintenance cannot be completed at the scheduled time, a supervisor should be notified immediately, and the activity should be rescheduled as soon as possible.
Every community should also prepare, and regularly review and revise, an emergency response plan. The ERP should be developed to assure that applicable personnel are prepared to take timely and efficient action in the event of a sewer incident.
