Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Safety is Golden

“Safety is golden” in more than one way. First and foremost, we want our parks to be safe places for the public to come and recreate, and we want to provide a safe working environment for our employees to do their jobs.

On the financial side, when we operate in a safe manner, our insurance premiums go down, saving the Park Authority big dollars. 2005 was our safest year in recent history. We had fewer accidents and lower claims than any year going back to 1991. As a direct result of our good safety record, the Park Authority saved over $90,000 this year in reduced premiums! That is a fantastic record of achievement.

As necessary as insurance is, it is pure overhead. By reducing our annual expense by $90K, we can use that money to better serve the public.

One of the key factors to our great safety record is the rigorous training all of our lifeguards go through to get certified. In addition to our pools and water parks, our employees have been demonstrating very good judgment and an awareness of safety procedures in all of their work.

As a result of the diligent work of Derric Bolton our Safety Officer and all of the professional staff at the Regional Park Authority, we can say we are operating the safest parks we have had in many years.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Safety definitely matters. After several attempts to address safety issues, years ago, the activity that ultimately made a big difference was an all-staff meeting at which everyone "looked each other in the eye" and realized that we were all in this together. This dynamic could be applied in other areas occasionally.