NIC will be getting a 5 percent discount from the Idaho Counties Risk Management Program, the primary form of property and liability insurance for Idaho cities and counties.
The discount, given for meeting Risk Management’s three requirements, will be approximately $15,000 and is set to start in the 2013 fiscal year.
These requirements include vehicle and workplace harassment training as well as a current personnel policy.
The second part of the personnel policy is to make sure employees and volunteers review the policies and acknowledge that they’ve seen them.
Workplace harassment training includes having employees attend a sexual harassment and a discrimination class. These classes include watching a video, followed by discussion and training.
Vehicle training takes about half a day, and involves employees becoming familiar with campus vans. They learn how to report an accident, what to do if they are in an accident, and what forms need to be filled. They are also asked to provide proof of insurance and a driver’s license.
“In the vans it actually amounts to going out, sitting in them and knowing how to use them,” said Vice President for Resource Management Ron Dorn.
However, Dorn said it was also NIC’s effort to go the extra mile that also played a factor in getting extra discounts.
“We’ve gotten a lot more involved with Risk Management to make sure we have liability forms signed off,” Dorn said. “We really had sexual harassment, discrimination and personnel policy long before I got here. Vehicle training was something new that we did and that really dealt with the liability of the vans.This fall was the first time we had this kind of intensive training and that was a result of the conference we went to that said we could help.”
One of the ways NIC tried to tackle safety was by having key administrators attend a training conference in Boise.
Dorn said the discussions inspired more pre-emptive policies. He also said another way NIC is trying to tackle liability and safety issues, is through the formation of the Loss Control Committee a year ago.
“We review areas where there’s possibility for injury and trying to get money to correct it,” explained Dorn.
One project resulting from the Loss Control Committee that NIC students can expect to see will be the fixing of uneven sidewalks the summer of this year. Replacing handrails around campus is in the process of being proposed as a health and safety issue to the budget.
Campus bathrooms previously found up to code were later deemed not compliant enough and had to be re-done.
“All this figures into this discount that we’re getting,” Dorn said. “This all figures into it, because we’re taking an active role in prevention.”
Even with recent updates, the committee continues to find more room for improvement.
For example, the bathrooms that were so recently re-finished were assessed afterward and found to have shelves with potentially dangerous sharp edges.
Also on the committee’s list are the “pull-in, pull-out parking lots” between the Sherman building and the Molstead library that are seen as a hazard to pedestrians due to frequently unsafe driving practices taking place there.
Dorn said solutions could involve eliminating parking spaces to make them parallel or eliminate parking there altogether, a move that could potentially raise protests on an already tightly parked campus.
Dorn said that particular issue is a long-term one and not an immediate priority for the committee.
“The committee ties in long term with the discount because it keeps us in contact with the insurance people,” Dorn said. “In fact, insurance representatives were here at the last meeting that this committee had and they gave a presentation over some of the things we were looking at that they could provide us help with.”
