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Specialty Lines
I've now spent half of my life working at CCAP. I joined the staff when I was 31, and have now been here 31 years. Sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday. And then I look at how much has changed, not just at CCAP but with Pennsylvania's counties, and it is pretty clear that time has definitely passed!
I've learned a lot during these years, and here are some of the things I have probably not told you enough:
I am continually amazed at all the work you all do - how many people you help every day. The scope of services provided by counties, to people that need the services the most - is impressive. And it is a shame that more people do not realize all that counties do.
I love how you share and help each other, whether through list serves or at conferences. You all learn so much from each other, and are willing to help. It is inspiring to see the welcoming hands you provide to new county officials and staff, in yours and other counties.
I'm still learning - just when I start to think I know about the services you provide, I learn about some new idea or mandate that counties are taking on. It does make things interesting!
It's good to remind you that no matter what happens in your county, someone has probably had the same situation in another county. There is a lot of similarity in, for example, claims filed against counties. And yet every so often I get to say "just when I think we've seen everything" or "you cannot make this stuff up!"
I'll close this month's column with a thanks to all of you for your risk management work, for caring to do things the right way, for the professional and friendly way you work with us, and for trusting us to provide you with coverages and services - and for letting us know how we can do things better.
Make sure you contact us when you need help with something,
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PCoRP Board Officers Elected and Committes Appointed
The PCoRP Board of Directors met January 24 and 25 in Hershey for a planning retreat and board meeting. Officers for 2019 were elected:
- Chairman: Frank Staudenmeier, Schuylkill County Commissioner
- Vice Chairman: Erick Coolidge, Tioga County Commissioner
- Secretary/Treasurer: Bill Gaylord, Wyoming County Chief Clerk
- Jim Jones, Central Counties Youth Center Administrator, was reappointed to the board as the County Related Entity Representative.
Chairman Staudenmeier appointed the following people to the PCoRP committees:
CCAP Joint Investment Committee Representatives
- Jamie Wolgemuth, Lebanon County Administrator
- Frank Staudenmeier, Schuylkill County Commissioner
Underwriting and Claims Committee
- Frank Staudenmeier, Schuylkill County Commissioner, Chairman
- Erick Coolidge, Tioga County Commissioner
- Krista Davis, Centre County Risk Management Coordinator
- CCAP Staff: Karen Cohen, Marsha Elmer, Cassie Troup, Keith Wentz, Barb Zemlock
- Willis Pooling Staff: Courtney Giesseman.
Finance and Audit Committee
- Jamie Wolgemuth, Lebanon County Administrator, Chairman
- Bill Gaylord, Wyoming County Commissioner
- Mark Sather, Huntingdon County Commissioner
- Norm Wimer, Forest County Commissioner
- CCAP Staff: John Sallade and Pamela Szajnuk
Thanks to these county officials and staff for their active participation in the governance of PCoRP. For more information about the Pennsylvania Counties Risk Pool, contact
John Sallade
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Register now for the PComp Membership Dinner Meeting!
The annual meeting of the membership of the Pennsylvania Counties Workers' Compensation Trust will be held Monday night, March 25 at the Harrisburg Hilton, starting at 6:30 p.m. The meeting is held during the CCAP Spring Conference.
There is no cost to attend, and spouses/guests are welcome to accompany you. After the dinner there will be a short update on PComp.
To register,
click here
to complete a short survey letting us know who will be attending. If you have any questions about the annual membership meeting, please contact
John Sallade
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PComp Payroll Audit Underway
By John Sallade, Managing Director, CCAP Insurance Programs
One of the key factors of the cost of workers' compensation insurance is your payroll - not just the amount of the payroll but the types of jobs your employees are performing, and the risks associated with those jobs. That's why there are various payroll codes into which your payroll is sorted, and each payroll code then has an associated cost based on the claims history of others in that code. For example, the code for construction workers is more costly than that of someone in an administrative job.
Members of PComp, the Pennsylvania Counties Workers' Compensation Trust, provide PComp with their payroll information each year, and every three years PComp hires a firm to do on-site visits to each member to review how their payroll is being reported. This helps us ensure every member is placing their employees into the correct payroll code. And as you probably guessed, this is the year that on-site audit is happening.
Each PComp member will be contacted by the auditing company, AFIRM (previously US-Reports), between now and the end of February. They will be reviewing your 2018 payroll and the codes to which each employee was assigned. The auditor will meet with each member, gather the appropriate information and forward the auditing results to PComp. Please let
Marsha Elmer
know if you have any questions.
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PA Workers' Compensation Conference
Make plans to attend the 18th Annual PA Workers' Compensation Conference on June 3-4, 2019 at The Hershey Lodge. To view the Conference brochure,
click here.
CCAP's workers' compensation insurance pool - PComp - celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2018. In response to this milestone, the PComp Board of Directors announced a special anniversary gift to each PComp member: one free attendee of their choice at the
PA Workers' Compensation Bureau Conference to either the 2018 or 2019 Conference. This year's Conference is being held June 3 - 4 at The Hershey Lodge and Convention Center. PComp will pay travel, hotel, meals and registration costs for the attendee.
If you have any questions or are interested in attending this Conference, please contact Linda Rosito.
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County Spotlight
Indiana County Adds Safety Equipment
Recently, the Indiana County Commissioners provided equipment and training for use in the event of a medical emergency at any of its facilities. In cooperation with Citizens' Ambulance Service and at a cost of about $1500, the county deployed eight 'Stop the Bleed' first-aid kits on December 13, 2018. On the same day, the County Sheriff's office provided certified, related training to nearly thirty county personnel.
Pictured with the kits from left to right are: BJ Pino, CEO of Citizens' Ambulance Service; Commissioners Rod Ruddock and Mike Baker; Deputy Sheriff Eric Lychalk; Sheriff Robert Fyock and Paramedic Mike Dunn of Citizens' Ambulance.
On January 24th, the county added eight new Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) to it's inventory, ensuring that every county facility has one close at hand. Training will be offered to all county personnel as well as other tenants in buildings partially occupied by the county.
The cost of the AEDs (more than $7000) was covered entirely by grant funds from PComp's Safety Improvement Grant Program.
Pictured from left to right are Sheriff Robert Fyock and Commissioners Rod Ruddock, Mike Baker and Sherene Hess.
Photos are courtesy of Jamie Empfield and the Indiana Gazette
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Bedford County Joins PIMCC!
PIMCC, the Prison Inmate Medical Cost Containment Program, welcomed its newest member, Bedford County, effective February 1! PIMCC is a medical cost management and educational program dedicated to assisting county prisons with the containment of all costs relating to prison inmate medical expenses. PIMCC's overall goal is to train, educate and provide a quality managed care program and assist its members to develop a medical cost saving program that fits into each county's unique inmate health care situation.
Bedford County will be joining at the full PIMCC membership level and receiving cost saving services such as auditing of inmate medical bills, monthly trending and reconciliation reports and overall case management, just to name a few!
For more information regarding the PIMCC Program, contact Desiree J. Nguyen at
[email protected].
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Let's Think Spring!
CCAP's Insurance Programs will be offering a full slate of excellent training opportunities again starting this month. There will be sessions on defensive driving, workers' compensation, county property and liability risk management, managing workplace performance, employee demotivation and our always popular prison risk management workshop and HR Boot Camp.
Here is a listing of the sessions being offered this spring:
MARCH
APRIL
By now you should have received your copy of the spring edition of the GLIMPSE. If you haven't or would like additional copies, please let me know.
As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, Risk Management Training Director at (717) 736-4728.
Thank you for your continued support of the CCAP Insurance Programs trainings! I look forward to seeing you this spring!
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Hot Topics
Direct Deposit Scams
There has been a rash of direct deposit scams in Pennsylvania and specifically targeting counties. Here is some additional information for you to review. This was also shared on the CCAP HR and IT list serves, and we heard back immediately from 15+ counties where this scam was attempted!
The emails to the county can be as simple as "Hello ___________________, I changed my bank and I will like my paycheck DD details changed. Do you think this change be effective for the next pay date?"
Direct Deposit Variant
In December 2018, cybercriminals updated their tactics to request direct deposit changes to executive accounts. In this variant, cybercriminals pose as a senior official and request finance or human resources departments change the direct deposit account details, resulting in the executive's paycheck being redirected.
The Scam Attempt
HR or the person who handles directly (or indirectly) changing the county's direct deposit information receives an email from an employee. In recent situations the employee email wasn't even their real county email address (may or may not have looked very similar). The request was processed and the next electronic paycheck was completed. In some cases, HR or payroll have actually caught the error through a Prenote process or through actually verifying in person with the employee that this direct deposit change was actually requested by them.
Action
Please contact your county staff who would process such requests. This should include, but not be limited to, human resources, payroll, commissioners and department directors. Share with them what has been happening. It is highly recommended that any such requests coming into HR or Payroll be verified physically with the employee through a phone call or in person visit. Further, while a Prenote process will not necessarily stop this, it is also highly recommended in your direct deposit confirmation process.
What to Look For
Those receiving these requests should ALWAYS verify that the email address of the employee is the real county email, especially if it looks similar (i.e. correct domain).
Does the email have a signature line? While not everyone uses a signature line, it is something to look for.
If the employee asks you to skip the Prenote process, that is a red flag (most employees are not even aware of the term Prenote).
If you do experience one of these incidents, CCAP has worked with the state to identify a resource that can be contacted to review the incident and escalate to national resources if necessary. He is:
Adrian Bordner, Trooper
Central, Computer Crime Task Force
717-512-4100
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Wellness Matters
By: Jean Henry, RN, Risk Control Wellness Nurse
April
April is Stress Awareness Month. Stress is a normal part of everyday existence. The CDC's National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reports the number of Americans who are extremely stressed at work range between 29 to 40 percent. Because no one is immune from it, it is important to understand the facts about stress, the impact stress has on your overall health, as well as how to cope with it.
Consider the following work place wellness strategies:
- Contact your Employee Assistance Program provider to present a stress education lunch and learn or set up a vendor booth in a break area. EAP is a valuable service that many employees forget is available to them.
- Get moving. Exercise is a stress buster. Organize groups to take short, wellness walks over lunch, throughout the day, or after work. Encourage employees to get up and stretch.
- Brighten up. Add color, plants, or positive messaging to your work space and common areas.
- Offer healthy breakfast and snack options in vending areas. It's important to start the day off with good nutrition and to continue the habit throughout the day.
- Host stress-related challenges. Challenge employees to learn one new breathing technique to practice each week for 10 weeks or meditate for at least five minutes every day for 30 days.
- Discuss ergonomics with a PComp Risk Control Specialist. If employees are uncomfortable at their desk or office space, they could be more reactive to stress because of it.
- Offer on-site meditation classes or yoga to help employees relieve some stress.
Utilizing your workplace wellness program can help employees manage and cope with stress in a healthy way. Have some great ideas or stories to share? Please let us know so that we can share with our members in Insurance Matters. Please contact Jean Henry, RN, Risk Control Wellness Nurse.
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New Associate Members
COSTARS-the Commonwealth's multi-award cooperative purchasing program allows county governments to purchase most goods and services without the time and expense of formal bidding by using the state's competitively bid and awarded contracts. Counties may choose from more than 2000 pre-approved suppliers to purchase vehicles, IT Hardware and software, road salt, equipment, voting systems, and much more. In FY2018, PA county governments purchased more than $113 million through COSTARS.
Unisys
www.unisys.com
Consulting, Technology
Unisys is a global information technology company that builds high-performance, security-centric solutions for the most digitally demanding businesses and governments on Earth. Unisys offerings include security software and services; digital transformation and workplace services; industry applications and services; and innovative software operating environments for high-intensity enterprise computing. In June 2014, Unisys and the Commonwealth launched a first-of-its-kind initiative that promises to transform how state agencies acquire IT services. Through this initiative, called Pennsylvania Compute Services (PACS), Unisys is providing and operating one of the largest, secure, cloud-based, on- demand IT computing implementations by a state government. Unisys is teaming with CCAP to provide PACS through COSTARS to local government entities in Pennsylvania.
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Upcoming Events
March 8, 2019
PIMCC Board Meeting
CCAP Office, Harrisburg
March 22, 2019
Deferred Compensation Committee Meeting
CCAP Office, Harrisburg
March 24 - 26, 2019
CCAP Spring Conference
Hilton, Harrisburg
April 10, 2019
SCHRPP Board Meeting
CCAP Office, Harrisburg
April 26, 2019
Health Alliance Board Meeting
CCAP Office, Harrisburg
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Quote of the Month
"True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance."
-Akhenaton
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