Barren Co. Board of Ed. receives KEMI Destiny Award

Nov. 19--GLASGOW -- The Barren County Board of Education has received the Kentucky Employer Mutual Insurance Destiny Award for Workplace Safety.

The award was presented to the school board at its Nov. 14 meeting by Jeff Floyd with the insurance company.

"We insure about 23,000 plus or minus policy holders, and a few years ago, about nine years ago actually, we decided we really wanted to recognize those policy holders that do things right. And so we came up with the Destiny Award," he said. "That's always been kind of a way we describe 'you control your own destiny when it comes to workers' compensation and premiums and such. The more you put into it typically the lower premiums will be and that sort of thing."

KEMI came up with criteria points that allowed the number of policy holders to be reduced to a more manageable number.

"We came up with the experience mod, which is a reflection of basically what you pay us in premium verses what we pay out for injuries and that sort of thing. Most businesses, all businesses, when they start out, they are given an experience mod of one and then as experience rolls in it changes," Floyd said. "Our criteria point this year is a .80 and your all's this year is a .76, which is phenomenal."

Of the 125 school systems that KEMI provides insurance coverage for, Barren County is in the top 20 percent.

"That separates you pretty significantly," he said.

Another thing the company looks at is loss ratio.

"Your all's loss ratio, all years with KEMI, is 36 percent. We set that number at 40 percent and to be considered for the award it needs to be below that. Your all's is 36, which is phenomenal," Floyd said.

This year the number of policy holders were narrowed down to 39 and were sent a questionnaire about safety.

For the Barren County School System, Joe Murley, finance director, answered the questionnaire.

"We had 39 that qualified. We had 39 that responded back. We go through those to make sure that you're doing what we hope you're doing, and Mr. Murley put in an excellent response. This year we narrowed it down to 24 policy holders and you guys were one those 24," Floyd said.

He continued that the award isn't one that Murley, Anthony Frazier, director of pupil personnel, nor Bo Matthews, superintendent, could win on their own.

"It's an award that reflects every employee that works for the school system. In my mind, it takes all of them caring about their safety and the safety of others to win this award," Floyd said.

After the school board meeting, Matthews said the school district strives to improve safety and reduce costs whenever it can.

"As was said tonight earlier, I'm really proud that we were identified as a district that's actually achieving the results that everybody shoots for," he said. "Kudos to the district staff for looking at safety in the workplace and making sure we are doing the things that we can to not only keep our staff safe while they are on the job, but also reduce our costs as a district."

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