BWC Offering Safety Grants to Ohio State-fund Employers

As you prepare this year’s budget and are considering any additional safety equipment purchases, remember the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation is awarding safety grants to employers for the purchase of safety, ergonomic, and/or industrial hygiene equipment which can help reduce or eliminate injuries and illnesses.

One of purposes of this Safety Intervention Grant program is to gather information about the effectiveness of certain safety interventions. As such, each employer provided grant monies is required to provide quarterly data reports for two years as well as a case study one year from the intervention date. The BWC will, in turn, share these results with Ohio employers to aid in establishing safety intervention best practices for accident and injury prevention.

Any active state-fund employer, public or private, who is current on all monies owed to the BWC, is eligible for a 3-to-1 matching grant, up to a maximum of $40,000 for each eligibility cycle.

Keep in mind that all proposed purchases must first be approved by the BWC. Also, the safety grant monies may not be used for salaries, wages, internal labor, or the cost of preparing the application. Further, in addition to a dynamic moratorium list of items for which the BWC feels it has sufficient data, some examples of safety interventions not covered include: 1) rented or leased equipment; 2) personal protective equipment; 3) back belts; 4) safe-lifting training; 5) equipment related to capital improvements already under way; 6) building or property improvements; 7) equipment intended to meet minimum OSHA compliance; and 8) monitoring equipment.

This is by no means a quick and simple process, and there are a number of “hoops” to go through. Moreover, failing to abide by the terms of the safety grant program could result in the BWC seeking recovery of its grant monies.

The following link/web address will take you to the Safety Grant Application:
https://www.bwc.ohio.gov/downloads/brochureware/publications/SafetyGrantsPhaseVI.pdf

In addition, the following are links to the BWC site explaining the program and providing a current list of interventions on which there is a moratorium and also the BWC site with the grant recipient list which lists the types of safety interventions being requested and granted:

1. https://www.bwc.ohio.gov/employer/programs/safety/empgrants.asp

2. https://www.bwc.ohio.gov/employer/programs/safety/EmpGrantsRecipients.asp

Please feel free to contact Mark Snyder at KWW with any additional questions, or for assistance with the application process.