About the State Safety Program

Ensuring the health and safety of employees in the state service is an important focus for the Commonwealth. Workplace injuries and illnesses are costly not only in terms of money, but also in the impact it has on workers, their families and the people they serve. It is vital that we do all we can to eliminate workplace accidents and injuries, fairly and adequately compensate those who are injured on the job, and make provisions for those employees to return to work as quickly and safely as possible.

101 KAR 2:150 establishes the State Safety Program within the Personnel Cabinet. The Office for Employee Relations manages the Safety Program along with the Workers’ Compensation and Return-to-Work programs.

The mission of the State Safety Program is to promote a safe and healthy workplace for state employees and others in the state workers’ compensation fund by providing training, education, information, coordination and assistance in the areas of workplace health and safety, loss prevention, and risk management.

The State Safety Program provides assistance to state agencies in establishing and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace. We can help set up safety committees, train safety representatives, provide information on health and safety issues and help ensure workplaces are in compliance with OSHA standards and regulations.

We monitor injury and accident reports and work with agencies to develop strategies to reduce accidents and illnesses and lower workers’ compensation costs.

We are not part of OSHA and NOT an enforcement agency! We can help increase awareness of OSHA requirements and help agencies stay in compliance with those requirements.