The Workers Compensation Board’s (WCB) current-year savings target is $15.7 million, reflecting the governor’s order for a 10.35 percent reduction in projected agency spending. WCB is expected to achieve $13.9 million of its $15.7 million spending reduction target.
The WCB has been exempted from a portion of their target, in order to ensure the agency will meet new statutory requirements enacted in 2007 and 2008, which the agency had been working to absorb without an investment of new resources. As a result of the need to perform new activities which ensure the swift and fair processing of claims and provide adequate oversight of self-insured groups, the WCB will not achieve $1.8 million of the savings target in the current year. The agency will continue its efforts to make its operations more efficient in the next fiscal year.
Major Savings Initiatives
The Workers Compensation Board is already in the process of implementing the following actions to achieve their savings target:
Reducing personal service by eliminating six positions through attrition and reducing overtime ($4.7 million).
Closing eleven of the least utilized Customer Service Centers ($600,000 in savings when fully implemented).
Limiting travel, training, subscription costs and other non-personal service efficiencies ($6 million).
Ending technology contracts where WCB staff can perform similar tasks more cost-effectively ($3.1 million savings).