Menu

Ohio Farm Bureau and several business groups are calling on legislators to pass a Senate bill introduced last year that would reform the state's workers' compensation system.

Senate Bill 7, introduced by Republican Sen. Gary Cates, seeks comprehensive changes to the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) to make it run more efficiently. The bill passed last year in the Senate at a time when BWC was embroiled in a multi-million dollar investment scandal. Republican Rep. Stephen Buehrer sponsored the House version of the bill, which is currently pending in a House committee.

OFBF, Ohio Manufacturers' Association, National Federation of Independent Business and other business groups met recently with lawmakers who pushed for the reforms. The meeting's goal was to emphasize the need to pass SB 7, said Rocky Black, OFBF's director of legislative affairs.

"There's a need to keep the Bureau of Workers' Compensation strong and efficient," Black said. "It's a cost of doing business issue for farmers and businesses. It's time to pass this bill."

BWC has said it needs to make sweeping changes to increase its surplus, which is needed to supplement medical payments. The surplus has dropped to $800 million from several billion dollars a few years ago, prompting the bureau last summer to stop granting one-time dividends on employer premium bills.

Passage of SB 7 would result in about $100 million in yearly savings, Black said, citing BWC statistics. Some of the proposed changes include reducing the amount of time employees can file claims for wages lost from on-the-job injuries.

"The recommendations will help the Bureau of Workers' Compensation process claims more efficiently, saving it millions of dollars," Black said.

Black anticipated the bill will pass by the end of the year and noted that officials are pushing for even more reforms with the workers' compensation system. Last month, new BWC Administrator William Mabe outlined a plan that he said could generate as much as $424 million in improvements to the bureau's bottom line this year.

BWC proposals include aggressively trying to reduce expenses, primarily through better control of health care costs; improving its underwriting capabilities by focusing on employer compliance, and auditing and collections of outstanding debt to ensure businesses are responsible only for their liabilities.