risk management

Every organization is inundated with records, whether in paper, electronic or audio format. The unfettered retention of e-mail and other electronic documents strains server capacities, off-site storage of paper records strains budgets and staff time, and the demands to retrieve certain records from this morass strain nerves and patience. To complicate the situation, organizations and their employees adopt a wide variety of approaches to this problem, from saving everything to destroying almost everything.

By Dr. Shannon Mills

What are the benefits of regular professional dental cleanings?

Did you know that the New Hampshire Local Government Center (LGC) is a nonprofit organization governed by an active board made up of local, municipal, school and county representatives that includes labor, management and elected officials? As a member-driven resource for local governments, the LGC provides numerous supportive programs and services that are designed to strengthen the ability of New Hampshire municipalities, schools and county governments to serve the public.

Benefit and Coverage Offerings

“Watch your mouth," the saying goes, and science is turning up ever more reasons to heed that advice literally. Preventing gum disease (periodontitis), the leading cause of adult tooth loss, is gaining new urgency as research shows that gum disease can contribute to illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke and pneumonia. The culprit, scientists believe, is a spillover of bacteria and inflammatory agents from the mouth into the bloodstream, which bustles them off to the rest of the body. Related problems include these:

Diabetes

We all know the feeling of walking into a newly cleaned house, or crawling into a freshly made bed. Imagine the rise in staff and student morale if they could start each school day in a clean and healthy room. We owe it to ourselves, our students and our communities to provide the safest and healthiest learning environment possible.

A great farmers’ market is a lot of things. It is ripe tomatoes still warm from the sun and fresh herbs that smell so good you want to eat them on the spot. It is golden honey and just-baked pies. It is lemon verbena soaps and beautiful candles. It is a conversation with the local gardening expert who can tell you how to grow anything (and when to try something different). It is a place for children to try a craft, for families to spend an afternoon, for neighbors to reconnect.

By Ron O’Keefe

Across the country, recent news stories bear headlines such as these when reporting on motor vehicle collisions involving emergency responders:

• • Fireman charged in fatality
• • Charges against firefighter dismissed
• • Family of fallen firefighter sues town

According to the National Fire Protection Association, 34 percent of firefighter deaths in 2004 occurred while responding to or returning from alarms.¹

By Al “Butch" Burbank

With the recent rash of police officers being struck by vehicles while working on highways outside their patrol vehicles, I believe it is a good time for police executives to reexamine their policies regarding this type of work activity. As a retired police chief, I am keenly aware of the concerns officers express when asked—or required—to wear any type of reflective clothing that highlights them and potentially puts them in harm’s way.

Editor’s Note: This article presents a review of risk management information from Ergonomics: The Study of Work, a report issued in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

By Ronald O’Keefe