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W.Va. proactive on workers’ comp

West Virginia employers may be getting a little good news for next year, as the National Council on Compensation Insurance has filed a proposed workers’ compensation loss cost decrease of 13.5 percent, to begin Jan. 1. The change, pitched by the state’s rating and statistical agent, would mean another possible $20 million kept in the coffers of Mountain State employers. In fact, it would mean 21 years in a row of decreases since the state workers’ comp program was privatized. That’s more than half a billion dollars in savings to employers compared with workers’ comp levels ...

Let’s put an end to political games

The story is becoming too familiar. Lawmakers who support spending cuts, then call for their reversal. Lawmakers who want to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse, just not in the program that is politically beneficial to them. U.S. Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., has joined several Senate colleagues in a letter that seeks the disbursement of already-approved Community Development Financial Institutions funds. To be fair, some of the federal actions seem designed to force elected officials to beg for the help they pledged to their constituents. In this case, $324 million from the ...

Action needed on rail safety

With Congress on its August break, there are a number of important things not getting done. A couple of recent incidents in West Virginia remind us rail safety reform continues to be one of them. Last month, a minor train derailment in downtown Parkersburg closed a street, and had residents asking questions about the contents of the tanks that were leaning. Belpre Industrial Parkersburg Railroad officials responded quickly with information (the tanks were safely sealed and empty), and a crew to get the train back on track. There were no injuries. On Aug. 3, the St. Albans Fire ...

Timmons shows there’s much to do

Eric Timmons wanted to prove a point. For many months now, the Jefferson County commissioner has been expressing his frustration at hearing numerous area residents complain that there weren’t enough activities in the region to keep them busy. A Steubenville resident, Timmons knew that isn’t the case. But, rather than just sitting back and getting caught up in the back-and-forth discussion, he decided that the best way to show the doubters they were wrong was simply to get out there and get involved. He did that during June, when he said he would attend 30 events around the ...

Tradition lives at county fair

When you browse through this year’s Jefferson County Fair Book, you’ll likely come across a simple set of words on the third page. There you will find the welcoming statement, a reminder that the fair is a showplace for the creative skills of people of all ages, as well as a place to see new products and exchange new ideas. Those words sum up what the fair is all about and remind us, once again, that while many things in our lives seem to go by faster and faster and the tone of the world seems like it’s getting meaner and meaner, it’s good to be able to sit back, relax and ...

Reminder to protect children

Last week, the Jackson Township Police Department in Northeastern Ohio conducted Operation Unsportsmanlike Conduct, in which it targeted predators traveling in an attempt to solicit sex from children, during a multi-day operation. According to a report by WOIO-TV in Cleveland, the operation resulted in the arrests of seven men who were allegedly trying to engage in sexual activity with girls they believed to be under the ages of 13, 14 and 15. Stark County court records showed those girls were actually undercover police officers being contacted through cell phones, thank goodness. ...