Federal Annual Monitoring and Evaluation Reports: Alaska

Alaska Occupational Safety and Health
Initial approval date: July 31, 1973
Program certification date: Sept. 9, 1977
Final approval date: Sept. 26, 1984

Every year, OSHA evaluates each of the 27 State Plan states and territories. Today, I’m looking at the federal agency’s review of Alaska.

OSHA’s report, covering fiscal year 2013, sums up AKOSH’s performance as “acceptable.”

The State Plan made “satisfactory” progress in resolving five of nine corrective actions OSHA recommended in its FY 2012 FAME report:

• Ensure evaluations of an employer’s safety and health program are completed in all fatality inspections.
• Ensure inspection goals take into consideration available resources, including abilities and training of compliance staff.
• Ensure violations are cited and issued in accordance with the required time frames.
• Ensure AKOSH administrative staff receives guidance and direction to correct database errors, and implement a corrective process.
• Ensure development and implementation of effective administrative processes for timely entry of hazard abatement verification.

The report offers nine recommendations, four of which are carry-overs from FY 2012. Recommendations for FY 2013 include:

• Ensure inspections following worker hospitalizations entail visits to the site where the incident occurred.
• Improve the timely issuance of citations to employers following inspections.
• Ensure penalty factors, such as severity and probability, are calculated consistently with existing policy.

Percent of AKOSH inspections in which serious, willful or repeat violations were issued:

Safety
FY 2011 – 45%
FY 2012 – 47%
FY 2013 – 62%
Three-year State Plan national rate – 57%

Health
FY 2011 – 100%
FY 2012 – 56%
FY 2013 – 65%
Three-year State Plan national rate – 54%

Average AKOSH initial penalty per serious violation:
FY 2011 – $976
FY 2012 – $1,046
FY 2013 – $1,052
National State Plan average (FY 2013) – $2,245

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