Kane County risk-management review flags slip-and-fall and combative-person incidents in sheriff's operations

Kane County human-resources staff presented workers'compensation data Wednesday that highlighted two distinct risk patterns: a small number of very high-cost claims in the coroner's office and persistent slip, trip and fall and combative-person incidents across sheriff's divisions.

The committee heard that the coroner's office had "significantly less frequency," but "that severity is huge," a committee member said. Jamie, the county's executive department head for human resources, cautioned the group that medical details could not be discussed in an open meeting and added: "They have 6 months to submit a claim following the date of service," explaining why single months can look very different in the claims ledger.

The presentation by David Larson, who identified himself as human resources staff responsible for risk reporting, broke sheriff's office incidents into corrections, court security and public safety and grouped similar causes together. Larson told the committee he had combined data from the sheriff's three divisions at the request of the committee so the county could better see where losses were occurring.

Why this matters: county leaders said the new, more granular reporting is intended to let the county target injuries that are likely preventable, such as lifting and slip-and-fall incidents, while recognizing some risks are inherent to corrections work.

Committee members urged focusing on the highest-return interventions first. "Slip, trips and falls keep coming up ... that's kinda low hanging fruit because that's things that we can actually look at," said Anita, a committee member, calling for deep dives into causes and simple remedies such as equipment or training. Jamie and Larson said early risk-management work already emphasizes walk-throughs, hazard identification and winter maintenance to reduce icy conditions.

Staff told the committee there is not a central statewide database that would let Kane County directly benchmark combative-person incidents against other counties in a way that accounts for local differences in inmate populations and case severity. "There's no database for that, and I think there's too many factors for comparison," Larson said, adding that year-over-year internal comparisons will be the primary metric for measuring progress.

Directions and next steps: the committee encouraged staff to continue year-over-year tracking of incidents flagged as "preventable" versus "unpreventable," to share findings with the sheriff's office for local perspective, and to prioritize interventions on slip, trip and fall hazards. Jamie described the county's new risk-management approach as proactive: "David's role is really, to be more proactive, to make sure that we have good policies and procedures, training, safety, and all of that to try to mitigate these claims before they happen."

Ending: Committee members and staff agreed to keep the topic on future agendas while staff gathers more detailed departmental feedback and implements targeted prevention measures.