Earlier, we noted the proposed $57 million, or 3%, rate increase for 2009 in the three trust funds that make up the workers' compensation system.
Something that isn't known as well as it should be outside Olympia is that in 2002, the Department of Labor & Industries, at the behest of the Governor's office and through the Legislature, began diverting millions of dollars of trust funds out of the workers' comp system to pay for the administration of other programs at L&I.
The workers' comp payroll tax underwrites, for example, administration and enforcement of the state's wage and hour laws, family leave laws, domestic violence leave laws, paid family leave (if the state implements it), apprenticeship programs, contractor registration, grain elevator inspections, a think tank on "Environmental and Occupational Sciences" at the University of Washington, and so on.
It amounts to about $13 million per year, and much more if you add in the state's OSHA enforcement. And it has a direct impact on rates.
The simple fact is the Department wouldn't need to bring in (as much as) $57 million next year if these non-workers' comp programs weren't funded out of the workers' comp trust funds.
It illustrates how workers' comp can become an attractive and easy payroll tax to fund various programs outside the general fund, especially in tough economic times.
One of AWB's 2009 legislative objectives is to correct this misappropriation of employer- and worker-paid taxes for programs that have no ostensible link to workers' comp.
