Safety, Health, and Security Committees

WSU Tri-Cities Safety, Health, and Security Committees

State and Federal regulations require that employers create safety committees in order to provide employees with a forum to discuss and resolve safety-related concerns. In order to meet this requirement, and to additionally gather employee concerns and questions related to campus health and security, WSU Tri-Cities has adopted the committee structure described below.

Member Subunits

Member subunits are the functional groups within the university. Examples include the Engineering Department, Business Office, and Custodial team. Member subunits form the basis of the committee structure, and are where most health, safety, and security concerns are expected to be presented.

Each member subunit will elect a Safety Representative who, along with the representatives of other similar subunits, will form the Campus Safety, Health, and Security Committee.

Member subunits may form subcommittees, at their discretion. For example, within the Business office, employees in Payroll services and in Contracts may form separate subcommittees, but both will be represented by the Business office Safety Representative. Or, the biofuels group may have its own internal subcommittee, represented by its elected representative.

Employees within the member subunits should communicate their concerns, suggestions, or questions to their elected Safety Representative for discussion at Campus Safety, Health, and Security Committee meetings.

The following subunits currently have a representative on the Campus Safety, Health, and Security Committee:

Admissions	Early Outreach	Maintenance
Advancement	Education	MarCom
Advising	EH&S	Nursing
Arts	Engineering	Sciences
Biofuels	Environmental Sciences	Security
Business	Fine Arts	Student Affairs
Business Office	Grounds	Student Body Representative
Chancellor’s Office	HR	V&E
Copy Center	IT/IAT
Custodial	Library

Campus Safety, Health, and Security Committee (Campus SHSC)

The Campus SHSC will be chaired by the Director of Campus Safety & Security, and will include representatives of all member subunits. This committee will:

Provide a forum for member subunits to identify and discuss safety- and security-related concerns with other units who have similar functions and processes. Discussion of such concerns may allow for issues to be resolved through common experiences, shared processes, and mutual support.
Monitor their member subunits’ compliance with safety and security programs, polices, and regulations, as well as implementation of new requirements communicated by EHS and other departments as a result of regulatory/policy changes and/or corrective actions resulting from incidents, inspections, or identified conditions.
Assist with promotion of safety awareness, including dissemination of information to their member subunits.

The Campus SHSC members will work collaboratively toward:

Assisting EHS – making recommendations for systematic improvements
Problem Solving – Collaborating to find a resolution to concerns that are presented to the committee. When needed, it will call upon campus and university resources. Any solutions requiring policy changes and/or capital investment will be presented to the Chancellor’s office with the committee’s recommendation.
Communication –Each member will be responsible for the communication and implementation of safety information including new or revised policies and procedures to their respective member subunits. The Campus SHSC will also provide technical and regulatory input to the Chancellor’s office through the chair regarding trends, feedback regarding improvements, policy development, and other requested information.
Measurement/Accountability – Each Campus SHSC member will monitor and report performance with safety incidents, programs, policies, and practices to the. The Campus SHSC will review reports and inspections to identify trends and hazardous conditions.

Procedures for All Committees

Meetings will occur monthly, on the 3rd Thursday of the month.
Meetings will last no more than 1 hour, unless extended based on agreement of the committee.
Meetings are open, all employees may attend (this includes subcommittee meetings). However, non-members shall be considered observers only, and may not participate in discussions unless recognized by the committee. Any new business brought forward by guests must be put on the meeting agenda prior to its publication.
The committee chair shall lead the conduct of the meeting. Roberts Rules are not necessary, but may be followed at the chairs discretion.
Minutes must be kept for all meetings of the Campus Safety, Health, and Security Committee, and for any subcommittee meetings formed by member subunits. The chair or the chair’s designee will be responsible for keeping minutes. Those minutes must be made available to employees represented by the committee as soon as possible. Minutes of all subcommittee meetings must be provided to the chair of the Campus SHS Committee.
Agendas must be distributed by the committee chair no less than 2 days prior to each meeting. For all meetings agendas must include:
- Roll call (can be silent, or use a sign-in sheet)
- Review of accident/injury reports
- Review of any inspections completed since the previous meeting
- Additional discussion of issues/questions/concerns previously discussed, including any corrective actions or resolutions reached
- Report from each representative – Each representative will provide a summary of activities in their member subunit or ULC, including issues raised and proposed solutions, followed by information on implementation of solutions proposed in previous meetings.
- New business – any new items of concern not raised by reports from each representative.
All topics must be concise in order to stay within the 1-hour time limit. It is the responsibility of the committee chair to ensure that the meeting stays focused and on task, and to ensure that conversations do not deviate from true safety/security concerns.

Where appropriate, members of the Campus SHS Committee may be appointed to attend external meetings including representatives from other campuses (such as the Emergency Management Committee, Risk Management Committee, Cyber Security Committee, etc.). When relevant topics are discussed in those meetings, attendees will be invited to report to the Campus SHS Committee and the information obtained will be disseminated to the member subunits as appropriate.

In order to implement this committee structure, all member subunits must elect a Safety Representative to serve a 1-year term on the Campus Safety, Health, and Security Committee. Once Safety Representatives are elected, they must be identified to EH&S in order to coordinate committee meetings.

Please identify elected representatives and the member subunit they are elected from to Scott Tomren at stomren@wsu.edu.