State OSH Programs Show Better Compliance Rate than Fed/OSHA

The Federal Annual Monitoring and Evaluation (FAME) report for 2015 found that many state Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) programs had better safety compliance rates than the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Those states showed 33.3 percent of employers complying versus 28 percent on the fed level. On the flip side, many states did not meet performance goals because of staff turnover and under-funding. Of the 21 states operating their own OSH programs, 15 did not meet their goals for health inspections and 14 failed to meet their goals for safety inspections. The FAME report also noted that 13 states were less likely than Fed/OSHA to issue citations after conducting inspections, with Indiana and Nevada issuing citations less than half the time.