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The Decatur County Commissioners met for their second monthly meeting Tuesday evening. One of the items on the agenda was the addition of Jamie Earp as a new county safety coordinator.

Earp sat down and spoke with the Post-Searchlight about his introduction to the position, and what it entails. “This has been a fairly recent process, I’d say within the last three months,” Earp said. He was initially approached about the position at that time.

“The county administrator and my boss, the fire chief, actually came to me and said, ‘Look, we need more hands on with this, we just want to make sure we’re doing everything we can do. Have you ever thought about the safety coordinator position?’” he recounted.

As a county safety coordinator, Earp, along with a couple of other new additions, will be a part of the committee that’s responsible for routinely reviewing the county’s safety statistics and safety plans. “Each year we take a look at our safety policies, the county safety policies for each department, and we see if they need to be revamped or revised, or if they need a whole push again for this aspect,” he explained. An example Earp gave would be, if statistics from prior years showed a problem with speeding or seatbelt usage, the committee would come up with countywide policies to try and rectify the issue.

Safety coordinators are also tasked with visiting and inspecting county buildings and vehicles for safety, and looking at instances of accidents like slips and falls. In addition, they also must host safety training. “We have to host so many hours of training for defensive driving, or crisis management, or something that is a county-based course through a safety organization, to make sure that we are providing a level of training, and that those opportunities are open to the employees.”

The committee doesn’t just do basic safety inspections, training and review, but also looks at hiring practices. “We look through our HR manual, making sure that our policies don’t discriminate, or that our hiring practices are good hiring practices, and making sure that they do follow national standards,” he said.

In closing, Earp assured that, “We’ll keep striving for excellence when it comes to safety.”