Executive summary

Want to help your child avoid the many heath risks associated with diabetes? Then teach him or her to spot — and steer clear of — so-called simple sugars. A recent study by experts at the University of Southern California found a strong connection between the amount of sugar kids ate and whether or not they showed the first signs of type 2 diabetes. Sure enough, kids who reported eating sugar every day had clear signs that they were headed for problems. Even more shocking, nearly 40 percent of the sugar they were eating came from soda or sugary "fruit" drinks.

So what can you do to help children? Educate them about the impact too much sugar has on their health, and help them learn to read food labels and ingredient lists to identify high-sugar foods. Keep plenty of fresh fruit in your house to replace sweet snacks, and encourage your kids to quench their thirst with nature's perfect drink — water! — instead of sweet drinks. Remember, sugar itself isn't bad, but you can definitely have too much of a good thing!

RISK RELATED ACTIVITIES

Charles, Director, Risk Related Activities

Welcome to The Risk Related Activities Department for Colorado Springs School District #11. The RRA department provides three major functions for School District 11:

Employee Benefits: includes medical, 125 cafeteria plan, vision, dental, life, LTD, unemployment, wellness and EAP (employee assistance program)

Risk Management: includes insurance and claims administration, workers' compensation, general and professional liability, property, vehicle, vandalism, public official bonds, surety bonds, field trips, student accident, volunteers, laptops and others. Includes risk avoidance, control, funding, and monitoring.

Safety: includes loss prevention, loss control, accident investigation, training, reporting, CPR/first aid, ergonomics and others

The objectives of the Risk Related Activities Department are to support the educational mission of the district by maximizing the dollars available to the classroom through:

	Creating a safe and healthy work environment
	Reducing the districts' liability and claims and securing the district's assets
	Increasing productivity by keeping trained employees on the job
	Providing high quality, competitive benefits at the lowest cost
	Minimizing the cost of providing service through completive bids and balancing self-funding with commercial insurance

The Risk Related Activities Department acts as an internal insurance company. This means that a majority of our functions are self-funded. The advantages of self-funding include:

	Lower overall cost by avoiding premium taxes, earning interest on reserves, direct claims management and lower administrative costs
	Flexibility in setting premiums
	Less government regulations
	Loss control programs managed internally
	Determining the benefits that best fit the district
	Better analysis tools by using only district data and codes
	Less litigation through more attentive management of claims
	Better management of legal resources
	More responsive to management's reporting needs
	Focused attention to significant claims
	Ability to structure settlements across departmental and program lines

Goals include:

Contain overall Employee Benefit cost increases by:

Utilizing BEST Benefits Administration

Utilizing Nationwide Health Disease Management

Emphasizing wellness programs

Shifting from employer to consumer based health management

Competitive bidding or negotiate lower rates at renewal

Balancing self-funding with commercial insurance

Examining and updating plan design if necessary

Adjusting deductibles and co pays if appropriate

Reduce costs and frequency of claims in Risk Management:

Emphasize Safety culture

Fully utilize Post-Offer Pre-Placement as safety and cost control

Reduce litigation

Assure for rapid claim closure

Reduce lost-time injuries through increased safety emphasis and return-to-work programs

Provide presentations and visit schools/departments to actively educate on accident avoidance and claim reduction

Provide adequate resources and systems to manage activities/programs:

Upgrade the Risk Management Information System

Provide on-line input of accident and other forms improve timeliness and accuracy

Emphasize the Risk Related Activities Fund web site to provide information to employees

Maintain training to stay current with processes, laws and regulations

Add employee self-service employee benefit applications to increase accuracy and reduce workload

The significant issues facing the district from a Risk Related Activities perspective are:

	Containing escalating health care costs utilizing state-of-the-art programs
	Adapting to an aging workforce
	Increasing medical stop-loss insurance
	Controlling costs of workers' compensation claims and litigation
	Controlling exposures related to property and fire losses
	Increasing governmental regulations
	Providing employee training and safety needs
	Emphasizing employee communications and awareness