Texas City, Texas Implements Safety Incentive Policy Municipality Offers Tax Incentives to Industries Earning VPP Certification
The city of Texas City, Texas, located approximately 40 miles southeast of Houston; last week enacted an innovative provision within its municipal tax code that offers tax incentives to those industrial facilities that demonstrate a commitment to safe operations by becoming certified as Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) worksites!
"We applaud Texas City's leaders for this proactive and unprecedented effort that promotes not only a safer industrial district, but a safer community," said R. Davis Lane, Executive Director of the VPP Participants Association. "VPP can significantly improve a facility's safety performance. And now, Texas City companies will have added financial incentives to participate in the program and earn VPP certification. This is an outstanding precedent that we hope local governments throughout the country will follow."
Texas City officials outlined and approved the plan at their June 7 City Commission Meeting. The language in the provision states that if an industrial entity achieves VPP certification, the facility's owner is entitled to a 20 percent tax abatement each year for five years (from the second year after it receives certification through the seventh year), provided the owner maintains VPP designation.
"The Voluntary Protection Program is a great way for the City to have a measurable standard for our abatement program," said Texas City Mayor Matthew T. Doyle. "VPP also provides that management and labor work together to achieve a common goal. The money that we allow in the tax abatements will be a small price to pay for a safer community."
VPP began in 1982 as an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) program to establish cooperative action among government, industry and labor in promoting highly effective safety and health programs that go above and beyond normal OSHA worker protection compliance. The Department of Energy began their VPP program in 1992 with the initial facility, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, entering the program in 1994.
Becoming VPP-certified is a rigorous and complex process designed to ensure that only the best programs qualify. Companies and organization that are VPP certified as either Merit Sites or Star Sites (the highest VPP honor) have discovered numerous benefits including 60 to 80 percent fewer lost workday injuries, and an injury and illness rate that is 52 percent or lower than expected for a site of the same size in the same business segment.
STAR recognition in the VPP is the highest honor and it recognizes the nation's most effective safety and health programs.
The city of Texas City, Texas, located approximately 40 miles southeast of Houston; last week enacted an innovative provision within its municipal tax code that offers tax incentives to those industrial facilities that demonstrate a commitment to safe operations by becoming certified as Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) worksites!
"We applaud Texas City's leaders for this proactive and unprecedented effort that promotes not only a safer industrial district, but a safer community," said R. Davis Lane, Executive Director of the VPP Participants Association. "VPP can significantly improve a facility's safety performance. And now, Texas City companies will have added financial incentives to participate in the program and earn VPP certification. This is an outstanding precedent that we hope local governments throughout the country will follow."
Texas City officials outlined and approved the plan at their June 7 City Commission Meeting. The language in the provision states that if an industrial entity achieves VPP certification, the facility's owner is entitled to a 20 percent tax abatement each year for five years (from the second year after it receives certification through the seventh year), provided the owner maintains VPP designation.
"The Voluntary Protection Program is a great way for the City to have a measurable standard for our abatement program," said Texas City Mayor Matthew T. Doyle. "VPP also provides that management and labor work together to achieve a common goal. The money that we allow in the tax abatements will be a small price to pay for a safer community."
VPP began in 1982 as an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) program to establish cooperative action among government, industry and labor in promoting highly effective safety and health programs that go above and beyond normal OSHA worker protection compliance. The Department of Energy began their VPP program in 1992 with the initial facility, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, entering the program in 1994.
Becoming VPP-certified is a rigorous and complex process designed to ensure that only the best programs qualify. Companies and organization that are VPP certified as either Merit Sites or Star Sites (the highest VPP honor) have discovered numerous benefits including 60 to 80 percent fewer lost workday injuries, and an injury and illness rate that is 52 percent or lower than expected for a site of the same size in the same business segment.
STAR recognition in the VPP is the highest honor and it recognizes the nation's most effective safety and health programs.
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