OSHA, combined with our State Plan partners, has approximately 2,200 inspectors responsible for the health and safety of 130 million workers, employed at 8 million worksites around the nation. Although workplace conditions today are much safer than when OSHA was created, over 4,300 workers are still killed in the workplace each year and millions are injured. Tens of thousands continue to die from occupational illnesses. To reduce workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities, OSHA enforces statutory protections, provides technical support and assistance to small businesses, promulgates and enforces safety and health standards, strengthens the accuracy of safety and health statistics, and educates workers about the hazards they face and their rights under the law. In FY 2015, OSHA is requesting $565,010,000 and 2,265 FTE, which includes increases totaling $7,987,000 and 27 FTE for program initiatives. Specifically, the FY 2015 request for OSHA includes the following programmatic increases:
- $4,000,000 and 27 FTE to increase resources for the Whistleblower program and for the Whistleblower Database and Applications. Additional staffing is needed for the improved administration of 22 whistleblower statutes, including Section 11(c) of the OSH Act, and to handle new higher caseloads under the Affordable Care Act, the Consumer Financial Protection Act, and the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act. Since 2009, the number of new whistleblower cases filed per year has grown by 37 percent. In addition, the agency will centralize its audit function and improve the information technology used by investigators to collect case data.
- $400,000 for the State Programs budget activity to enable the agency to fund the recently approved public employee State plan in Maine
- $3,587,000 to ensure that State Plan States have the resources to run programs that are as effective as OSHA’s Federal Enforcement.
OSHA’s FY 2015 budget request also includes two proposed amendments to its appropriation language:
- a request to increase the amount that OSHA may retain from training institute course tuition and fees from $200,000 to $499,000 per fiscal year; and
- a proposal to allow targeted inspections of small establishments that may have potential for catastrophic incidents (e.g., those with Process Safety Management (PSM) or the EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) -covered processes). The current appropriations language limits OSHA’s ability to conduct safety and health inspections of small businesses (10 or fewer employees) in industry codes that have lower-than-average workplace injury and illness rates. Neither the number of workers in a company nor low injury and illness rates, however, is predictive of the potential for high-consequence catastrophic incidents, resulting in multiple casualties and extensive property damage that can damage whole communities.
Here is the entire DOL budget http://www.dol.gov/dol/budget/2015/PDF/FY2015BIB.pdf