State of Arizona earns award for workers’ compensation, safety

The State of Arizona has been honored for excellence in serving employees who are injured on the job and making the workplace safer. The Arizona Department of Administration's Risk Management Division was one of three winners of the 2025 Workers' Comp Risk Management Award for Excellenceduring the Workers' Compensation Institute's conference in August.

The Risk Management Division serves about 87,000 employees across state agencies, universities and boards and has utilized continuous improvement methods to make workplaces safer, to offer personalized service to injured workers and to mitigate losses for the state.

Employees injured at work have access to a 24-hour nurse triage service, and the Risk Management team now can process workers' compensation through payroll, skipping the delays and potential for lost and stolen checks that come with paper checks.

"Ultimately we want the people we serve to know what to expect and to know that we are focused on continuously improving the services we provide and the safety of where we work," said State Risk Manager Keith Johnson. "This award is a reflection of the goals our entire team contributes to every day."

Part of the Risk Management Division's division's work involves analyzing past claims to understand contributing factors to accidents and assist with mitigation efforts and help prevent similar accidents from occurring in the future. Eighteen agencies are responsible for roughly 98% of the state's workers' compensation costs, but those same agencies have a Safety Measurement System Score of over 90% for the past year and have reached a high score of 91.3% in 2025. This indicates that the culture of safety has improved within agencies. The Risk Management Division also provides focused training based on specific hazards for agencies as well as offering Occupational Safety and Health Administration in-person training for 30-hour and 10-hour courses; there were 18,000 course completions through these offerings in 2024.

Overall, the Risk Management Division's holistic work has resulted in workers' compensation payouts decreasing by 20% since 2017, due partially to fewer claims as well as active subrogation: pursuing recovered costs when a third party is at fault for an accident.

"More behind the scenes than many public servants, the people in risk management work diligently to support their colleagues in difficult times," said ADOA Director Elizabeth Alvarado-Thorson. "The adjusters, analysts, medical personnel and others who make up our Risk Management team are there every day to help their colleagues address injuries, help them get back to work when they can and look into the causes of accidents to keep people safer in the future."

Contact: Hannah Moulton Belec, ADOA
[email protected]
480-815-9483