It Figures

-13.3%
The statewide average rate reduction sought by workers’ compensation carriers in Florida. If approved, the reduction would produce a savings of $400 million for Florida employers and would be the fourth consecutive drop since the state enacted reforms in 2003. The cumulative overall statewide average rate decrease for the period would total -38.9 percent. A rate hearing on the filing is expected in September or October.

-9.3%
The average workers’ compensation loss cost reduction approved for Kentucky and affecting the state’s 564 industrial classes including manufacturing, office and clerical, contracting, and goods and services. Underground mining dropped 6.6 percent while surface mining rose 3.4 percent for an overall 4.5 percent reduction for coal classes.

64%
The percentage of Republican primary voters won by Attorney General Charlie Crist in his bid to become Florida’s next Governor. Crist earned 64 percent of the votes in the primary, beating back fellow Republican, Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, who had 33.4 percent of the votes. Crist will face the Democrats’ primary winner, Jim Davis, in the November election.

40
The number of homeowners in Mississippi receiving checks from the state ranging from $6,000 to $140,00 to help them rebuild property destroyed by last year’s Hurricane Katrina. The program provides up to $150,000 each to homeowners who lived outside the federal flood plain but lost their houses to Katrina’s water.

Critics have complained that the 40 checks represent only a fraction of the 17,000 applicants and the 60,00 houses that were destroyed. A second phase of the program, to cover low-income and working poor homeowners, is still being developed.

$86,000
The total fines proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration against three companies in the March deaths of two construction workers during the demolition of hurricane-damaged Grand Casino in Gulfport, Miss. The workers drowned after passing out from hazardous fumes.

$10 million
The amount a jury awarded to a Morgantown, West Va., woman against Ruby Memorial Hospital for pain and suffering caused by an infection she contracted during a knee operation. The hospital plans to ask the court to set aside the verdict, which it says exceeds the state’s $1 million cap on non-economic damages.