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January 19, 2009
Letter from the President
Happy New Year to all of you. We have appreciated
your support in 2009 and look forward to that continuing in 2010.
As I look back on this past year, I’m excited
about the changes that MSIA has made and believe that we are well
positioned to move forward with our mission; to represent the interests
of self-insured and large deductible employers in the state of Minnesota
and to positively impact the workers compensation process here.
If you attended our December meeting, you were
given a preview of what to expect from MSIA in 2010. Your Board of
Directors is determined to build on our past success and to enhance the
look and feel of the organization as we move forward. To do this, there
were a couple of significant changes that were made in 2009. First, we
engaged Leonard, Street and Deinard as the new administrator for MSIA.
As you know, Leonard,Street already serves as our legislative counsel.
We have already seen the benefits of the change and look forward to more
improvements in 2010. Mary Jo Wilson had served in this capacity and
contributed much to advance MSIA. We greatly appreciate her years of
service and wish her well.
There was also a change to the makeup of your
Board of Directors. Stepping down were; Sue Olson, Nancy Rys and Dave
Hennes. All three of those individuals have been a valuable part of
MSIA’s leadership over the years. We appreciate their contributions and
wish them all the best.
We added two new Board members; Jim Oukrop with
Healthpartners and Dawn Soleta from Toro. Both bring deep experience in
the workers compensation industry, bring a broad view and will
contribute much to our organization.
The current legislative session has been dominated
by the budget issues facing the State of Minnesota. Any meaningful
workers compensation reform seems to have taken a back seat to the more
pressing issues facing our state. However, we know from experience that
this will not last and that issues surrounding workers compensation will
surface again in the future. As such, it’s important that we continue to
look for ways to improve the process and take costs out of the system.
To that end, we are undertaking an initiative to consolidate
self-insurer reporting to the various state agencies.
In addition, there are a number of recommendations
under consideration by the Workers Compensation Advisory Council’s
Business Representative Caucus. MSIA will be reviewing those and
deciding which to support.
It will be critical that we have your
participation in 2010, both in terms of ideas and financial support. For
those who have renewed their memberships for 2010, we thank you. For
those who have not, please do so as soon as possible. We work hard to
manage our costs and thus your membership dues and believe that for the
money, MSIA delivers tremendous value.
We are also looking to you for suggestions on
initiatives we can take to reduce your costs and make the process easier
for you to work in. Between now and our March meeting, we will circulate
proposed changes in the bylaws, some of which are designed to make it
easier for our members to contribute to the overall direction of MSIA.
Please look for these and give us your feedback.
Thank you again for your continued support. We
appreciate the opportunity to represent you and look forward to building
on our past success in 2010.
Brad Wiggins, President
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