WILSON MAY FORCE WORKERS TO TAKE DRUG TESTS AFTER ACCIDENT IN COUNTY CAR

Repairs, Reports Lead To Plan To Beef Up Policies

About 500 Wilson County employees are likely to join scores of others in
the Midstate to undergo mandatory drug tests after being in a car accident
- -- even if it doesn't result in injuries or vehicle damage. A proposal to
beef up the county's alcohol and drug-testing policy comes in light of
expensive repair bills and consistent reports of accidents, especially by
sheriff's deputies and emergency management employees whose jobs require
them to drive government-owned vehicles daily, county officials said.

"If they've got some kind of impairment, whether it's from alcohol or
medication -- legal or not -- they're an at-risk factor that the county
doesn't need to be financially responsible for," said Debbie Green, deputy
finance director and risk manager in Wilson County. "Since some people take
these vehicles home, you could very well be at a dinner party, get a call
and everything be legitimate, and you need to think twice before you get
into a county vehicle to respond to the call. I just want to make sure that
nobody gets hurt and that it doesn't cost the county." Wilson County is one
of several in the region to have a uniform post-accident drug and alcohol
testing policy that applies to all nonschool employees. It spells out that
a person who drives a county-owned vehicle who's in an accident must be
tested if the accident results in an injury or if the vehicle is too
damaged to drive. County school departments are usually considered separate
from the rest of the county government because they have their own budgets
and risk management staff. In Williamson and Sumner counties, individual
departments craft their own internal post-accident drug- and
alcohol-testing policies, officials said. Still, some Midstate county
governments participate in the state Drug Free Workplace Program, which
offers steps to remain sober and clean on the job and insurance premium
discounts for compliance. The tightened post-accident testing policy that
Wilson County is considering was adopted in Robertson County for its 350
nonschool county employees about nine months ago. That county also
participates in the state drug-free program, which offers an annual
discount of $21,000 to the county on insurance premiums, County Mayor
Howard Bradley said. "Now every county employee is subject to random
testing, and we have a mandatory testing anytime there is an accident of
any kind, regardless of the scope of damage." He couldn't recall how many
after-accident drug and alcohol tests have been performed in the last
couple of years and he couldn't say whether the employees, if any, who
failed those tests were disciplined. "I'd assume that we had none because
we have a policy of instant termination, and I'm sure I would have know had
that happened.

To my knowledge, no one has tested positive.

We're an intolerant workplace." Green said she doesn't have a reason to
suspect that any Wilson County employee who's been in an accident was under
the influence of either alcohol or drugs. "I'm trying to be proactive.

If they want to get into their own personal vehicle, that's one thing.

The message we're trying to send is: You're not allowed to get into a
county vehicle.

You've got to be responsible." An average vehicle repair cost that Wilson
County pays for after a fender-bender is $1,500-$3,000, Green said, adding
that from July 2003 until now, 28 accidents have been reported in the
county. Wilson County administered 468 drug and alcohol tests in the past
two years, said Andrea Pitt, the county's employee benefits coordinator. Of
those, one person tested positive for alcohol and four for drugs.

It was unclear yesterday whether any of the employees were terminated.
Those who fail an alcohol or drug test must be retested before returning to
work. It's up to individual departments to discipline those employees,
Green said. Wilson County Sheriff's Department's general maintenance budget
last year was $80,000, with about $20,000 spent on fender-bender repairs,
Green said. The county emergency response team spent about the same last
year. "It may be a minor accident where no one was physically hurt, but it
is not minor to county property damage," she said. "We're growing, and we
have more and more vehicles on the road. I'm looking at the cost factor."
About 60% of Cheatham County's 200 nonschool employees drive a government
vehicle on the job, said Clyde White, director of the county's human
resources and loss control. Although the general policy is to test drivers
only after accidents that result in injuries or damaged vehicles, the
county has been testing all employees who are in any kind of an accident.
"We test, and all of our employees have always come back clean," said
White, referring to seven or eight post-accident drug tests performed in
the past couple of years. "We've always gotten negative results, which is a
good thing, because nobody likes to realize that they have employees with
problems."