Public Risk Management Awareness Day
Ever wondered what happens to the tree branches that end up in the street after a storm or how car accidents that involve public transportation are handled? Whether it’s a city, county, school district, etc., public entities have a unique set of inherent risks like the ones specified above.
Public risk management professionals oversee these types of risks. They’re in charge of creating and implementing frameworks to reduce, accept, or mitigate those risks, which allows for reduced reputation risk and improved safety.
What is Public Risk Management?
There are three parts of public risk management. First, there is “public,” which is defined as a population or a community.
Then there’s the term “risk,” which is anything that causes “a possible loss, damage, threat or any other hazard in the public space.”
Lastly, there’s “management.” This is where assessing, minimizing, and finding ways to combat public risk comes into play.
So, when we take these three pieces and combine them, they generate the following definition – public risk management: assessing, minimizing, and combating anything that causes a possible loss, damage, threat, or any other hazard in a population or community.
What Does a Public Risk Manager Do?
Because every public entity comes with its own set of risks, not every public risk manager does the same job. However, there are some common duties that most public risk managers perform.
Public risk managers assess potential risks in a community and ensure both the people working for the community and those living in the community are safe and protected. They have a wide variety of loss exposures within the entities and communities they serve. They’re in charge of mitigating risks associated with public services like fire protection, parks, public education, transportation, etc.
They’re also responsible for implementing safety programs, managing claims, and buying insurance for public facilities. Public risk professionals use risk control frameworks that support the strategic plan for the entities to find risks, perform a risk analysis, plan treatment, and watch the treatment to assure the effectiveness, as well as balance with political scrutiny, budget, and entity expectations.
How Can You Celebrate Your Local Public Risk Management System?
The answer to this question is coming up on March 1, 2020, on the second annual Public Risk Management Awareness day! Last year Governor Greg Abbott signed a proclamation for the day, and the Texas House of Representatives passed a House bill proclaiming the day.
Through Public Risk Management Awareness day, your community can celebrate your public risk managers and educate the community on risk management. Some ideas include the following: sending out newsletters about the day, having a meet and greet with your cities public risk managers, or recognizing proclamations issued by local governments, cities, or counties.
So now that you know what public risk management is and how it works, we encourage you to start planning how you’re going to celebrate this year’s Public Risk Management Awareness day.
