At least one cotton gin in Texas has been inspected by OSHA this month under a Site-Specific Targeting inspection plan. For these types of inspections, the OSHA inspector is given a list of companies to inspect. They are specifically looking at the companies’ OSHA 300 and 300A forms, and the DART rate for those companies.
It is very important that you have your DART rate calculated properly in order to pass the inspection. To calculate your DART rate, the most critical piece of information is the total hours worked by all employees. This is a very important number. If you do not count all the hours worked, and use a low number, your DART rate will be higher, and that is not a good thing. To calculate the number of hours, pull the total number of hours paid to all of your hourly employees from your payroll program. Then be sure to estimate the number of hours worked by any salaried employees and add that to your total. This will ensure you have the correct number of hours.
The only other number for the DART itself is your total days away from work, which includes all days recorded under columns H & I from the OSHA 300 form. To calculate the DART rate, you take the sum of columns (H&I), multiply this by 200,000, then divide that number by the total hours worked. This would be your DART rate.
Another important number they may request is the average number of employees. This is another number that is not a simple as it might seem to calculate. The simplest way to do this calculation is to take the total number of paychecks written in the year divided by the total number of pay periods in the year. For example, if all employees are paid weekly, then you would look at the total paychecks written divided by 52.
Take a few minutes and look over your 2019, 2020, & 2021 OSHA 300 & 300A forms, and double check the numbers listed above, using your payroll program to be sure the hours, paycheck numbers, and calculations are all correct. In addition, please let us know if you receive a visit from OSHA.
