City worker compensation insurance rates were hiked 17 percent this year and the deductible raised by $100,000 after large claims because of the on-duty death of Kent Police Officer Diego Moreno and an injury to another officer during the same July incident.
Chris Hills, city Human Resources risk manager, updated the City Council’s Operations Committee on Jan. 15 about Kent’s insurance rates.
“The tragedy had an effect on our comp program,” Hills told the committee.
Moreno, 35, an eight-year veteran on the force, was killed July 22 when, after laying out a strip of spikes to slow a fleeing pickup, he was inadvertently struck by a pursuing Kent Police SUV driven by Officer Mark Williams.
The city made one other large worker comp payment in the last six years, a cost of $1.76 million after firefighter Ernie Rideout, 57, died in 2012 of multiple myeloma cancer, which affects the bone marrow and white blood cells. Because Rideout’s cancer was determined to have been contracted due to his profession as a firefighter, it was considered death in the line of duty, according to the Kent Fire Department. Rideout worked 32 years for the department.