After months of reporting about workplace safety and families calling for changes to the state’s worker-safety program, ABC15 has learned the director of the state program has resigned.
Jessie Atencio is resigning as head of the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health (ADOSH).
The Industrial Commission of Arizona appointed Mark Norton, a long-time ADOSH assistant director, to the position on Thursday.
Norton works out of ADOSH’s Tucson office.
“I have every confidence that the great work ADOSH does will continue under your leadership,” Industrial Commission Chairman Dennis Kavanaugh told Norton at a commission meeting Thursday afternoon.
Kavanaugh said Atencio plans to continue to work part-time for ADOSH during the transition.
ADOSH is a division of the Industrial Commission and oversees workplace health and safety standards for three million public and private employees.
Over the past year, families whose loved ones have died in workplace accidents have pushed for changes, accusing ADOSH of weak enforcement of safety standards.
ABC15 previously reported how workplace inspections have fallen and total fines to companies decreased over several years.
Tara Macon’s fiancé, Alex Quaresma, was one of two men killed in June 2020 when a trench they were working in collapsed.
Macon has been outspoken about the need for changes, including more worksite inspections to uncover safety violations before people are injured or killed.
"People cannot keep losing their lives when they are just trying to earn money for the families,” Macon said in an interview with ABC15 earlier this year.
The federal government has also been critical of Arizona’s worker safety program.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 2022 took the rare step of threatening to take over Arizona’s program after they said Arizona “routinely failed” to provide a program that is at least as effective as federal standards.
ADOSH called the threatened federal takeover “unfounded” and “arbitrary” in a letter responding to OSHA.
OSHA backed off its takeover threat earlier this year. Other issues still remain.
The most recent federal audit criticized ADOSH for meeting only 44% of its workplace inspection goal for fiscal 2022.
The audit said ADOSH conducted 486 inspections out of a goal of 1,100 in fiscal 2022.
In a response to the audit, ADOSH officials said the decline in inspections was because they had fewer personnel.
ADOSH officials say they have since hired more inspectors and have taken “multiple steps” to recruit and retain staff.
ADOSH predicts it will be “on target” to conduct more than 1,000 workplace inspections in fiscal year 2024.
Email ABC15 Investigator Anne Ryman at anne.ryman@abc15.com, call her at 602-685-6345, or connect on X, formerly known as Twitter, and Facebook.
