Sorry, I marked mine wrong. I like having one budget for safety items.

We are a very large organization so it would be difficult to have one budget. I personally like the way we have it set up. EHS is a service to all departments/employees so we consult re: EHS concerns and solutions and they implement.

We have both here at the City I work for. However, this is the first place I have worked where the Safety Division does not have a very big budget. It covers audiograms, drug tests, First-Aid supplies, and fire extinguisher annual inspections. I do have a travel and training budget (but it took a major hit due to the COVID shutdowns last year). Each Department and the Divisions inside each Department have a Safety line item in their budget. With the arrival of a new HR Director (who used to work in our Finance Department), I have already experienced a completely different outlook moving forward.

We have a hybrid of sorts. Each dept has budget for safety items such as PPE, improvements, and some misc money for training, or what ever the Mgr decides is needed. We also have a dedicated EHS department budget that covers the operating expenses, environmental items , salaries etc.

An EHS Department needs to remain autonomous and in order to do so needs its own budget. I have worked in both situations and when we count on other departments to approve our costs they tend to be cut first as they typically are not seen as profit generating costs. EHS expenses are an important cost savings process that may not be realized in the departmental monthly or annual numbers, however they show up in the corporate numbers with reduced costs for insurance, reduction in claims and or cost of claims. EHS is able to respond much faster and efficiently when they have their own budget.