In the News
Governor's Plan Divides HHSS into Six Departments
By NANCY HICKS / Lincoln Journal Star
Gov. Dave Heineman’s plan to divide the massive Health and Human Services System into six distinct departments would make this large system more understandable and responsive to citizens, the governor said Thursday. “What we need to change is the idea that Health and Human Services is somehow a bureaucratic fog that cannot be penetrated,” Heineman said. His plan will create distinct departments for services to veterans, the mentally ill, children and families, and people with developmental disabilities.
“I want the people who need these services to be able to understand where to get them. “I want consumers, whether they are veterans, the elderly, the disabled or the mentally ill to know who to hold accountable. “I want taxpayers to be able to clearly grasp the system and its investments,” Heineman said as he unveiled the proposal Thursday. At the least, naming each department for its services might make it easier for people to find a number to call in the phone book, said Pat Snyder, executive director of the Nebraska Health Care Association, representing nursing homes.
Heineman’s plan also calls for a chief executive office at the top, a new position that was already created in state law to begin in early January. Heineman said he will name a CEO in the next few months. The Thursday news conference was a first step in selling the rest of the reorganization plan to state senators, who must change the law, and to the thousands of Nebraskans who work with the agency or receive its services.
The plan got an initial positive response from children’s advocates and others who came to hear the governor’s ideas. Carol Stitt, director of the foster care review agency, liked both the distinct children and family department and the single person in charge, the CEO, of the system. Hopefully that structure will eliminate “the dance,” she said, describing a pattern of passing the buck for decisions. Now there will be a department director who can say, “Fix this.” “There is a very serious need to clarify who has responsibility and accountability,” she said.
Kathy Moore, director of Voices for Children, also praised the proposal to create a single CEO. The current system has been governed by a committee, called the Policy Cabinet, since it was created about a decade ago. “That left us rudderless for a decade,” Moore said. The governor’s plan also would give some autonomy to each department director. Normally, the governor appoints only an agency head. That person then hires the department directors. But under Heineman’s plan, the governor would appoint the CEO of the system and each of the six directors. The Legislature would have to confirm each.
HHSS contains about one-third of all state employees and spends about one-third of the state’s general fund budget. Currently, it’s divided into three large parts: an agency for regulation and licensure, one for finance and support, and a services agency. “If you can look at that management structure and tell me exactly what HHS does, or which department performs what functions, you’re doing better than most Nebraskans,” Heineman said.
His plan also breaks up the service agency, which includes everything from foster homes to regional centers and veterans’ homes. It’s too much to expect any one person to manage such a large agency effectively, Heineman said. The Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee will gather public input through one or more public hearings this fall. “This plan is the big picture, from the 30,000 feet level,” said Snyder of the Nebraska Health Care Association. It does not include hundreds of details that will go into making it work. “But what I see so far, I like,” she said.