New execs for DHS get assent

Deputy chief: Cuts to pay for 2 posts

The Legislature's Joint Budget Committee on Wednesday authorized the drafting of a proposal to create two new administrative positions at the state Department of Human Services.



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Gov. Asa Hutchinson made a written request for an amendment to House Bill 1134 -- the operations appropriation for the Department of Human Services' Administrative Services office -- to create an assistant director position at the Medical Services Division and a policy and research director post at the department.

The salary range for the former position would be from $79,803 to $98,953, while the salary range for the latter position would be from $65,000 to $81,250, said a spokesman for the state Department of Finance and Administration.

"These positions are needed to assist with department-wide management functions," Hutchinson wrote in his letter to the committee. The agency has an $8.3 billion budget and more than 7,000 employees.

Mark White, Human Services deputy director, told lawmakers that the department's new director, Cindy Gillespie, who started work March 1, is in the midst of a 60-day review of the state's largest agency.

"We're starting with the top levels, so we can reorganize it and make it more efficient and effective," he said. "We also anticipate at the end of that process turning positions back in, and so we are trying to make this cost neutral."

White said the department is finalizing the initial reorganization plan, and he expects it to become public within the next two or three weeks.

"The next step is to look at all our divisions and see if we need to reorganize the divisions, and that will be a longer effort for this summer and into the fall," he said.

Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, said, "My concern is that more and more of these positions [are] going to family and friends and there is no competitive process and qualifications don't matter."

Afterward, department spokesman Amy Webb said the two positions could be filled once the reorganization is underway.

"Because the state personnel system does not have exact job titles for every potential position needed by DHS or any other agency, the titles may not exactly reflect what those employees' job duties will be," she said in a written statement. "So, for example, the assistant director for medical services may have different job duties than what that title implies. Currently, there are no people selected to fill these positions and therefore no salaries defined."

On Tuesday, the Senate sent Hutchinson a bill that would increase the director's salary for the rest of the fiscal year. Gillespie, who is working under a $49,000 consulting contract with the department from March 1-Saturday, will be paid $280,000 a year.

A Section on 04/28/2016

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