The director of the agency responsible for Arkansas' health insurance exchanges said Thursday that she has resigned to take a job in New Mexico.
Cheryl Gardner, who was hired in 2014 as the first employee of the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace, will step down Feb. 17.
In a teleconference, the agency's board appointed Angela Lowther, the marketplace's director of policy and compliance, to serve as interim director while the board searches for a replacement.
Gardner, who moved to Arkansas from Utah when she was hired at the Health Insurance Marketplace, said the move would allow her and her husband to be closer to his mother, who lives in Salt Lake City.
She declined to name her new employer on Thursday.
"We love Arkansas, but we also have a great love for the West," Gardner said. "We're looking forward to a new adventure."
With 14 employees, the marketplace runs a health insurance exchange for small businesses; sets requirements for the plans sold on the federally run health insurance exchange for individual consumers, which is accessible through the healthcare.gov website; and promotes enrollment in the exchanges.
Under a contract with the state Department of Human Services, the Health Insurance Marketplace is also helping small businesses sign up to offer subsidized, job-based coverage for low-income employees under Arkansas Works, a revamped version of the state's expanded Medicaid program.
In her resignation letter, Gardner called her time as Health Insurance Marketplace director "some of the most exciting and fulfilling" years of her career.
"The opportunity to build AHIM from the bottom up has been immensely rewarding for me both personally and professionally," Gardner wrote.
Marketplace board Chairman Mike Castleberry said Gardner's resignation "is going to be a loss for us."
"I don't believe we could have been any better served in the time that we needed her," Castleberry said.
In a statement, Gov. Asa Hutchinson called Gardner "very talented" and said she "really helped lead the exchange with great insight and understanding of the system."
Gardner earned an annual salary of $175,100 and also received an annual bonus. Last year, her bonus was $9,550.
The Legislature created the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace in 2013 to set up state-based exchanges that Arkansans would use instead of healthcare.gov to sign up for subsidized coverage under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Using money from a $99.9 million federal grant, the marketplace board set up an exchange for small business employees in 2015.
But at the request of Hutchinson, who took office that year, the board scrapped its plans to establish a state-run exchange for individual consumers.
Gardner has been "an important voice on navigating the terrain of health care policy," said Sen. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, who has served as chairman of a legislative committee that monitors the marketplace board.
"She's been a solid and positive force in our state," Sanders said.
Metro on 01/20/2017