The House Health Committee swiftly advanced a bill that would split the Department of Health and Human Resources into three separate agencies.
The three would be the Department of Health, the Department of Human Services, and the Department of Health Facilities.
“This bill was about three years in the making,” said Delegate Matthew Rohrbach, R-Cabell. “I can easily say why we’re doing this. DHHR has the largest budget in state government by far. And we all hear from our constituents the inefficiencies in the various components of DHHR.
“I would contend to you that an agency this large is far too large for anyone to wrap their arms around.”
The reorganization bill is also assigned to the House Finance Committee.
House Bill 2006 does some rearranging of departments that have been within DHHR. And the bill in the House significantly empowers the Office of Inspector General — which will be within the new Department of Health. Administrative offices, such as payroll, continue to be shared.
No one from DHHR or the Justice administration appeared before the committee to discuss aspects of the bill. Former DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch had objected to potential unintended consequences of a prior attempt to reorganize the agency, but he abruptly announced his retirement at the end of last year.
Dr. Jeffrey Coben, the acting secretary of Health and Human Resources, attended the committee meeting but declined afterward to comment to reporters.
Later, DHHR released a statement on Coben’s behalf: “We are aware of the House and Senate bills to reorganize the DHHR. The task that now lies before us is to focus not just on reorganization, but to work together to move quickly and boldly to improve the vital services that are provided by DHHR to the citizens of the state, regardless of what the future organizational structure may be. I’m looking forward to collaborative discussions.”
There was not a lot of discussion in House Health, except that Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, asked why the Office of Drug Control Policy has moved out from the Public Health Office.
Overall, Pushkin endorsed the bill.
“We all agree that there is a problem. We’re getting poor public health outcomes. I think this is a good first step. There have been some real culture problems inside the department,” he said.
Lawmakers have been considering the big change for months, and the Senate has already passed its version of the reorganization on day one of the regular legislative session.
Last year, a bipartisan set of West Virginia lawmakers said experience had taught them the state’s largest agency is just too unwieldy to get a handle on its operations or finances. The total annual budget for the Department of Health and Human Resources is $7.5 billion to handle a wide range of health and social services issues.
Governor Justice vetoed a bill that would have divided the agency, saying a restructuring needs a longer, more careful examination. The governor called for a top-to-bottom review. The result was a million-dollar consultant’s report that concluded splitting the agency would be disruptive but instead recommended the empowerment of a stronger set of deputy secretaries.
This year, lawmakers are back with a different restructuring proposal that would divide DHHR into the three agencies.
House and Senate leaders have seemed to agree on that concept heading into the session.
“This is long overdue,” Rohrbach said.
The Senate passed a bill last week, on the first day of the regular session, to divide the agency into three.
The House Health Committee took up House Bill 2006, which is similar in concept but with some differences.
