Can a Drunk Turn Around the State Health Department?
What a mess. The State Health Department stunned the few remaining citizens that thought the state was well run by releasing the news that it was broke, $30,000,00 in the hole actually, and there were few financial controls in the department that is directly overseen by Governor Mary Fallin.
The annual audits of the department were flubbed by State Auditor Gary Jones, even though the recently hired CFO had bluntly told the auditors of the problems. Gary Jones sat on the information, no doubt afraid to upset or embarrass Governor Mary Fallin, meaning the problems grew and multiplied. Gary Jones has realized the extent of his exposure and has recused himself from the new audit of the Health Department. All the more reason for Gary Jones to drop out of the Governor's race as he has shown incapable of managing a single state agency and would be incompetent running the state.
The problems were many but mission creep and failure to reduce payroll as the budget was cut over the years were two of the main causes. Few real accounting procedures were in place including closing out accounts for accountability, hell they didn't even have financial statements for the organization.
Enter Governor Fallin's wonder boy Preston Doerflinger. Doerflinger has provided much amusement to the state over the years from his various arrests and shall we say his credibility is about as scant as his judgment when it comes to women or booze. Not only that, as the Office of Management & Enterprise Services (OMES) had oversight of the spending of the Health Department and money transfers, Doerflinger might well be as guilty as the former agency head that ignored the budget and played loose with the books. What better place to cover up the paper trail that might cause him trouble than leading the Health Department? Yet for all of this Governor Fallin dumped Doerflinger into the interim commissioner slot and boy wonder presented a rebuild plan.
Much of the plan makes sense like killing a child abuse program that duplicates services by DHS and requiring someone with some business education into the top echelon. Other parts aren't as wise such as the plan to cover mental health for children, an overlap of the Department of Mental Health. It would make more sense to get the Health Department back to public health, inspecting food kitchens, looking for epidemics, and managing STD clinics, at a vastly reduced budget to match the mission. The current budget of $53,000,000 is far in excess of what is needed to manage public health once it is dialed back to actual needs instead of empire building. There website shows a host of useless programs that are supplanting people's responsibilities such as breast feeding programs, family planning, child abuse, programs for babies with developmental problems, child care, dental programs, infant programs, and WIC programs doling out welfare to illegals and those too lazy to work for a living. Nearly all of these programs are duplicated by the DHS, there is zero need to have the Health Department dabbling in this work.
