ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy says he will propose an executive order that would split the state’s Department of Health and Social Services into two, separate agencies.
Dunleavy will introduce the order when the legislative session starts, which could be as soon as Jan. 19, 2021, the Anchorage Daily News reported Tuesday.
The Alaska State Legislature will have 60 days to disapprove the governor’s order. If lawmakers do not take any action, the order will go into effect on July 1, 2021.
Under the order, the Department of Health and Social Services would be split into a Department of Health and a Department of Family and Community Services.
The state Department of Health would be in charge of public health and Medicaid while the state Department of Family and Community Services would be in charge of children’s services, juvenile justice, state-run assisted living facilities and the state’s only public psychiatry hospital.
The state Department of Family and Community Services would have roughly 1,800 employees while the state Department of Health would have about 1,500 staffers. That would make them the second and fourth-largest agencies in the state, respectively, according to the state’s most recent workplace data.
Health and Social Services Commissioner Adam Crum said a potential split would make the two new agencies more efficient. Crum said that Medicaid currently takes up so much of the department’s administrative time that other issues aren’t given the same bandwidth.
“We cover such a broad range of subjects, that you really only have time to hop from fire to fire,” Crum said. “We actually worked with and talked with our division directors, and a lot of them have actually said it makes it more difficult for them to actually perform the functions of their division if they have Medicaid in the room, because Medicaid is the conversation driver.”
State officials did not reveal how much money it would take to split the agency into two. Crum said those figures should be made public by Feb. 15, 2021, when Dunleavy is required to submit budget revisions to the state legislature.
Crum said he expects initial costs to be higher because a second commissioner’s office will be necessary, but that in the long-term, he believes the order will save money due to increased efficiency.
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