The Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) has been a state agency abuzz with commotion this week—commotion that more closely resembles Larry, Moe and Curly trying to shovel water with a pitchfork than productive activity.
And it’s all part of the Bobby Jindal School of Good Government.
Martha Manuel has been Teagued and DHH has retreated for the moment from its efforts to put 69 information technology (IT) employees out of work in favor of contracting its services to the University of New Orleans (UNO).
Manuel, 63, was fired from her position as executive director of the Office of Elderly Affairs on Wednesday just one day after testifying against the transfer of her agency to DHH.
What’s more, the firing was done by her supervisor Tammy Woods, Director of Community Programs—by telephone.
If the pattern seems familiar, that’s because it is—beginning back in October of 2009 when Melody Teague, a Social Services grant reviewer, was fired one day after testifying against Jindal’s program to streamline government.
It took her six months but she got her job back but then last April 15, her husband Tommy Teague was fired as executive director of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) when he didn’t jump on board the Jindal Privatization Bandwagon quickly enough, particularly when it came to the agency he had taken from a multi-million-dollar deficit to a $500 million surplus.
Thus the term Teagued.
Those were just two. Others included a Board of Elementary and Secondary member who didn’t kowtow to Jindal, the director of the Highway Safety Commission who opposed Jindal’s repeal of the state motorcycle helmet law.
Gone.
Jindal, through DHH Center for Health Care Innovation and Technology chief Carol Steckel, tried to fire the 69 IT employees last December in favor of handing off the contract for their work to UNO under the state’s Medicaid program.
The employees were called in for a teleconference at which time they were told they would be unemployed in January. Upon their return to their work stations, the employees found they were locked out of their computers.
But the State Civil Service Board vetoed Steckel’s proposal on Feb. 1. She first cited a savings of $2.1 million, then $7 million, prompting one member to say he had “zero confidence” in her numbers.
Steckel came to Louisiana from Alabama where she served as that state’s Medicaid Commissioner. In was in that capacity that she inferred that Alabama’s indigent amputees did not need artificial limbs. Her budget for 2008 cut programs that pay for prosthetics and orthotics (used to correct deformities) because, she said, the programs were optional, not mandatory.
The Civil Service Commission was scheduled to take the matter up again on Wednesday of this week but DHH withdrew from the agenda on Monday. One source said that UNO decided to opt out of the contract agreement. Another said that questions arose about the use of Medicaid funds for non-Medicaid costs in the contract, a practice that is strictly prohibited.
The fate of the IT employees, meanwhile, remains uncertain. “We have been misinformed on future employment by DHH executives on three occasions,” said one of the workers. “At each meeting we had, we felt as though we were being threatened with furlough without pay.”
If the administration felt it was punishing Manuel, however, it may have miscalculated. She had already retired once and when the directorship of the Office of Elderly Affairs opened a year ago, she applied and was appointed by Jindal. She now simply moves back into retirement, albeit involuntary.
She testified on Tuesday that senior citizens would be better served by leaving the Office of Elderly Affairs where it is.
Jindal’s executive budget calls for transferring the $45.3 million agency and its 51 positions to DHH where Manuel feels her agency will become lost in the DHH bureaucratic shuffle. “At no time was I asked for my input on this transfer,” she testified to the House Appropriations Committee.
Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater disagreed, saying that senior citizens would receive more, not fewer services. He said more federal funding can be generated through DHH’s guidance.
Manuel, contacted at home on Wednesday, said DHH plans to funnel Office of Elderly Affairs’ $45.3 million through nursing homes and hospitals in order to qualify DHH for additional federal funding.
“That almost sounds like money-laundering,” she said. “DHH calls this leveraging but there’s no guarantee that the dollars will keep coming back to the local councils on aging,” she said.
“They (the administration) said they have a vision, but when pressed by the committee, they admitted they had no real plan. Well, we (her former agency) have a vision and we have a five-year plan.”
She said she had her cell phone turned off during her testimony but when she turned it on after she spoke to the committee, “it was full of voice mails and each one was angrier than the last.” She said the messages were from Woods and her assistant.
“I took the rest of the afternoon off and they continued to barrage my office with calls, even though they were told I was not in. They apparently didn’t believe it, so they actually came to my office at 6 p.m. to check to see if I was in.”
Manuel said she called in sick the next day because she simply didn’t feel like facing all the hassle. “The general council (of the Office of Community Programs) called me at home today (Wednesday) and Tammy Woods was also on the line. She told me I was not in line with the governor’s thinking and she fired me over the phone.
“This (Woods) is a person who refuses to return telephone calls and who cancels meetings with no advance notice. She once had an appointment with people from New Orleans. They drove all the way into Baton Rouge only to be told the meeting was cancelled.”
Manuel said she has received flowers from several local councils on aging as a result of her dismissal. “I’m gratified at the response of the local councils but I have to say I’m very disappointed in our governor. I really believed there would be transparency in government.”
Jindal said simply that the administration had decided to “go in a different direction.”
Louisiana Voice 