State personnel and Medicaid directors leaving as crucial deadlines loom

With a deadline looming on the finish of the week for state workers to ask permission to earn a living from home, Virginia has misplaced the chief of the state personnel company dealing with the requests.

A spokesperson for Gov. Glenn Youngkin mentioned Monday that Emily Elliott has retired as director of the Virginia Division of Human Useful resource Administration, the state company that oversees compensation, advantages and companies for greater than 122,000 state workers.

Rue Collins White, the company’s longtime chief deputy director, will function interim director, mentioned Youngkin press secretary Macaulay Porter in a message that confirmed Elliott’s retirement and thanked her “for her service to the commonwealth and DHRM.”

Elliott isn’t the one state company chief to go away the Youngkin administration underneath expiring 120-day letters that allowed them to proceed of their jobs in the course of the transition to a brand new governor. Sunday was the one hundred and twentieth day since Youngkin’s inauguration on Jan. 15.

Porter additionally confirmed Monday that Karen Kimsey stepped down as director of the Division of Medical Help Companies on the finish of final week. Cheryl Roberts, deputy director of program and operations on the company, will function interim director of the Medicaid company at an important juncture within the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state company is poised to undertake a large dedication of Medicaid well being care eligibility for two million Virginians as soon as the federal authorities ends the general public well being emergency declared after the pandemic started greater than 26 months in the past.

The U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies has not but determined when to finish the general public well being emergency, however has pledged to offer states at the very least 60 days’ discover. As soon as the emergency ends, states that acquired extra federal emergency help can have as much as 12 months to find out if recipients are nonetheless eligible.

Whereas some departures are cloaked in retirement, leaders who served on the will of the governor are in a position to obtain state severance advantages for involuntary separation underneath the Workforce Transition Act, created greater than 25 years in the past underneath then-Gov. George Allen in his push to cut back the scale of state authorities.

“Some public servants and company heads graciously supplied to remain on previous their deliberate date of departure, whereas the governor’s crew transition and we thank them for his or her generosity,” Porter mentioned final week in anticipation of the lapse of the 120-day letters.

The transition typically is bumpy for state company heads, particularly when the governorship switches political events.

Elliott had labored on the Virginia Division of Transportation for twenty-four years earlier than then-Gov. Ralph Northam selected her in mid-2018 to interchange Sara Redding Wilson. Wilson had led DHRM for 20 years underneath six governors, from Republican Jim Gilmore to Democrat Northam.

White, who had labored as chief deputy underneath Wilson, additionally served as interim director of the company for 3 months earlier than Elliott’s appointment.

The human useful resource company has been the main focus of a bipartisan push by the Common Meeting to enhance compensation and advantages to maintain state workers, in addition to recruit and retain new ones, regardless of broad disparities between what public workers earn for a lot of jobs and their personal counterparts.

The timing of Elliott’s departure is awkward, as DHRM prepares to obtain functions from tens of 1000’s of government department workers to work remotely underneath a brand new coverage that Youngkin launched virtually two weeks in the past.

Friday is the deadline for all workers to request permission to earn a living from home underneath the previous coverage, which replaces all current telework agreements. Below the brand new coverage, company heads can grant permission for workers to work sooner or later per week from residence, in addition to permit as much as two weeks of distant work underneath household emergencies and different unexpected circumstances.

However past that, approval of the related Cupboard secretary is required for an worker to earn a living from home two days per week. Requests to work greater than two days per week should undergo Youngkin’s chief of employees, Jeff Goettman.

Below the coverage, Youngkin expects to evaluate all telework functions by June 3 and act on all of them by June 30 to take impact on July 5.

It’s not clear what number of telework agreements can be changed as a result of DHRM mentioned final week that it doesn’t know what number of state workers labored from residence in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, when most state businesses shut down quickly and have been compelled to depend on telework.

In 2018-19, about one-quarter of government department jobs have been eligible for telework and solely 19% of these employees have been authorised to work remotely, however telework has turn out to be an crucial in the course of the pandemic and a perk in a good labor market.

For instance, the Virginia Financial Improvement Partnership lists telework among the many incentives it affords to firms to maneuver or increase their companies within the state.

“Many firms throughout the U.S. are shifting a good portion of their workforce to everlasting telework,” the partnership states. “That wave of elevated telework additionally will have an effect on how firms make selections when evaluating places for future tasks.”

Along with DHRM, Youngkin’s new telework coverage will depend on the Virginia Data Applied sciences Company, or VITA. It additionally has undergone a dramatic change in management since Youngkin took workplace in mid-January.

After the brand new governor changed Nelson Moe as chief info officer and chief of the company, Chief Working Officer Jon Ozovek resigned in February and the brand new CIO, Phil Wittmer, left after lower than a month on the job.

Youngkin changed Wittmer with Rob Osmond, a know-how knowledgeable from the Division of Transportation, however Ozovek’s momentary substitute, Deputy COO Demetrias Rodgers, resigned final week.

The Youngkin administration additionally confirmed on Monday that June Jennings has retired as deputy secretary of finance, a job she had held since 2017 underneath three governors. Beforehand, Jennings had served as state inspector basic, inspector basic for the Virginia Division of Corrections, and senior auditor on the Auditor of Public Accounts.

Individually, the Division of Behavioral Well being and Developmental Companies confirmed that Chief Deputy Commissioner Mira Signer is stepping down from her job subsequent month. Beforehand, Signer had labored at Magellan Well being Care of Virginia and as government director of NAMI Virginia, an advocacy group for individuals with psychological sickness and their households, for nearly 10 years.