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Insane state policy a “very poor choice of words”

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Illinois

* Department of Human Services Director Michelle Saddler was dragged in front of the House Human Services Committee this week to explain why DHS decided to stop investigating client deaths for the insane reason that dead people were no longer eligible for state services. Her response…

She added that the department made a “very poor choice of words” when it declared the deceased “ineligible for services” in its paperwork. She said the decision “raised concerns about our commitment to adults with disabilities.”

The Quinn administration is closing several state facilities for the mentally and physically disabled and moving those folks into privately run operations. Saddler’s DHS runs those facilities and family members, who were already freaked out about the moves, have every right to be furious that the people in charge at DHS thought it was no big deal not to investigate clearly suspicious deaths of people they oversee.

“A very poor choice of words”? Really? That hearing should’ve been used as an opportunity to instill confidence in the state’s ability to handle these sorts of problems. Instead, we get stupidity like this? What are we, children?

Ugh.

Here’s a question: Why does Michelle Saddler still have a job?

* Meanwhile, you may have seen this story…

The Illinois Department of Human Services has dropped its contract with the Community Mental Health Council on Chicago’s South Side, contending the agency is fiscally mismanaged.

DHS spokeswoman Januari Smith Trader says millions of dollars has been given the mental health center, but it “continues to experience serious fiscal mismanagement and eventual insolvency.”

Dr. Carl Bell, the center’s head and part-time professor of clinical psychology and public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, blames the center’s fiscal problems on the state’s woes. He notes Illinois began slowing payments two years ago. He says as a result, the center he founded in 1975 has lost seven psychiatrists, in addition to therapists and case managers.

* Chinta Strausberg takes a closer look…

“They kept telling us that they wanted us to stay open and that was as late as May,” said Bell. Told that sources claim there is an outside audit that may show some fiscal mismanagement with patient funds, Bell, who has already confirmed that the state audit “came back clean,” said, “I obviously don’t know. For the last two-years, they (the State of Illinois) have been paying us slowly. We’ve been paying staff slowly so we’ve been losing staff slowly but surely and some of those people were fiscal people. “If you don’t have people in place to have a good accounting, I have no idea what’s going on. I have no idea where the money is. I know we have some money in the bank but that’s on hold because we owe somebody and they put a stop to that. I know nobody is stealing any money. I know that. I know we spent every penny on patient care to keep the business going,” said Bell.

“I don’t know how there could have been an outside audit because we don’t have any numbers. We don’t know. I got a Department of Labor claim from one of the employees. I don’t know how much money the Council owes me. I do know it’s a lot of money, but I don’t know how many paychecks they (the staff) has been paid because nobody knows. […]

When contacted, Gov. Pat Quinn issued the following statement. “Over the past several years, the Department of Human Services (DHS) Division of Mental Health has advanced millions of dollars to Community Mental Health Council (CMHC) in an effort to ensure continuity of care for consumers and to give the company an opportunity to improve its fiscal situation. “In addition, DMH provided more than two years of educational assistance regarding financial and program reporting requirements. To date, CMHC has made no effort to repay the state and has consistently shown an inability to meet its contractual obligations. “CMHC continues to experience serious fiscal mismanagement and eventual insolvency - they have not made payroll in many months, cancelled health insurance for employees and their families, and have been the subject of mounting complaints to the Illinois Department of Labor. “Therefore, DMH was unable to renew CMHC’s contract for fiscal year 2013. We have a number of area providers already in place to support CMHC consumers with their mental health needs and are currently in discussions with others.”

However, Dr. Bell has repeatedly said the Council has not been paid by the state since March and that for the past two-years the state has been slow in paying causing him to lose valuable people including those in charge of the finances. Bell said as late as May state officials said they wanted to continue doing business with the Council, which is why he computerized the patient’s records. He has received one complaint from the Department of Labor, but without access to the records he does not know how much state owes anyone including himself. Bell has not been paid since March and continues to use his funds to take care of patients he now sees in front of the building entrance.

* Related…

* State lawmaker: DHS ‘failed’ in protecting disabled adults

* Guest column: Singer Mental Health Center must stay open

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 10:46 am

Comments

Michelle Sadler still has a job, not because she is competent or cable but because she has worked for Quinn in his previous offices. She is like David Vaught, Jack Lavin, Sean Vinck and others who have followed Pat into the Governor’s office.

He will continue to keep them in his administration no matter what.

Comment by Cassidy Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 10:57 am
If fiscal mismanagment is the criteria for firing an organization … how soon is the General Assembly resigning in masse?

Comment by RNUG Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 11:01 am
Maybe the General Assembly could also address the fact that when DHS was created in 2007, they had 20,000 employees, they now have a few over 12,000 and the GA keeps expanding DHS’ duties.

Comment by Give Me A Break Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 11:05 am
- Why does Michelle Saddler still have a job? -

Because in addition like other ethically and competency-challenged agency heads, the Senate gave her overwhelming support and confirmation - no questions asked. See Schnieder, Weems, Ribley, Hamos, and on and on. I don’t recall anyone who was jettisoned by the Senate since Marty Cohen. And they threw him out BECAUSE he was honest, competent, and ethical.

Comment by Crime Fighter Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 11:11 am
The Quinn administration has lowered the competency bar for agency directors. Saddler is just one of the more incompetent ones. Most of them are merely mediocre. Some like David Vaught though are harmful. Hopefully the Senate will do it’s duty shortly and either appoint them or not.

Comment by Very Tired Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 11:15 am
“When a person passes away before we can complete or even initiate an investigation, we appropriately refer these results to local law enforcement agencies,” she told the committee. “But as the days progressed, we found that we had inadequately documented our referrals to law enforcement authorities, and in fact, there was no evidence in many cases of our having made those referrals.”

So the “insane state policy” was that DHS unloaded the responsibility to investigate fatal abuse to law enforcement but that state employees failed to notify them, right?

I don’t know if I’d call the policy insane, as you’d naturally want to hand over criminal matters to police, but I wholeheartedly agree that DHS should take some kind of active role in investigating fatal abuse. And the DHS employees whose laziness kept them from abiding by that policy should be out of a job and possibly charged with criminal neglect.

Comment by Ronald RayGun Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 11:28 am
If Dr.Bell is the head of this mental health center, isn’t he supposed to know something about its finances? “I have no idea where the money is,” –disingenuous or clueless? And if he has no idea where it is, how does he know nobody’s stealing it?

Comment by cassandra Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 11:34 am
In this post on July 11, 2012

https://capitolfax.com/2012/07/11/ig-out-quinn-issues-executive-order/

the second poster, Give Me A Break, states:

“And maybe the House Human Services Approps. Committee members would like to explain why they they tried cut the funds for the DHS OIG office last year. ”

Does anyone have information on this? From the outside, this policy seems to be a reaction to budget / headcount cuts. Doesn’t make it right, but neither does it surprise one, either.

Comment by Anyone Remember? Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 11:38 am
We give way too much power to these “Inspector Generals”, who can investigate (or not) virtually anything, ignore due process, and then opine like the Oracle at Delphi on what should be done by Supervisors to the supposed wrongdoers. But IGs are ‘trendy’ and make pols look tough on misconduct.

Comment by Nohopeforillinois Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 11:42 am
The State of Illinois has a lot of nerve accusing the Community Mental Health Council of being fiscally mismanaged!

Pot calling the kettle black????

Comment by Ready To Get Out Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 11:43 am
Anyone who hasn’t noticed that no one in the upper levels of this administration has any interest in actually managing the affairs of the state has simply not been paying attention. They simply do not care. The only competence in state government is in the career employees left over from the Republican administrations, and as the incompetents in charge chase more and more of them out, this kind of scandal will become more frequent.

Comment by anon Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 12:12 pm
anon at 12:12: Would you like to talk about those great GOP Directors like Howard Peters, Ann Patla or Jess McDonald who all had issue like having staff buy fresh flowers for their offices, or using DOC folks to care for their plants at home, or getting DCFS under several consent decrees?

Comment by Give Me A Break Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 12:21 pm
she has a job because she is a clone of PQ: Nice but clueless

Comment by PQ's Primary Opponent Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 12:25 pm
DCFS met with Carl Bell in early February to discuss CMHC fiscal troubles. It was my understanding that they had been negligent in paying payroll taxes to the tune of about $1.2 million at that point and in addition, were only paying 1/2 staff on one payroll and then the other half on the next- which is a Department of Labor violation.
I also know they stopped taking Medicaid clients last summer- perhaps so they wouldn’t be in so much trouble with the Feds for Medicaid fraud- for which for all we know may still be in the works.

That’s why it was no surprise to me when this “news” broke. He can’t feign ignorance about his fiscal woes because even DCFS Field Audits discovered the issues several months ago. This was not in any way a new situation that just happened. This fiscal mismanagement has been occurring for some time.

Comment by carbaby Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 1:26 pm
Michelle Sadler has a her job because she’s very smart, highly capable, and incredibly devoted to the services DHS provides. Anyone who suggests otherwise in my opinion either doesn’t know her personally or has an axe to grind. Yes DHS’s handling of this issue was horrendous but that doesn’t change the fact that Michelle Sadler is a talented and committed public servant.

Comment by slowdown Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 1:27 pm
“A very poor choice of words”? Really?…….

I’m with Rich on this one. If she can’t see that the bigger problem is the policy itself rather than the words chosen to describe the policy she doesn’t deserve to be it the position she holds.

Comment by Kerfuffle Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 1:35 pm
Slowdown

Obviously Sadler doesn’t feel the need to take real responsibility. I’m guessing we won’t be seeing a the buck stops here sign on her desk. It all must be someone else’s fault.

Comment by Fed up Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 1:42 pm
@ slowdown - Is this why she promoted Carol Kraus?

Comment by Crime Fighter Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 1:46 pm
Fed Up: If you were at the hearing, you would have knowm she did just that.

Comment by Give Me A Break Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 2:02 pm
Crime Fighter -

Carol Kraus is a John Filan legacy, pure and simple. As we know, legacies last long after their patron is gone from the scene.

Comment by Anyone Remember? Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 2:55 pm
Anyone Remember- I’ve seen the hacks go shortly after their patrons leave, unless they get a new patron (such as Quinn/Saddler). The other problem is promotion and support of known mischief makers. What’s the purpose of agency heads if they are not going to take responsibility for what happens at agencies under their charge?

Comment by Crime Fighter Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 3:06 pm
Crime Fighter -

Terry Gainer was ISP Director for 7 years after his patron, Jim Thompson, left.

Comment by Anyone Remember? Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 3:46 pm
As someone who interacts w/ a lot of agencies and a lot of units of government I can say with confidence that Michelle Saddler is one of the smartest and effective public servants I’ve met. She is the perfect fit for a job I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

What happened at DHS is horrible, but those who work with DHS know that Director Saddler really is top notch.

Comment by LilLebowski Friday, Aug 3, 12 @ 4:06 pm