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* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…
Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced last week that he had picked Sol Flores to be his fourth deputy governor. He’d previously announced deputy governors Dan Hynes, Christian Mitchell and Jesse Ruiz.
Pritzker’s deputies are each overseeing a block of related state agencies and departments, and will “track” their progress on goals that the governor wants those entities to meet. They’ll also ensure that the agency and department directors are all cooperating with each other, whenever and wherever needed. Flores will oversee human service agencies, Hynes has budget and economic development, Ruiz has education and Mitchell will handle the capital bill, among other things.
Pritzker specifically pointed to the issue of Medicaid during a recent interview with me. He said he wants to make sure that the Department of Health and Family Services and the Department of Human Services are “working together,” rather than operating in their own individual agency “silos.”
So, Flores will have a big job to do. Those two agencies cover everything from health care, to child care, to long-term care, to cash and food assistance, to housing programs, to mental health, to child support, to everything in between. They do, indeed, need to work together better. Both departments are the products of past mergers of smaller agencies, but forcing yet another merger could once again disrupt operations for months or even years.
The administration has not yet released a flow chart, but it’s likely that Flores will also be given responsibility for the Department of Children and Family Services, which has been “led” by nine different directors and acting directors since 2011 and has been in constant disarray.
By all accounts, these new deputy governors are very capable, bright, intelligent people. Flores built a much-admired organization from the ground up that provides shelter to homeless people and works to prevent homelessness, but she’s never overseen anything close to this huge before. And, for that matter, neither has anyone else at the top of Pritzker’s administration, except for Ruiz, who served as vice president of the Chicago Board of Education and then the interim CEO of Chicago Public Schools. Hynes was a state comptroller for 12 years, but that’s not exactly a gigantic agency. Mitchell was a legislator who served a stint as interim executive director of the Democratic Party of Illinois.
They won’t be managing day-to-day government operations, of course, but their portfolios are gigantic. They’re all taking jobs where you can’t really get the required experience until you do it. And their tasks are enormous if Pritzker truly wants to rebuild the government after years of neglect, whether through deliberate disregard or incompetence, or just because bad stuff happened and the state wasn’t ready or able to deal with it.
I’ve pointed this out before, but this state’s fiscal condition has not recovered since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which vastly accelerated a downward economic slide and literally dried up state revenues and forced up government costs around the same time that state pension payments were finally starting to really ratchet up.
And then came the 2008 worldwide financial and real estate crash. And then came the partial expiration of the 2011 income tax hike in 2015 (a tax hike which basically just helped pay state pension costs and didn’t do much to rebuild government), followed by a two-year governmental impasse that, among other things, wreaked havoc on our social services provider network, followed by another inadequate tax hike and two substandard state budgets.
Throughout all this, healthcare, state employee and pension costs continued to rise, the General Assembly passed legislation to guarantee annual $350 million funding increases to K-12, and governors have done things like a consent decree recently entered into by Bruce Rauner’s past administration, which will completely revamp the wholly inadequate health care system at state prisons with unknown, but likely high taxpayer costs.
As a result, state agencies have been forced to rely on sorely inadequate resources to do more. Our service delivery system — already nickel-and-dimed half to death by miserly and constantly delayed funding, then body-slammed by the impasse — could require years to recover.
Much, probably most of that destruction was endured by human and social services. And now some of those same crucial providers are suffering yet again under the partial federal government shutdown.
I do not envy Ms. Flores one iota. She arguably has one of the toughest and one of the most important jobs in all of Illinois government.
So, good luck, Sol, you’re gonna need it.
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 9:46 am
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I recall my dad used a comment when it fit: “he’ll wish he was in hell with a broken back”. Take that however you like.
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 9:55 am
Not to mention the difficulty of finding new state employees once the 14k realize that they are not going to get the step wages legally owed to them over four years. There’s no way Madigan/Cullerton are going to give that too them. And AFSCME is not pushing for it. I guess they figure they have seven years to do it. There will be mass exodus.
Comment by Uradnik Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 10:13 am
Your 2 paragraphs summarizing the circumstances starting 9/11/01 resulting in our current fiscal crisis are spot-on and worth repeating, bookmarking, and actively reminding us — all of us Illinoisans — of regularly. We’re in Year 18 of the Illinois Mess, and it’s going to take at least that much time to get us out of it. Now’s a good time to start. Anyone (hello state leaders looking at this) who says it can be done without both increased revenues and reduced spending needs to get out of the way.
Comment by Lefty Lefty Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 10:16 am
===There will be mass exodus===
Yeah, OK.
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 10:20 am
Non-DHS people might be surprised by how little the various divisions (DCFS, HFS, DRS, etc) communicate with each other or are even aware of the services each provides. The programs are all under the DHS umbrella and sometimes serve the same recipients, but are often unable to share information due to incompatible technology. Front line staff at the agencies have long shared this frustration with management but nothing is ever done to make service delivery more efficient. The concept of ‘one stop service provision’ is good in theory but no one in leadership has really embraced it enough to make it applicable in day-to-day operations.
Comment by Cubs in '16 Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 10:23 am
Hey Uradnik- yea our most pressing problem seems to be finding enough government employees😆
Comment by Sue Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 10:29 am
The issues she will face are many to mention.
DHS local offices are a train wreck, the PUNS list for DD services is growing every week and Illinois still can’t decide to have system that provides services at the community level or the State Operated Hospital/Center level.
Those alone would keep a person busy for a couple of years.
Comment by Give Me A Break Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 10:30 am
This has been an ongoing issue for years, the lack of a coordinated plan for services in these areas. The elephant in the room however is what will drive decisions, the accountants or the clinicians. The danger is that the accountants will win the day. That is not what should drive care.
Comment by NeverPoliticallyCorrect Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 10:30 am
She is going to need some seasoned top quality staff to run HFS and DHS including their legislative directors who can, and will help her and the directors navigate the process of keeping the GA members from trying to run those departments.
Comment by Give Me A Break Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 10:36 am
–There will be mass exodus.–
Get your own bit. Katrina already stole “Illinois Exodus” from the Nauvoo Mormons.
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 10:40 am
There won’t be a mass exodus, but low morale already exists.
DHS and HFS and DCFS are dinosaurs of agencies. Gigantic, enormous, and operating blind.
These are the largest agencies by headcount and they have varied and difficult tasks.
Pritzker is right to make sure they work cooperatively. It is SORELY needed. What a change from GovJunk.
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 11:02 am
It is now past time to rethink whether combining major offices such as Developmental Disabilities, Mental Health, etc. into one super agency was a good idea. How can a secretary of one large superagency effectively prioritize resources with so many demands and fiscal needs?
Comment by Waffle Fries Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 11:05 am
Rich - any word on how other specific agencies will be divied up among the dep govs?
Comment by Nobody Sent Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 11:07 am
Uradnik, the GA doesn’t have a choice about providing the back-pay to State employees, other than when they appropriate it, and the sooner the better since the courts have ordered interest on it.
And Sue, finding more and good State employees is a critical necessity after the abuses they have suffered over the last four years, and those abuses will make it tougher to recruit the people we need. Senior people are still leaving in droves, and taking their institutional knowledge with them. Bear in mind new employees are Tier II, but it will be tougher to produce good results if everyone is entry level.
Comment by Oberon Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 11:18 am
Making HFS and DHS play together effectively is a huge task. Medical is a huge budget item and having the policy side in HFS and the public facing side with DHS has been a huge challenge I don’t envy anyone having to manage. Including MH/DD, DASA, DORS into DHS makes sense from the Medicaid component side and service side so I would not advocate for breaking up the behemoth. There however is huge work to still get them out of the silos they have been in for the past 23 years (hard to believe the merger was that long ago and silos have not resolved).
Comment by illiinifan Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 11:27 am
She is going to need some seasoned admins and execs who know how to get things done or she will flounder.
Comment by Southfarmllama Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 11:30 am
Oberon- last year I had a several month encounter with the State Dept of Revenue which only got resolved after I contacted my State Senator. As far as I can determine losing more state employees would be a positive development
Comment by Sue Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 11:31 am
Sue you proved Oberon’s point, have enough staff who have knowledge most likely would have resolved your problem without have to contact your state senator. Illinois has the lowest number of state employees per capita in the nation. We have not recovered from the drain of knowledge which began with the ERI and is aggravated each year by the mistreatment of staff who stayed.
Comment by illinifan Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 11:59 am
Oberon- the state doesn’t have a choice? Lol I think the last thing they want to do is give state workers that back pay. Look how long it took last time. It cannot be assumed that with a DEM governor that the legislature will be pro stateworker. Look at SB1 pension reform under Quinn. Of course they have a choice not to appropriate it especially given the lofty goals of the Pritzker Admin. AFSCME is not fussing either. Remember the improper layoffs of 2005. Those workers sold down the river for a better contract. It will happen again. Sacrifice the state worker owed steps for contract concessions is my guess.
And as for mass exodus, the disconnection between the bargaining unit stateworkers and political leadership, AFSCME leadership, and the pundit class is so great and so complete that they have no idea that THE greatest concern of the union stateworker IS the packpay for stolen step wages. Anger and resentment, disillusionment and frustration grow daily. With IPI making it easy, they are already starting to take it out on the union and with the increasing workload of decimated understaffed agencies the daily struggle to keep up makes public service untenable.
Comment by Uradnik Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 12:41 pm
Best wishes to Sol. Challenges aside, there are opportunities to do good for many, many people in need. Also, there are lots of great people among state employees and community service agencies who can do great work if giving the appropriate supports and opportunities.
Comment by Earnest Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 12:56 pm
“I’ve pointed this out before, but this state’s fiscal condition has not recovered since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which vastly accelerated a downward economic slide and literally dried up state revenues and forced up government costs around the same time that state pension payments were finally starting to really ratchet up.”
Why has the rest of the country as well as our Midwestern neighbors had such strong economic growth for the past 17 years while Illinois has not recovered?
Could it be the fact the Democratic legislature has ignored the business community and is a rubber stamp for trial lawyers and unions?
Comment by Lucky Pierre Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 1:40 pm
I second Earnest’s statement. She’s not alone and will find help from the employees of these departments and in the nonprofit sector when she asks.
Comment by Left Leaner Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 1:46 pm
Going to be a monumental job. I’ll be happy if they just manage some improvement.
Comment by RNUG Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 4:07 pm
–Why has the rest of the country as well as our Midwestern neighbors had such strong economic growth for the past 17 years while Illinois has not recovered?–
You really think that’s possible, that’s how the world economy works? Self-contained political units, driven by political decisions in state capitals?
Where did you get that theory? Who are the economists and their works?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ILNGSP
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 4:26 pm
@Uradnik your uninformed drivel barely merits a response. In truth, AFSCME is the only entity fighting to ensure that union members are paid every penny they’ve earned. You should begin by reading today’s post that delineates AFSCME’s successful court fight to secure the steps: https://capitolfax.com/2019/01/22/the-high-cost-of-rauners-failed-war-with-afscme/
Comment by Reality Check Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 4:44 pm
One huge obstacle to agencies working together is the legal restrictions on who can see what data. It is hard to build an integrated database when much of the information is limited to the agency that originated the information.
Comment by Last Bull Moose Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 6:34 pm
I have friends who work for DHS & DCFS and they both say their agencies are a mess and highly mismanaged. Gov JB should have quadrupled Sol’s salary just because of these 2 agencies let alone the others she will have to manage. Best of luck!
Comment by A state employee Tuesday, Jan 22, 19 @ 7:20 pm