TOPEKA, Kan. —
A Democrat in the Kansas House on Friday criticized Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s reorganization of state social service agencies because renaming two departments comes with $220,000 in projected costs.
The reorganization took effect this week and is part of Brownback’s larger effort to overhaul the state’s $2.9 billion-a-year Medicaid program, which covers health care for the poor, disabled and needy. The administration contends the overhaul, turning the program’s management over to private insurance companies, will result in better-coordinated care and save the state more than $1 billion over five years.
But Rep. Sean Gatewood, a Topeka Democrat, is skeptical of those projections and said even if the Medicaid overhaul will lower the state’s costs, he questions whether it was necessary to rename state agencies and create additional administrative expenses.
Gatewood said the action undercuts claims from Brownback that his administration is running state government frugally. For example, in one MSNBC television interview last month, Brownback said his administration had concentrated on “getting our costs down” and saving “nickels and dimes in a lot of different places.”
“You can’t go out and tell everybody in the world how you’re going to save every penny possible and then turn around and do some pointless name change that costs a bunch of money,” Gatewood said.
The reorganization shrank the former Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, ending its involvement in Medicaid and transferring services for the disabled and mentally ill to what had been the Department on Aging.
SRS became the Department for Children and Families, reflecting its narrower scope. The Department on Aging became the Department for Aging and Disability Services.
“We wanted the agencies’ names to reflect their missions,” said Brownback spokeswoman Sherriene Jones-Sontag. “We are confident that in the long term, the reorganization of these agencies will outweigh the limited expenses.”
Jones-Sontag noted that when Brownback took office in January 2011, four agencies were involved in Medicaid, including SRS and the former Department on Aging. Last year, Brownback eliminated the Kansas Health Policy Authority and moved its financial oversight of Medicaid into the Department of Health and Environment.
The administration contends simplifying the state’s oversight was crucial to efforts to overhaul Medicaid. Last month, the state awarded management contracts to subsidiaries of three multibillion-dollar firms: Amerigroup Corp., based in Virginia Beach, Va.; Centene Corp., which has its headquarters in St. Louis; and United Healthcare, based in Minneapolis. The three-year contracts begin Jan. 1.
Jones-Sontag said the overhaul grew out of communications problems among state agencies as well as frustrations with Medicaid services.
“Not only did we need to reform Medicaid, but we needed to restructure the agencies involved,” she said.
Gatewood said the money covering costs associated with changing the two agencies’ names could have been better spent on public schools, services for the disabled or paying off state bonds.
In compiling data from the two agencies, the Kansas Legislative Research Department reported that almost half of the anticipated costs, about $108,000, involved changes in computer systems. New stationery and employee badges are expected to cost almost $70,000 and new signs almost $41,000.
The bulk of the costs, almost $191,000, stems from the Department for Children and Families, according to the figures. Costs related to the Department for Aging and Disability Services will total about $29,000.
“What does that money get me?” Gatewood said. “It’s not like they couldn’t have reorganized SRS and kept the name.”
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