Bill Would Break Up Dshs Lawmaker Says Agency Is Too Cumbersome To Be Effective

Can five new state agencies do a better job than the state Department of Social and Health Services?

Rep. Bill Reams, R-Bellevue, thinks so.

His bill, HB1187, introduced Tuesday, says the “Department of Social and Health Services has grown to an unmanageable and unwieldy bureaucracy that cannot function effectively.”

The measure would create the Human Services Central Support Agency and departments of Income and Medical Assistance; Long-Term Care; Children, Youth and Family Services; and Rehabilitative and Health Services.

Reams, chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, introduced a similar bill last year when Democrats controlled the House. That bill died in committee.

He doesn’t believe it will pass this session either. “But we need to start doing something meaningful about the department,” he said. “I believe this bill will start a dialogue and possibly be used as a vehicle to set up a few pilot programs within the agency.”

In 1970, the Legislature created DSHS at the urging of Republican Gov. Dan Evans.

It was a true conglomerate. The super-agency included all state departments dealing with social programs, prisons and health care. The department employed more than 20,000 workers.

But secretary after secretary expressed frustration with the organization and resigned. Even Evans conceded the agency was too cumbersome to manage.

Breakup began almost immediately. Taken out from under the umbrella were the Department of Corrections, the Department of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the state Board of Health and the schools for the hearing- and sight- impaired. Despite the partial breakup, the agency still employs 17,000 workers.

Gov. Mike Lowry wasn’t available for comment Tuesday, but press aide Anne Fennessy said her boss would be interested in looking at Reams’ proposal. She said, however, that it appears to run against Lowry’s goal of shrinking the bureaucracy, not expanding it.