Call For Resignation Leaves Batt Annoyed Governor Says Treasurer Should Have Gone To Him First

Gov. Phil Batt and state Treasurer Lydia Justice Edwards clashed Wednesday over her call for a top Health and Welfare official to resign.

Justice Edwards said she thought Gary Broker, administrator of the Division of Management Services, should resign after the department discovered some child support money missing from its Coeur d’Alene office.

An employee has been placed on leave while the loss of up to $30,000 is investigated, and results of the investigation could be turned over to the Kootenai County prosecutor as soon as this week.

But Broker, who has held his post for 10 years and has worked for Health and Welfare for 25 years, doesn’t even directly supervise the Coeur d’Alene employee. His division was given oversight of child support collections three years ago and has helped cut the time it takes for parents to receive their checks. His auditors discovered the accounting discrepancy and prompted the investigation.

Broker also oversees all of the huge department’s payroll, accounts payable, purchasing, budgeting, human resources and accounting.

Batt, through spokeswoman Amy Kleiner, reacted strongly to Justice Edwards’ comments.

“He is annoyed,” Kleiner said, “that if Lydia thought there was a problem with one of his departments, that she didn’t talk to him rather than going to the newspaper and talking about something which she had half the facts on.”

“The Department of Health and Welfare is the one that discovered this problem,” Kleiner said. “They’ve been taking care of it.” Department Director Linda Caballero said through spokesman David Ensunsa that she has full confidence in Broker.

Justice Edwards said of Batt, “I am responsible for the money, and he is responsible for state employees. I’m sure he does not propose to interfere with my management of money.”

Justice Edwards said she has long-standing concerns about the state’s child support collections, and has pushed for an electronic fund transfer system.

“I had technology that would zap the payments through the system,” she said. “I suggested that child support should be a free-standing division and should be removed from the Department of Health and Welfare because they were so inefficient.”

Justice Edwards detailed her concerns in a 1995 report to Batt. In response, the department requested a legislative audit of child support collections.

The audit, completed in May of 1995, suggested some minor improvements and encouraged development of electronic transfers, but said the system was working well. Justice Edwards’ concern that Health and Welfare was holding child support checks for an extended period before making payments to parents was unfounded, the audit found.

Comparing the dates on the child support checks to the date the state deposited them might suggest that, the audit said. But the audit said parents have an incentive to pre-date checks, and they were deposited promptly when the state received them.

Broker said 97 percent of the time, checks are sent out to custodial parents within 48 hours of the state receiving the payments. Within about five days, the figure hits 100 percent. Federal rules give the state up to 15 days.

“The money-handling part of the system is pretty darn good,” Broker said.

In the Coeur d’Alene incident, he said, “The breakdown in this case was the human part of it.”

Justice Edwards expressed several other concerns, including misgivings over how Health and Welfare is investigating the Coeur d’Alene problem internally before turning it over to law enforcement.

, DataTimes