Gregoire appoints DSHS director

OLYMPIA – Gov. Christine Gregoire on Tuesday appointed Robin Arnold-Williams, a protege of the federal secretary of health and human services, to the lightning-rod post of director of the state Department of Social and Health Services.

Gregoire said she wants Arnold-Williams to focus on the state’s health care crisis, the needs of children and planning for long-term care needs of a graying population.

Arnold-Williams, 48, served as executive director of the Utah Department of Human Services from October 1997, until this January, and has been in the human services field for nearly 25 years.

“It is a massive challenge,” Arnold-Williams said. “My personal management style is to have good people in place and to support them. I don’t micromanage.”

Arnold-Williams worked closely with Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt when he was governor of Utah.

Gregoire said that connection sealed her decision to hire Arnold-Williams after a national search. The governor said she met with Leavitt last weekend and got a rave review for Arnold-Williams.

Gregoire, who worked as a DSHS caseworker in Everett soon after graduating from college, said her first love is child welfare and that she’s a bit envious of Arnold-Williams’ new assignment. Gregoire said she and her husband, Mike, recently paid a visit to the old office in Everett where they first met – “and a few people remembered me.”

After the news conference, the governor hung around for an informal press conversation with Arnold-Williams, at times asking questions of her own.

Arnold-Williams, who has a doctorate in social work, will take over the state’s superagency next Tuesday, succeeding Dennis Braddock, who is retiring after serving 41/2 years. Gregoire hailed Braddock’s “stellar career” in the Legislature and at DSHS. Braddock said he has mixed feelings about leaving the challenging post but said Arnold-Williams is an outstanding pick.

The department has about 18,000 employees and an annual budget of about $8 billion. That’s about one-third of the total state budget.

The agency provides health services for the poor, mental health care, services for people with developmental disabilities, various welfare programs, foster care, juvenile detention and sex offender treatment, child welfare and other programs.

Gregoire said health care, and particularly the Bush administration’s plan to slice appropriations by $60 billion over the next decade, “totally preoccupied” the nation’s governors at the winter meeting in Washington, D.C., last week.

“Everyone’s forecasting literal bankruptcy in the Medicaid system,” Gregoire said. “The system isn’t working the way it was intended to work.”

While national health care is the best long-term solution, Washington will have to figure out how to cope with less federal aid, even while working toward the goal of providing health care for all children, Gregoire said.

She and Arnold-Williams said eligibility will have to be tightened for some recipients, Medicare and Medicaid better coordinated, and premiums and copays raised for some.

Gregoire called her new pick a national leader in the field – “an experienced and well-connected individual.”

Asked why she’d want such a thankless job, Arnold-Williams said: “It’s worth the controversy, being in the limelight. … It’s not just my profession, it’s my passion. It’s in my blood.”

Gregoire also appointed two other Cabinet officials: Linda Villegas Bremer as head of the Department of General Administration and Scott Jarvis as head of the Department of Financial Institutions.

The posts require Senate confirmation. Jarvis and Bremer will earn about $115,000 a year. The DSHS job pays $150,000.