Marketing exec new head of Health and Welfare
BOISE – Gov. Jim Risch tapped a health care marketing executive on Tuesday to head the state Department of Health and Welfare and oversee a major reorganization of its management.
Richard M. Armstrong will replace Karl Kurtz as director of the agency, which a February legislative audit found has a high turnover rate due to low morale and a lack of confidence in upper management.
Reorganizing the department, which has 3,106 employees and a $1.6 billion annual budget, is Risch’s first major move as governor. Several critical performance audits were released during former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s administration, but Risch dodged questions about whether he felt Kempthorne had let problems in the agency fester too long.
The ouster of Kurtz had been anticipated after a series of reports by the Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations found staff and middle managers often questioned management decisions and did not have authority to do their jobs effectively.
“The charge I have given to the top management is to empower those people,” Risch told a news conference, at which he also reappointed several other department heads but did not announce his appointee for lieutenant governor.
To take the state appointment, Armstrong retired as senior vice president of sales and marketing at Blue Cross of Idaho, the private health care insurance company where he has worked the past 36 years. He said he has severed all ties with his former employer to avoid potential conflicts of interest.
Risch signed an executive order Tuesday that gives Armstrong authority to appoint deputy directors over various services provided by the agency, along with appointing administrators for nine divisions. Armstrong said the resulting agency would have an improved chain of command and would more efficiently serve those Idaho residents who rely on the state for basic health requirements.
“If you have valid, strong eligibility criteria and you track that accurately, you can deliver services fairly to those that deserve the services, and those that do not qualify would simply not receive the services,” Armstrong said. “It is our goal to be very sure we have the ability to fairly and honorably execute the laws of both the state and federal government.”
State agency heads that Risch reappointed to their current jobs Tuesday included Brad Foltman as state budget director; Pam Ahrens as director of the Department of Administration; Roger Madsen as director of the Department of Commerce and Labor; Maj. Gen. Lawrence Lafrenz as adjutant general of the Idaho National Guard; Brent Reinke as director of the Department of Juvenile Corrections; Col. Dan Charboneau as director of the Idaho State Police; and Olivia Craven as director of the Commission on Pardons and Parole.
Risch declined to say whether he would make any additional changes to his Cabinet besides a previously announced plan to create a state “drug czar.”