West Virginia’s acting secretary for the Department of Health and Human Resources described ongoing work to divide the agency into three.
“This transition is a nine-month time frame for the reorganization of the current DHHR into the three new departments, which are going to be established in January of 2024,” said Dr. Jeffrey Coben, speaking during a broad-ranging briefing with the governor.
“So our goal is to make this happen smoothly in a way that doesn’t disrupt any of the services or any of the momentum that we’ve had over these last several months.”
The three agencies under the new structure would be the Department of Health, the Department of Human Services, and the Department of Health Facilities.
West Virginia lawmakers passed House Bill 2006 after months of consideration. The full division of the agency isn’t supposed to take effect until 2024.
Last month, Coben told state lawmakers that he would be talking with leaders in the executive branch about how to go about the change with the least disruption.
Coben said interacting with the federal government will be a challenge to monitor, particularly regarding matching funds. He also described the need to update communications resources like signage and websites. He also sought to reassure current employees during the period of change.
“We need to understand, the current structure of DHHR is one that’s been in place for about 35 years,” he said today. “So it’s not a matter of simply flipping the switch and changing it abruptly.”
He described months of work, again emphasizing the need to collaborate with federal authorities. “So as we’re moving to this new structure, what we’re doing is communicating with our federal partners to make sure that we maximize all the federal resources that come into the state and don’t lose any of those resources as we go through the transition process.”
Coben said conversations in the executive branch would continue along with outreach to employees and the public.
“As the reorganization plans further solidify we will push out additional information to the public, to the media and to the stakeholders that want that information,” he said.
“There is not a single document master plan that I can provide to you today. This is an iterative process that we’re going through, but I think we’re making really good progress with the governor and his team.”