New Health and Human Services Secretary Aldona Wos has given legislators an update on what she has discovered in her first several weeks on the job as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. To say there are problems is being kind. Remember, this chaos is funded by your hard-earned tax dollars. Carolina Journal’s Dan Way reports.
To illustrate the disarray she found in DHHS when she took over last month, Wos recited a list of anecdotes involving frenzied staff members rushing in and out of her office, dropping off an array of documents.
“The papers had no names, no contact information, and [staffers were] asking me for signatures for something that needed to be done urgently,” Wos said.
One distressed employee pleaded for her to sign quickly a contract that required her signature. When asked what the document was, the official “was unable to provide the information to me, but she said she thought it was a couple of million dollars contract,” Wos said.
In her first week, members of her budget team presented a variety of money woes, Wos said. One was a demand for more than $4 million because of an error in communication. Another was for a $5 million program reduction required by law but not enacted for two years. A third involved nearly $40 million in unpaid bills.
Just last week legislative reports that were due in November, December, and January “showed up on my desk,” Wos said. “Not only were these reports months late, they were simply incomprehensible.”
And you and I have been paying for this nonsense.
