Health & Welfare outlines reorganization, seeks vehicle, IT and staffing funding as budget hearings begin

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare told the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee on Monday that it is proposing an internal reorganization and several budget requests intended to align appropriations with how the agency operates.

Alex Williamson, budget and policy analyst with the Legislative Services Office, gave an overview of the department and the governor's recommended budget for the agency. She said the Department of Health and Welfare is the state's largest budgeted agency and noted the legislature will consider the department's divisions individually across the session. Williamson said the department has historically organized internally in ways that did not always match how the legislature budgets programs and that the agency requested changes so that "the budgeted programs are and where the work is being done" are aligned.

Director Alex Adams, who took the post in June, told the committee the reorganization is designed to improve "line of visibility" and "lines of accountability." "I have the radical belief that budgets are laws, not suggestions," he said, describing a new chief financial officer position that now reports directly to the director and a move from three to four deputy directors to separate oversight of Medicaid and child welfare.

Key organizational changes presented by the department include:

- Splitting Family and Community Services (FACS) out as its own division and promoting the Medicaid administrator to a deputy director who will…