Director Lyon Comments on DCH/DHS Merger

Director Nick Lyon addressed members of the House Families, Children, and Seniors Committee Wednesday to discuss a few short-term changes on how local offices will operate after the departments of Community Health and Human Services merge. Governor Rick Snyder initially proposed the idea of this merger in his State of the State address a few weeks ago, but now the departments are simply waiting on a signature from an executive order to officially begin the process.

Director Lyon will focus his efforts on developing stronger communication between the offices so that they can ultimately work concurrently to better support and aid the individual. He does foresee the budget becoming an issue. As this will be the second year the Department will be experiencing budget cuts, Mr. Lyon commented that it would be helpful for the Legislature to better explain these cuts to the local offices. Almost 300 positions were reduced last year, and this year there could be as many as 100 layoffs. In addition, he explained the Department would need to see additional funding in order to carry out the suspicion-based drug testing pilot, which was approved last year.

Committee members expressed concern to the Director regarding fraudulent disability benefits and were curious as to what could be done. Mr. Lyon replied that he will have to raise the subject with the local offices when he visits, but because it is a federal program, there are requirements that have to be met. Representative Kathy Crawford (R-Novi) also expressed concern over some aged-out foster youth who didn’t have connections to their siblings, or a means to live and work once out of the foster system. Director Lyon told Representative Crawford that he would look into this issue as well.

Committee members urged Director Lyon to continue his work in getting Michigan out from the consent agreement from the Children’s Rights lawsuit. The state has already met some of the marks in this agreement, and Director Lyon assured that it remains a high priority for the Department.

posted by PAA Online , Friday, February 6, 2015 10:01 AM
LINK DIRECTLY TO THIS ARTICLE

This Week's Newsletter

Past Newsletters