Blurry Timelines for Health Department Financial Woes

As both the House Special Investigative Committee and a multi-county grand jury begin unwinding the financial mismanagement at the Oklahoma State Department of Health, a timeline has begun to take shape. However, there is some disagreement as to the order of events and when certain officials knew of the Health Department’s problems.

During the Investigative Committee’s hearing on Monday acting Health Commissioner Preston Doerflinger was asked about the timeline of when he and other Fallin Administration officials knew of the money problems by several committee members. When this first timeline question was asked by Rep. Ryan Martinez, Doerflinger, who is also state Secretary of Finance, said it was about two weeks before the problems became public.

“The first time that I was aware that they might have problems making payroll, which would signal they might need additional funding was a conversation with Auditor Jones approximately two weeks prior to the Friday that everything kind of came down. As far as needing additional funds, to be clear, they like any other agency as part of their budget request have a wish list of items they would like to receive additional funding for or to restore programs and things like that maybe have been cut in the past. But specific to this situation, really, I found out the Friday before everything went down,” said Doerflinger to the Committee.

That was Friday October 27th according to Doeflinger’s calculations.

The conversation Doerflinger had with Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones was about an audit he was doing at the request of the Health Department. Jones had found evidence of financial troubles and was concerned about meeting the department’s payroll.

“Again, I had a conversation with Auditor Jones where he said he was in there doing work and they might potentially have a problem making payroll before that. My team met with officials with the State Department of Health, I believe on the 20th,” Doerflinger told the Committee.

He offered to get the exact dates of those meetings.

However, in a conversation with The McCarville Report, Jones claims the red flags about trouble within the agency came much earlier. According to his timeline, it was July when he was alerted there were issues at the Health Department. When he began to suspect those issues were urgent, Jones says he contacted Doerflinger on September 1 about payroll. He met with the Finance Secretary on September 7 to tell him the Health Department would need at least $10 million to meet payroll needs and would likely need additional funding for layoffs. It was September 28 when Cline officially asked Jones’ office for an audit. Jones also points out “write ups” for the Health Department in 2015 and 2016 for not closing out accounts properly.

The public began seeing signs of trouble in mid-October as the Health Department began adjusting its spending. The agency announced October 16 that it had discontinued funding for contractors within Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) and Oklahoma Child Abuse Prevention (OCAP). The agency expected to save more than $3 million by cancelling 25 FQHC and nine OCAP contracts. It also announced furloughs for department employees making more than $35,000 a year starting October 29. It was October 26 when a 12 percent reduction in force was made public by the Health Department. During an emergency meeting on October 30, the State Board of Health accepted the resignations of Cline and Senior Deputy Commissioner Julie Cox-Kain. Also at that meeting, Doerflinger was named interim Health Commissioner.

The blurring of timelines has led to talk of who knew what and when.

Jones will have his opportunity to provide his view of the situation as State Auditor Thursday morning as the House Investigative Committee resumes its hearings at 9:30 in Room 206.


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