RICHMOND, Va. — A damning new report on operations at the Virginia Department of Health was released by a state commission Thursday.
The Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission or JLARC says several overlapping developments created operational challenges and made dozens of recommendations, but add it will take years to correct.
The report says among the big issues were financial mismanagement, staffing, and accountability issues that developed over many years and will take many years to fix.
"And so we think there should be some ongoing legislative attention to those issues to make sure they do get addressed," JLARC Chief Legislative Analyst Drew Dickinson said.
CBS 6 has reported on several issues in the report, including the embezzlement of over $4 million by an employee in the Office of Emergency Services, and tied it to another problem, that VDH's central office lacked oversight of its various agencies.
"The recent financial mismanagement at the Office of Emergency Medical Services, for example, could have been prevented with basic attention to how well the office managed its funds," Dickinson said.
The report says federal grants were mismanaged, including water grants from the Environmental Protection Agency, to the extent they're the only state agency in the EPA's mid-Atlantic region that has to pay upfront and get reimbursed later.
It adds they were also late making payments to various staff, vendors, and programs.
"Causing issues with the programs getting the funding they need on time and paying these vendors and community partners on time," Dickinson said.
The report adds there aren’t enough qualified and well-trained staff, and VDH is over-reliant on contractors, adding attempts to hire people averaged over 100 days, compared to the state average of 75.
"We heard that there's almost 500 qualified applicants who withdrew their application just because the hiring process was taking too so long," Dickinson said.
The report did note that several factors contributed to all this including an unsuccessful reorganization that started right before COVID-19, the pandemic itself, and leadership turnover.
It gives 31 recommendations to address the issues, but JLARC says current VDH leadership has been transparent and begun taking steps.
VDH Commissioner Dr. Karen Shelton didn't answer questions from the media after the meeting but did address lawmakers about the report
"VDH leadership is dedicated to the accountability of our agency," Shelton said.
Shelton took control of VDH in May 2023 and says among the changes they've implemented include a new position of Chief Operating Officer who does monthly reviews of their programs, a new office to oversee grants, and filling staff vacancies.
"We have placed significant emphasis on rebuilding our internal audit team, an office that last summer had a 50% vacancy rate, and at the end of the past summer was 100% filled," Shelton said.
Lawmakers called the findings sobering, disturbing, and shocking.
Delegate Mark Sickles says they'll be looking at their portion of the recommendations and offer support if asked, but adds many don't need legislative changes and hoped leadership would have done a better job righting the ship in the first 35 months of the Governor Glenn Youngkin administration.
"I'm so discouraged that it took so long to figure out that it wasn't well managed," Sickles said. "These are people that come from Wall Street who say they're good managers. They say they're transforming government. Boy, they really should have spent a little bit more time on this agency and they've got 13 months left to do it.
Now, in response, a spokesperson for Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a statement the administration inherited longstanding issues at VDH and they've been taking unprecedented steps and reforms for sustainable progress.
Among them was the creation of the COO office, which the report recommends codifying into law so that it continues in future administrations.
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