{"id":30040,"date":"2018-05-17T23:05:06","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T04:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=30040"},"modified":"2018-05-17T23:05:06","modified_gmt":"2018-05-18T04:05:06","slug":"grand-jury-financial-crisis-at-oklahoma-health-agency-never-existed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2018\/05\/17\/grand-jury-financial-crisis-at-oklahoma-health-agency-never-existed\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand jury: Financial crisis at Oklahoma health agency never existed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_30041\"  class=\"wp-caption module image aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-30041\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/05\/20180516-hunter-jones-presser-500x272.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/05\/20180516-hunter-jones-presser-500x272.png 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/05\/20180516-hunter-jones-presser-768x418.png 768w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/05\/20180516-hunter-jones-presser-150x82.png 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/05\/20180516-hunter-jones-presser-300x163.png 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/05\/20180516-hunter-jones-presser-620x338.png 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/05\/20180516-hunter-jones-presser.png 1843w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Facebook<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter and state Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones at a press conference announcing the grand jury&#8217;s findings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\">The six-month investigation into financial mismanagement at the Oklahoma State Department of Health is complete \u2014 and no criminal charges will be filed.<\/p><p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">A grand jury started probing the agency in November after officials reported a sudden budget shortfall. The resulting financial crisis led to the layoffs of nearly 200 employees and an emergency infusion from lawmakers of $30 million to help the agency stay solvent.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-documentcloud\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<div class=\"DC-embed DC-embed-document DV-container\">\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:129.42857142857142%;height:0;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;\"> <iframe src=\"\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/4465969-OSDH-Report-With-Audit.html?embed=true&responsive=false&sidebar=false\" title=\"OSDH Report With Audit (Hosted by DocumentCloud)\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-forms\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:1px solid #aaa;border-bottom:0;box-sizing:border-box;\"><\/iframe> <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\">The grand jury said the financial crisis wasn\u2019t real. The grand jury blamed the agency\u2019s antiquated internal financial system and found evidence of misconduct, but none considered illegal under state laws.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">State Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones said the agency had enough money to pay its bills, but internal restrictions made its own board of directors think the agency was insolvent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cWhile it appears to be a ponzi scheme, it was only a ponzi scheme within themselves. They created their own crisis,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Jones added that $30 million dollars remains in what the grand jury report calls a \u201cslush fund\u201d with money made up primarily of federal appropriations and county millage dollars the agendy set aside over a period of years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cLeadership at the department of health was able to build discretionary funds in a federal account out of sight of the agency\u2019s board, the Legislature and the governor\u2019s office,\u201d said Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter. \u201cUsing these improper accounting practices, the agency was able to show a \u2018balanced budget.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Hunter called the grand jury\u2019s findings \u201creprehensible,\u201d but said no state or federal money was embezzled or stolen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Hunter supported a grand jury recommendation use the $30 million to investigate other state agencies. He declined to comment on whether a parallel investigation by the FBI is still moving forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Hunter said it\u2019s up to the agency to decide whether or not to rehire laid off employees. In March, the state Board of Health named Tom Bates, a former first assistant attorney general, to head the embattled health department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Bates is the fourth interim commissioner in the last year, following Preston Doerflinger\u2019s resignation in February after past spousal abuse surfaced in media reports and Terry Cline\u2019s resignation last October, when the financial mismanagement became public. The agency\u2019s federal policy director led the agency in an interim capacity between Doerflinger and Bates\u2019 appointment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The six-month investigation into financial mismanagement at the Oklahoma State Department of Health is complete \u2014 and no criminal charges will be filed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":30048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[245],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30040"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30051,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30040\/revisions\/30051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}