BP BHEAD INT H

AN ACT Relating to the department of social and health services; and creating new sections.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that the department of social and health services is required to fulfill an immense number of responsibilities. Due to this, the department of social and health services has grown to an unmanageable and unwieldy bureaucracy that cannot function as an effective unit. The legislature also finds that the department of social and health services duplicates many tasks that are the responsibility of the employment security department, the department of personnel, and the department of labor and industries. It is the intent of the legislature to divide the department of social and health services and eliminate the executive division including but not limited to the secretary; the administrative control unit; the office of legislative, public, and constituent relations; and the office of public affairs. The elimination of the executive division will greatly reduce duplicative administrative functions. This will reduce the costs of providing social and health services, it will allow the state to maximize scarce resources, and the people of the state of Washington will be better served. The legislature intends to provide a single source to supply support services. Smaller, more efficient direct service departments will direct and rely on the central department to provide them with support services while concentrating their efforts on providing direct services to the public. Inasmuch as the department of corrections was once a part of the department of social and health services, it is the intent of the legislature that the department of corrections rely on the single support services department created by this act.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. There is created the department of central support services; the department of income and medical assistance; the department of long-term care; the department of children, youth, and family services; and the department of developmental disability and vocational rehabilitation. The departments shall be located in the current facilities of the department of social and health services.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. The department of social and health services is abolished and its powers, duties, and functions are transferred to the appropriate department as divided by the transition team established under section 10 of this act. All references to the secretary or the department of social and health services in the Revised Code of Washington shall be construed to mean the director of the appropriate department, or the appropriate department, created under section 2 of this act.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. All reports, documents, surveys, books, records, files, papers, or written material in the possession of the department of social and health services shall be delivered to the custody of the transition team created under section 10 of this act to be transferred to the appropriate department. All cabinets, furniture, office equipment, motor vehicles, and other tangible property employed by the department of social and health services shall be made available to the transition team to be transferred to the appropriate department. All funds, credits, or other assets held by the department of social and health services shall be assigned to the appropriate department by the transition team.

Any appropriations made to the department of social and health services shall, on the effective date of this section, be transferred and credited to the appropriate department by the transition team.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. All employees of the department of social and health services are transferred to the jurisdiction of the transition team established under section 10 of this act to be transferred to the appropriate department. All employees classified under chapter 41.06 RCW, the state civil service law, are assigned to their respective departments to perform their usual duties upon the same terms as formerly, without any loss of rights, subject to any action that may be appropriate thereafter in accordance with the laws and rules governing state civil service.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. All rules and all pending business before the department of social and health services shall be continued and acted upon by the appropriate department created under section 2 of this act. All existing contracts and obligations shall remain in full force and shall be performed by the appropriate department.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. The transfer of the powers, duties, functions, and personnel of the department of social and health services shall not affect the validity of any act performed prior to the effective date of this section.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. If apportionments of budgeted funds are required because of the transfers directed by sections 4 through 7 of this act, the director of financial management shall certify the apportionments to the agencies affected, the state auditor, and the state treasurer. Each of these shall make the appropriate transfer and adjustments in funds and appropriation accounts and equipment records in accordance with the certification.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 9. Nothing contained in sections 3 through 8 of this act may be construed to alter any existing collective bargaining unit or the provisions of any existing collective bargaining agreement until the agreement has expired or until the bargaining unit has been modified by action of the Washington personnel resources board as provided by law.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 10. (1) By July 1, 1994, the governor shall appoint a transition team to direct the details of administration of this act. The team shall consist of representatives from the office of financial management, the legislature, and the divisions of the department of social and health services.

(2) The transition team shall divide up the functions of the department of social and health services into the new departments set out under section 2 of this act after the effective date of this section as follows:

(a) All support services including but not limited to personnel, financial, administration, auditing, comptroller, constituent relations, and legal services of the attorney general's office shall remain with the department of central support services; and

(b) All personnel, funds, books, documents, records, papers, files, equipment, or other tangible property required for the direct provision of services to the public shall be transferred to the department to be responsible for the services.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 11. The department of corrections shall eliminate all functions that duplicate services offered by the department of central support services including but not limited to personnel, financial, administration, auditing, comptrolling, and legal services of the attorney general's office. The department of central support services shall supply all support services to the department of corrections.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 12. Any cost savings from elimination of the executive division of the department of social and health services and the elimination of duplicative functions of the department of corrections and the department of central support services which occurs as a result of this act shall be credited to the department of children, youth, and family services.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 13. The transition team set out under section 10 of this act shall, by November 15, 1994, submit a plan and necessary implementation legislation to the legislature for the division of the department of social and health services so that the new agencies will be operating by July 1, 1995.

The plan shall include, but is not limited to, the following elements:

(1) Strategies for dividing the existing functions and responsibilities of the department into the appropriate new agency including a strategic plan for each new agency created in section 2 of this act that includes implementation steps, evaluation measures, and methods for collaboration among programs;

(2) Recommendations for changes in existing programs and functions of the department of social and health services; and

(3) Implementation steps necessary to bring about operation of the new agencies.