Teresa Miller is set to take over as president and chief executive officer of theKansas Health Foundation, a nonprofit focused on public health.
Miller says she is proud of what the department has accomplished since she took on the role in 2017. Her focus has been on making it easier to connect people to basic services like food and cash assistance.
She has also learned from the department’s failures such as allegations of abuse at the Glen Mills Youth Detention Center in Delaware County, she says.
“It was a clear sign that something was wrong, and I think we know now that there’s a lot of things we can do better to protect kids,” Miller says.
The coronavirus pandemic has shown the need for the kind of social safety net the agency provides, she says, with its annual budget of $45 billion dollars of mostly federal funds.
The governor has nominated Meg Snead, currently the Policy and Planning secretary, to lead DHS, the state’s largest agency, overseeing Medicaid, child care and food assistance, and other programs.