PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

One of the old sayings dating back to my time as a state agency manager was this: “Your subordinates can make professional life difficult for you.”

The saying was meant to indicate that those who worked for you could make mistakes and you, as an agency leader, might have to step up to the plate to take responsibility. This would be true even if the mistakes were well-intentioned ones, a status the media often fails to recognize.

Plus, in the case of mistakes, your opponents, including legislators, could pile on to make your professional life even more difficult. The risk in a state agency is that mistakes – a natural part of work life – end up clouding any organization’s accomplishments.

Well, the rationale behind that saying came true last week as one of my good friends, Lynne Saxton, lost her job as director of the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) after a public relations controversy engulfed her, a controversy that could be attributed to mistakes made by staff.

Even as she stays in her job through the end of the month – a wholly professional act on her part — she deserves great credit for a number of accomplishments at OHA, not just the bad news of a final problem.

When she took over the agency a couple years ago, she did so at the request of then-governor John Kitzhaber. It was not long before Kitzhaber gave up the state’s top political job after too many questions were raised about alleged conflict of interest issues related to Kitzhaber and his significant other, Cylvia Hayes, who conducted herself as a sort-of “first lady” of Oregon.

Lynne managed to survive the change to the administration of Secretary of State Kate Brown who moved in behind Kitzhaber as governor and, in fact, after Brown became governor, Lynne was confirmed by the State Senate for the top job at OHA.

Her intention was to manage the agency in a way to gain credibility for an operation that had suffered in the years before her elevation to the director job. A key part of her task was to exercise proper discretion over Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for low-income citizens, which, under ObamaCare, was consuming more and more of available state resources.

It was a tall order because her predecessor at the agency had tended to focus most of his time on personal negotiations with Oregon legislators over the future of the state’s health care programs. He spent far more time at the Capitol than in his office three blocks north on the Capitol Mall.

That left administration at the agency in a state of flux, so Lynne came in with an intention to set the management record straight. And that’s what she did.

Here’s a partial record of accomplishments:

• Gained federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) approval for care reimbursement rates for Oregon’s list of Coordinated Care Organizations, rates where approval was at risk for 2015.
• Cleaned up Medicaid eligibility issues for a program that now serves more than one million Oregonians. [This was one of the controversial issues that arose during Lynne’s tenure, but it is a very complicated one. As Medicaid applications are reviewed, if an individual qualifies, then Medicaid benefits must be granted. Then, later, under further investigation, it may turn out that the recipient was not qualified. Lynne and her staff remain busy verifying the eligibility records.]
• Provided information that enabled the legislature to retain a tax on large Oregon hospitals, proceeds that would, in turn, garner federal matching funds under Medicaid. Then, the all of the state and federal money would be available to fund continuing Medicaid benefits for thousands of low-income citizens in Oregon.
• Renewed another five-year waiver from CMS, which will enable the State of Oregon to maintain health care programs and continue imposing appropriate cost control strategies.
• Invested in coordination of care programs for Oregon’s nine Native American tribes.
• Restructured agency administrative systems and put in place a performance management system, key steps to assure legislators and stakeholders that strong management was occurring in an agency where, under previous leaders, reports, including financial analyses, lacked credibility.

Even with all of these accomplishments, Lynne took responsibility for the public relations mistakes her staff made and, if a price was to be paid, she said she would pay it.

She did – resignation from her job. It was a statesmanlike act on her part.

I have known Lynne for a number of years and represented her in Salem when she was head of Youth Villages, a notable and successful provider of services for at-risk children and youth. Lynne always was gracious, approachable and committed to achieving results for the benefit of the children and families she served. It was a pleasure for me to be associated with her and to benefit from my relationship with her more than she benefited from working with me.

At the Oregon Health Authority, Lynne did excellent work in a tough job and everyone should recognize her accomplishments – she would call them “results” – even as leaves and heads toward a well-earned retirement.