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The Medicaid manager who made $237,500 in overtime over the last four years recently received a 25 percent raise.

Angie Sligh, the Medicaid Management Information System director, is now being paid an annual salary of $134,944, according to DHHS spokesman Brad Deen. State personnel records regularly obtained by The News & Observer show that her salary was listed as $107,944 on January 11, 2013.

Sligh received the raise as the State Auditor was wrapping up an investigation into overtime payments of $580,000 to Health and Human Services employees who don't normally qualify for overtime.

Dianna Lightfoot, whose appointment was announced Tuesday by Aldona Wos, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is the president of the National Physicians Center.

A policy paper — signed by Lightfoot and two board members — on the nonprofit's website states that early childhood education programs "may actually be inferior to early learning opportunities at home."

The Republican co-chairmen of the Legislative Oversight Committee on Health and Human Services sent a letter this week to the secretary of the Department of Administration asking for more information about plans to consolidate DHHS workers onto a single campus.

Rep. Nelson Dollar, Rep. Justin Burr and Sen. Louis Pate have asked Sec. Moses Carey, Jr. to provide answers to six questions by Monday at 5 p.m. The questions cover a range of issues, including whether DOA's cost-effectiveness analysis of the project took into account various DHHS lease payments.

Dorothea Dix Hospital is once again set to close.

Lanier Cansler, the state secretary of Health and Human Services, said today he expects the Raleigh mental hospital to shut its doors by the end of the year, reports Michael Biesecker.

Dix, the first institution of its kind in North Carolina, has been in continuous operation since 1856.

"For the current fiscal year, no funds were appropriated by the General Assembly for Dorothea Dix Hospital, and we have been forced to make some very difficult decisions to address this shortfall," Cansler wrote in a memo sent to Dix staff.

All remaining patient services at Dix will be relocated to Central Regional Hospital in Butner and Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, he said.

State administrators have been working to close Dix for years. The aging facility was set to close in 2008, but a lawsuit over safety concerns with the newly constructed state hospital in Butner led a judge to block the shutdown. There have also been extensive problems with patient abuse and neglect at Cherry in Goldsboro.

But the legal injunction barring Dix's closure was lifted last year, and administrators have slowly been moving patients from the Raleigh facility to the other hospitals for months.

In his letter, Cansler lauded the "outstanding care and treatment" the staff at Dix has provided in what he termed an uncertain time. He urged those losing their jobs to seek new positions at the hospital in Butner, about a 45 minute drive to the north.

Further details about the closure plans for Dix will be announced in the coming days, Cansler said.

UPDATE: DHHS says some services will remain on the Dix campus under the direction of Central Regional Hospital, including 24 forensic beds and a child outpatient clinic.
 

Two top administrators at Cherry Hospital, a state-run mental facility in Goldsboro, left their jobs earlier this month.

Dr. Kimberly Johnson, who as clinical director served as the hospital's top doctor, left on Jan. 15. Nursing Director Bonnie Gray's last day at the hospital was Jan. 4.

Officials with the state Department of Health and Human Services wouldn’t comment on the reasons for the departures, citing personnel privacy laws.

In an organization as large as DHHS it is not uncommon for staff to make voluntary career choices,” spokeswoman Renee McCoy said in an e-mail. “Those choices might reflect a range of decisions from better employment opportunities to retirement to a change of career paths. We certainly wish our workers well as they embark on new pathways.”

Johnson and Gray had helped run Cherry as it struggled during the last two years to regain federal certification following the death of a patient who choked on his medication and was then left sitting in a chair for nearly a day without food, water or medical attention.