BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Gov. Bobby Jindal fired the head of his Office of Elderly Affairs on Wednesday, a day after she staunchly criticized his budget plans for the agency.
The governor’s spokesman, Frank Collins, confirmed that Martha Manuel, executive director of the office for a year, was removed from the post.
“We decided to move in a different direction,” Collins said in a statement in which he also defended the budget proposal that was the subject of Manuel’s criticism.
Manuel told lawmakers Tuesday that the governor’s plan to merge the Office of Elderly Affairs into the Department of Health and Hospitals would damage services for Louisiana’s senior citizens. She said the health department didn’t have a plan for the move, just “a vision,” and she said she wasn’t consulted about the transfer, only learning of it when the Jindal budget was released.
“We are in a good position to be able to take care of our elderly,” Manuel said of her office.
As she made her comments to the House Appropriations Committee, Manuel suggested she thought the remarks could get her ousted from her job.
Jindal’s chief budget adviser, Paul Rainwater, told the committee that the move wouldn’t reduce services, would make operations more efficient and could generate additional federal health care money for senior citizen programs.
“The proposal to transition the Office of Elderly Affairs to Adult and Aging Services in DHH will improve services by reducing duplication, enhancing our ability to better leverage funding and create a better avenue for the delivery of elderly services,” Collins said Wednesday.
Leaders of parish councils on aging and elderly residents who receive services through programs overseen by the Office of Elderly Affairs have raised opposition to the proposed move. They say the office will be swallowed up in the massive DHH bureaucracy.
Fifty-one jobs and $44.6 million would be moved into a department that will have a nearly $9 billion budget and 7,000 employees in the 2012-13 fiscal year.
Previous attempts at such a merger have failed to gain traction among lawmakers, and members of the Appropriations Committee questioned the need for the shift.
The Office of Elderly Affairs works with local senior centers, community service organizations and volunteer programs to provide assistance with meals, transportation, counseling and personal care for senior citizens.
Jindal has proposed a $25.5 billion budget for the year that begins July 1. Lawmakers won’t decide on a final version of the budget — and whether the Office of Elderly Affairs will be moved — for several months.
___
Online:
The budget is filed as House Bill 1 and can be found at www.legis.state.la.us
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
 
—-
Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]