Mississippi Politics

Mississippi Politics

The Braille Monitor_______

October 1997

(next)

(contents)

Politics

in Mississippi as Usual: Rehabilitation Again Featured

From the Editor Emeritus: As Monitor

readers know, Nell Carney, Federal Rehabilitation Commissioner under President

Bush, was appointed director of Mississippi's rehabilitation program in 1993.

Mississippi's governor is a Republican, and the majority in its legislature

are Democrats. From the beginning of her stay in Mississippi, Carney had rough

sailing. Democrats in the legislature said she didn't do a good job and that

she was overpaid. Others said that her problem was that she was appointed by

a Republican governor.

Be that as it may, she resigned from

her position late in 1996 and moved to North Carolina. This did not bring peace

to the Mississippi rehabilitation department. Apparently legislative shenanigans

in the state are still alive and well.

Under date of August 17, 1997, an

article by Bill Minor detailing the situation appeared in The Clarion Ledger,

one of Mississippi's leading newspapers. Here is what it says:

McMillan's Rise in Power Defied all Ethical

Logic-- At best, appointment to head agency suggests conflict of interest

by Bill Minor

With powerful help from his old legislative

roommate, former state Rep. Hubert S. (Butch) McMillan was apparently put at

the head of the state's highly sensitive agency dealing with disability services,

a job for which he had no background.

Earlier this year McMillan was named

executive director of Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services, an

agency that handles nearly $90 million a year in state and federal disability

funds.

He got the $70,000-a-year job in February

after Rep. Bobby Moody, D-Louisville, pushed the state Board of Rehabilitation

Services. Moody chairs the House Health and Welfare Committee, which controls

key legislation that affects several agency heads who hired McMillan.

Moody, at the time, was holding two bills

hostage--one considered vital to the state Department of Human Services and

the other to revamp the state Mental Health Board. The heads of both agencies,

it seems, felt pressure from Moody to junk two other nominees for the Rehabilitation

Services job and give it to McMillan, who was not even a nominee.

Ironically, Moody's power play made an

end run around Governor Kirk Fordice's choice for the rehabilitation job, leaving

the would-be appointee stunned that a Fordice administration agency head had

abandoned him in the selection process.

McMillan's qualifications for the job

are a far cry from those held by his predecessor, Dr. Nell Carney, a longtime

rehabilitation professional who was commissioner of the disability services

administration under President Bush.

Originally from North Carolina, Carney

took over the Mississippi agency in 1993 when Bush left office. After a rocky

three years in Mississippi, largely because of her tight administrative style,

Carney resigned in December after losing most of her already impaired vision.

After she stepped down, the requirements

for the job, which included a master's degree and ten years experience in the

field, were lowered by the state Personnel Board.

Retired Air Force Colonel Florian Yoste,

now a top assistant in the Department of Economic and Community Development,

was Fordice's choice to replace Carney. Yoste, who has several master's degrees

and has years of experience in administrative posts in the military, was believed

the odds-on choice when the board met in January.

The only other nominee was Jerry Sawyer,

longtime vocational rehabilitation director and a former Carney assistant.

However, there was a tie between the

two, and, strangely, Don Taylor, director of the Mississippi Department of Human

Services, who had requested Yoste to submit his application, did not vote for

Yoste.

It's more than coincidence that at the

time Taylor's number one legislative program, state enactment of the new Welfare

Reform Act passed by Congress, was pending before Moody's committee.

Then McMillan's name gets tossed into

the pot for the Rehabilitation Services job.

In a February 10 special meeting Dr.

Randy Hendrix, who is director of mental health, made the motion to hire McMillan.

This time Taylor voted for McMillan,

who was approved unanimously.

Coincidentally, the reorganization of

Hendrix's mental health board, which had previously died on deadline in Moody's

House committee, was revived.

Evidently Moody has been pushing for

a couple of years to give his old legislative crony McMillan a nice salary at

Rehabilitation Services. Moody could not be reached for comment.

I interviewed Carney by telephone in

North Carolina, where she is now living. She said in 1993, shortly after she

took over the agency, McMillan was forced on her department by the administration

and given the job of director of the agency's physical plant and maintenance.

She concluded that this was the administration's way of placating Moody, who

held the key legislative post.

While in his job, McMillan built a home

in Madison County, using some of the department's maintenance forces, supposedly

working after hours and on weekends. One former employee of the department,

Wyatt Price, an experienced plumber, told me he had worked on McMillan's home

in 1994 with at least three others from the department, including two workers

still in their first-year probation. All of them were dependent upon McMillan's

evaluation in their job reviews.

Price said he didn't feel he would lose

his job if he didn't help on the building. All were paid for the work, he said,

but he did not say how much.

Carney said she filed a complaint to

the Legislative PEER Committee about McMillan's use of maintenance employees,

but PEER did not investigate.