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.
Most of the overtime went to managers and executive-level job-holders working on the new Medicaid billing system. Sligh, who leads the office working on the new system, received 40 percent of the overtime. There was no written authorization for the overtime payments.
The audit said that the overtime payments ended Jan. 31, 2013.
The Medicaid system has racked up huge cost overruns while running years behind schedule. The system was was supposed to be working in mid-2011. The audit was one of several state audits in the last two years critical of DHHS computer systems and their management.
Sligh did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Deen, the spokesman, said the raise was approved within the department under the previous administration. Deen said he could not answer any other questions, including what role, if any, was played by Sligh's boss, Assistant Secretary for Finance Dan Stewart, who retired last month.
Joe Neff came to The N&O in 1992 and has covered prisons, police, courts and the legislature. His most recent major work was "Agents' Secrets," a four-part series about problems in the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation. He can be reached at
Comments
pull the plug
Sat, 02/16/2013 - 16:13 — NoMoreBadITWasn't Sligh involved in NC's previous failed MMIS, too?
Governor McCrory should follow the example of Sonny Perdue in Georgia and pull the plug before this blows up in his face -- and the public blames him for it.
Pay Up, Goodbye
Sat, 02/16/2013 - 15:41 — TeebarkAll of the involved employees should be made to repay every dime, have made clear to them all that this money will not add one dime to their retirement accounts, be promptly fired.....
Here's your chance McCrory
Sat, 02/16/2013 - 00:31 — twatts1000@gmail.comIf any one Dept. in NC needs to be gutted and rebuilt, this is it... Stick your attack dogs on 'em!!!
As much as I complain about the State not taking the Expansion Money, its easy to see why you don't want to keep feeding the machine...
Loyalty
Fri, 02/15/2013 - 21:41 — MissVFollow the money. Who hired her in state government after she (and hubby) sued St. Augustine's College a few years before she was employed with the State? And whose campaigns have received donations?
"Sly" Sligh gets more big bucks.
Fri, 02/15/2013 - 20:40 — Coyote1This type of abuse is rampant throughout government, and it will never stop unless the punishment is far greater than the prospective reward. Fact is, there is rarely any punishment. So let's quit being voting fools. If any public official has the power to investigate and prosecute and takes no action, such as AG Cooper, or my dear friend Willoughby, then let's not vote for them any more. At the barest minimum, she should be fired and have to either reimburse the state or have her pension voided. And, we ought to take a look at her boss, Dan. Dan, her man? Maybe the GA should consider creating a Malfeasance Recovery Program, and let licensed law firms bid on recovery cases, investigate, sue the bad person, and get a nice percentage fee from any recovery for the state. ??? Way it stands right now, as a retired lawyer, I don't know whether I would rather be in a government position to rip off the tax money, or to have a state contract to sue for recovery of that tax money. Actually, it looks like less work and more money to just steal from the government.
"Sly" Sligh gets more big bucks.
Fri, 02/15/2013 - 20:40 — Coyote1This type of abuse is rampant throughout government, and it will never stop unless the punishment is far greater than the prospective reward. Fact is, there is rarely any punishment. So let's quit being voting fools. If any public official has the power to investigate and prosecute and takes no action, such as AG Cooper, or my dear friend Willoughby, then let's not vote for them any more. At the barest minimum, she should be fired and have to either reimburse the state or have her pension voided. And, we ought to take a look at her boss, Dan. Dan, her man? Maybe the GA should consider creating a Malfeasance Recovery Program, and let licensed law firms bid on recovery cases, investigate, sue the bad person, and get a nice percentage fee from any recovery for the state. ??? Way it stands right now, as a retired lawyer, I don't know whether I would rather be in a government position to rip off the tax money, or to have a state contract to sue for recovery of that tax money. Actually, it looks like less work and more money to just steal from the government.
Sustainability?
Fri, 02/15/2013 - 18:13 — dsspr1Primarily coded in COBOL, how sustainable is this albatross? Most technical schools do not even teach COBOL any longer.
Medicaid problems
Fri, 02/15/2013 - 18:01 — nonielouTo too many people Medicaid fraud, overspending and or waste means some individual is trying to rip-off the system one of those free loaders that Mitt Romney was so eager to blame on our fiscal woes.
However most people do not realize that private companies like CSC administer, provide support services and products for these programs according to federal and state guidelines.
The private companies also are quite generous with the money they get from publicly funded projects when it comes to political campaign contributions of both parties, but more so to the party in power. Members of the legislative oversight committees whose campaign coffers are filled by companies like CSC are very reluctant interfere in "business as usual".
I would be willing to bet that for every dollar of individual fraud there are nearly 10 times that amount in private company abusive practices.
excuses
Sat, 02/16/2013 - 04:50 — SeafeverWHY wasn't the job completed within the BID?
Because it was a fake bid, designed to get the job?
Why on earth does a simple billing system cost me this much? And it wasn't even DONE. Now they want MORE money to do the job they never did!
I say NO. This company is obviously UNABLE to do the job at any cost!
And this woman has the nerve to take a raise for the failure!
It's unconscionable, and typical of those in government who just want to bilk the taxpayer's money out of the system.
ENOUGH. Stop the fraud.
And money down the drain
Fri, 02/15/2013 - 17:20 — SeafeverAnd what about the colossal failure of CSC to produce a system for billing Medicaid claims even after being paid $287 million? EDS, which might have actually built the system, was turned down for bidding too high, so now CSC needs $495 million, much higher than the EDS bid.
There must be some graft going on here, or else these people just don't know what they are doing.
It should never cost millions to write a computer program, and that is all this is. Hire somebody competent and pay a reasonable amount, but this is ridiculous.
THROW THE BUMS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Incompetence rewarded... awesome!
Fri, 02/15/2013 - 16:41 — GetMeBackNorthMs. Sligh should be fired (or demoted), not rewarded. And I say that as a raging librul who doesn't care one whit about Sligh's political affiliation. Where was the oversight? How did this project spin out of the control the way it has? Maybe she'll do the right thing and step down, but I highly doubt it.