Descriptions of the inner workings of the Department of Health and Human Services are poignant, if not very encouraging. The staff has been rudderless and demoralized. Facing tremendous challenges that were building for 15 or 20 years, the agency developed a siege mentality and lost focus of its core missions.

There’s no good explanation for how things were allowed to get so bad at DHHS. Poor leadership and legislative oversight surely played a role, as did an outdated structure. The real question now is whether the agency – charged with protecting many of the state’s most vulnerable populations – has turned a corner.

Asked bluntly about the DHHS’ failure to adequately manage the installation of a new computer system – a glaring failure – Commissioner Jack Nicholas offered a blunt answer: It was his fault.

Nicholas made the decision to go live with the new system in January. It wasn’t ready. It had not been appropriately tested, and the state had lost management control to the system vendor, Maryland-based CNSI, Nicholas said.

The state has been dealing with the consequences since.

The $22 million computer system has been plagued with major hardware and software problems and has created billing chaos for MaineCare service providers. By some estimates, the state has overpaid providers as much as $51 million, while others have gone without payment altogether.

News from the agency has been consistently clouded by missed opportunities, problems left unresolved and disappointing results.

Two years ago, federal inspectors identified three problems with MaineCare’s accounting system. Only one of the problems has been addressed. Maine has improved the way it resolves claims disputes but is still lacking on other areas of accountability for the drug rebate program that’s part of Medicaid. As a matter of comparison, only four states did better and, for context, it was while the audit was going on that major irregularities with the then-Department of Human Services were discovered. But that’s no excuse for letting the problems sit on a shelf for two years.

State Auditor Neria Douglass identified several problems in her review of the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2004. The audit found millions of dollars in questionable spending – which doesn’t mean the money’s missing or that there’s any criminal mischief involved. According to Douglass, the problems at DHHS are structural and go beyond just MaineCare, affecting other services the state agency provides.

During a two-hour meeting with the Sun Journal’s editorial board Tuesday, Nicholas talked about the progress that has been made. He pointed out that the number of questions raised by the state’s auditor are down, that he’s re-centralizing oversight to make it more effective, that the computer problems plaguing the agency’s ability to pay its bills are being sorted out, and many of the agency’s inherited problems are being fixed as they fall into the cross hairs of the Baldacci administration. It just takes time.

We’ll agree to all that, and toss in the recognition that DHHS deals with some of the most complicated and delicate situations of any state agency.

More than 265,000 Maine residents depend upon MaineCare for their insurance coverage. It must step in when families fail, it is open to constant criticism, yet confidentiality rules require its employees to remain silent and accept the attacks, and it manages social welfare programs that are unpopular with some people because they exist at all.

What level of competency should we expect? Higher than what we’ve been getting.

Problems are allowed to fester for too long. Whether it’s a bum computer system or audit-discovered irregularities, throughout the agency not enough attention is being paid to getting it right.

The reason the agency’s staff feels under assault and demoralized is that it has allowed a culture of complacency to become ingrained. The consequences trickle down beyond Augusta and into the lives of the people who depend upon DHHS for help.

As Nicholas points out, DHHS’ problems weren’t created overnight, and they will take time to sort out. But the Baldacci administration is in the third year of its term, with an election looming. If the news from DHHS doesn’t turn around, the governor and the people he’s put in charge of reform might not have much time left.