August 17, 2022

Final DHSS Reorganization Newsletter

What a historic time and what a journey! Now that we are legally two separate departments, this will be our final DHSS reorganization newsletter.

We will, of course, continue to communicate important information to employees, but those messages will come from individual department communications, not through a combined newsletter. Thanks for all you do and welcome to our final DHSS newsletter! 

Messages from the Commissioners

Dear DFCS Employees,

We've now been together as a new department for over a month! Congratulations and gratitude to each of you for all the hard work that has gone into making this transition as smooth as possible.

I've now had the pleasure of meeting many of you as I've been visiting DFCS facilities and offices that serve Alaska's families and communities. As you may know, I come from a background of providing direct services and understand well the triumphs and tears that come with working with vulnerable populations. We are a unique department – our divisions operate and provide direct services to Alaskans 24/7 – and I’ve been continually impressed with the dedication and passion for our mission I see on the job every day. This is challenging work that we do together. Thank you for showing up every day, even if you are experiencing struggles yourself. I show up, every day, and I want you each to know how much I appreciate that you do too.

Your work matters a great deal – to individuals, families, communities and the state – and I welcome your input and dialogue so I can help support the important work you all do. My door is always open and there’s a bowl of chocolates on my desk if that gives you a reason to stop by and talk. You can text, email or call at hours convenient for you if you have a pressing concern or an idea to make something better.

I look forward to making great strides this year as we work together within DFCS and with our community partners to provide support, safety, and personal well-being for vulnerable Alaskans.

Thank you for all that you do – every day.

Kim Kovol, Commissioner,
Department of Family and Community Services

Dear DOH Employees,

Each department is up and operating now, and I want to thank staff for supporting each other and ensuring the services we provide to Alaskans continue without interruption. We've accomplished a tremendous amount in the past month and a half, but it will take additional time and effort to fully separate the departments. Your ongoing support is needed, so thank you in advance. 

Special thanks are due to our awesome IT staff, FMS staff and our partners at the Department of Administration. They worked tirelessly to ensure operations continued smoothly during the transition including the following large efforts: 

• Navigating the first full payroll for each department 
• Transitioning emails for more than 3,000 employees to the correct department
• Continuing provider payments without interruption

Issues and concerns about the transition will arise over the next few months, so please be sure to work through your division leadership for items that need to be addressed or corrected. For external parties that have questions, please direct them to the transition liaisons for each department. See below for those contacts and more. 

Thank you to everyone for continuing your critical role of serving Alaskans and also for your hard work helping to make the restructuring a success.

Adam Crum, Commissioner,
Department of Health

Department Contacts

With the reorganization, many roles have shifted. Here's an updated list of the main points of contacts if you need help or support. 

*Point of contact until role is filled.

**For a full list of PIT employees and assignments, please visit the PIT Intranet page. This page also contains helpful forms like a media release form, the media contact form and more. Assignments are currently being updated to reflect new roles due to the reorganization. 

Reorganization Updates

Shared IT Resources: There have been a number of questions about the future of shared IT resources like GEMS, ELMO, CommTrac, GovDelivery and more. We will be splitting these resources, but are working to ensure that both departments will have access to the historical information in these systems from DHSS days. As these contracts expire, we’ll review each one to determine whether having two contracts moving forward is the best course of action for the departments. As usual, any changes will be communicated ahead of time to staff.  Online Public Notice System: The Online Public Notice System has been updated to reflect the two new departments. You’ll see DHSS is still in the list even though there are no new notices being posted; retaining DHSS allows people access to historical notices. If you have groups who monitor the Online Public Notice System, please let them know they will need to update their settings to reflect the new departments. There are three ways people may need to update their activities with the Online Public Notice site. 1) If they have saved searches, they will need to refresh that to reflect the new department since nothing new will be posted for DHSS. 2) If they have favorites identified, again, they will need to update their favorites from DHSS to DOH or DFCS or both. 3) And finally, if they have a subscription for notices matching a specific search criteria those will also need to be updated to reflect the new departments. New Approval Emails: We now have new approval emails for both departments. Staff will be monitoring the old email inboxes, and an auto reply has been applied to redirect to the new emails. Here are the new emails:  For commissioner approvals:  fcs.comm.approvals@alaska.gov doh.comm.approvals@alaska.gov For scheduling meetings with the commissioner:  fcs.comm.scheduling@alaska.gov doh.comm.scheduling@alaska.gov For questions to the Commissioner's Office:  fcs.comm.questions@alaska.gov doh.comm.questions@alaska.gov Statewide Consolidations: The procurement consolidation mandated by Administrative Order 304 is moving forward. All procurement staff statewide will transition to the Office of Procurement and Property Management in the Department of Administration on October 31, 2022. Our staff will continue to be co-located within our departments after the transfer of supervision and will continue to be devoted exclusively to serving the departments’ needs.

Experiencing Issues?

By now, we've worked through most technical issues that arose during the reorganization. A big shoutout to staff for troubleshooting and solving problems that cropped up quickly. As always, if there is a global problem that’s impacting a large group we will send an email alerting you and let you know the timeline for resolving it. If you are experiencing trouble that seems related to the department split and localized to just you, here are the people to contact for assistance:

• For IT issues (email, access to drives or SharePoint sites, etc.): Submit a HelpDesk ticket. Email hss.itshelp@alaska.gov or visit https://helpdesk.dhss.alaska.gov/. For more information, visit the Information Technology Services (ITS) webpage. NOTE: The IT HelpDesk remains a shared service between the two departments for now. 
• For payroll issues:
  • DOH: Reach out to Torrey Jacobson, torrey.jacobson@alaska.gov
  • DFCS: Reach out to Nancy Miller, nancy.miller@alaska.gov 
• For HR issues:
  • DOH: Reach out to Drew Phoenix, drew.phoenix@alaska.gov
  • DFCS: Reach out to Amber Ferber, amber.ferber@alaska.gov

A Note of Gratitude

Finally, a huge thank you to the FMS and DOA staff who have worked incredibly hard to make this massive transition a reality. This has been (and continues to be) an incredible extra workload on these staff. Please join me in thanking the staff who have been working day and night to make this happen (and give them a little patience with normal work – the EO related work is only about 70% completed). So far the transition has been relatively smooth (knock on wood!). Thank you and we hope you have also been able to get out when you can and enjoy summer in Alaska!