Health chief hires ex-colleagues

• By MARSHA SHULER
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Apr 23, 2008 - Page: 6A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Louisiana’s health chief Alan Levine is surrounding himself with Florida transplants like himself in top management jobs.

So far, Levine has three former colleagues from his days as Florida’s health chief on the state Department of Health and Hospitals’ executive staff.

They are DHH deputy secretary Sybil Richard, assistant secretary Rony Francois and press secretary Jonathan Burns.

Francois came with a $180,000-a-year salary — $63,000 more than his predecessor at the Office of Public Health.

Burns’ position was not filled during the prior administration.

Burns was Levine’s press secretary in Florida where he said his job was “to garner positive exposure, minimize negative publicity and support the agency’s priorities in state and national media outlets.”

Levine said he will be held accountable for what happens at DHH during his tenure.

“I didn’t have the luxury of a long period of time to surround myself with people who understand me and what’s important to me,” Levine said Monday.

“I need people around me to get things done,” Levine said. “I wanted a fresh set of eyes. That’s one of the reasons they were hired.”

Levine said he also has a lot of Louisiana people in top positions.

“I don’t want to surround myself just with people from Florida,” he said.

Gov. Bobby Jindal announced he was appointing Levine as DHH secretary and Richard as deputy secretary at an early January news conference.

Levine, who headed the Florida health agency until mid-2006, came in with a $236,000 annual salary — a little more than physician Fred Cerise, who held the job most of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s term.