New Mississippi welfare director says he aims for integrity
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said Wednesday that he has chosen a new state Department of Human Services director, weeks after a former director was charged in a criminal scheme involving allegations of misspent welfare money.
The new director, Bob Anderson, is a former assistant U.S. attorney and is the current director of the Medicaid fraud investigations division of the Mississippi attorney general's office. He previously worked as the head of the state attorney general's public integrity division and as the chief integrity officer for the Mississippi Division of Medicaid.
“There is no one more capable to root out any remnants of the misdeeds of the past and ensure that corruption never infects this department again,” Reeves said at a news conference with Anderson by his side.
Anderson said the former director who has been indicted “made a critical mistake of treating the resources of this agency as his to do with what he chose to do.”
“It will be my task, along with those of my new colleagues at the Department of Human Services, to be good stewards of the trust the people of Mississippi have placed in me,” Anderson said.
He added he would handle the department's finances “with integrity and with transparency so that we can continue to do the most for the least among us.”
John Davis worked for the Department of Human Services for 28 years. He was chosen as director in 2016 by thengov. Phil Bryant, a Republican. Davis resigned in July, and he was one of six people indicted in February in what state Auditor Shad White called a “sprawling conspiracy.” White said investigators believe at least $4 million in federal welfare money was stolen.
Davis and others have pleaded not guilty. White said some of the misspent money was directed to pay for luxury drug rehabilitation for a former professional wrestler.
Anderson, 58, said his own mother received welfare assistance for about a year and a half after “abandonment and the pain of divorce” while he and his siblings were growing up.
“For my mom, this was a safety net, not a cocoon,” Anderson said.
He said his mother found work as a welder at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula and was able to buy a house.
Reeves, a Republican, became governor in mid-january and is still in the process of hiring directors for a few state agencies.
Anderson said he will begin his new job at the Department of Human Services on March 16, though he will start getting to know people in the agency as he works on his transition out of the attorney general's office. Anderson can work at Human Services while he awaits Senate confirmation as director.