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Lt. Gov. Griffin recommends changes to DHS

Johnathan Reaves, KASU News

  The Arkansas Department of Human Services could be reorganized soon.   Earlier this year, Lt. Governor Tim Griffin was directed by Governor Asa Hutchinson to look at how to make the state agency more efficient.  

After interviewing over 180 DHS employees earlier this year, Griffin came up with 14 recommendations that would change the way the agency interacts with clients to personnel matters.  You can view those recommendations here. Griffin visited the Jonesboro DHS office Monday. He explains.

"Instead of looking at how we did things in the past, we need to put the user first and see how we can make improvements in the future," Griffin said.

Griffin says while his recommendations are for DHS, he says all state agencies should be evaluated in a similar fashion.

He visited DHS offices in Ft. Smith, Hamburg, Monticello, and DeValls Bluff.  DHS Director Cindy Gillespie is evaluating Griffin’s recommendations as she looks at how the agency should move forward.

Johnathan Reaves is the News Director for KASU Public Radio. As part of an Air Force Family, he moved to Arkansas from Minot, North Dakota in 1986. He was first bitten by the radio bug after he graduated from Gosnell High School in 1992. While working on his undergraduate degree, he worked at KOSE, a small 1,000 watt AM commercial station in Osceola, Arkansas. Upon graduation from Arkansas State University in 1996 with a degree in Radio-Television Broadcast News, he decided that he wanted to stay in radio news. He moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and worked for East Arkansas Broadcasters as news director and was there for 16 years.