Beebe Splits State Departments
By: Staff
Updated: May 3, 2007
Governor Mike Beebe announced today that he has signed an executive order to separate the Arkansas Departments of Health and Human Services into two independent agencies. Effective July 1, 2007, DHHS will become the Department of Human Services and the Department of Health.
“Both agencies are stronger for the experience of having worked together,” Beebe said. “But after careful consideration, it makes the most sense to separate the two and return the Department of Health to a cabinet-level agency in a cost-neutral way.”
In 2005, the agencies were combined to improve administrative accountability within the Department of Health. Act 384 of 2007 granted Governor Beebe the authority to re-establish a separate Department of Health.
Currently, DHHS has more than 10,000 employees and serves more than one million Arkansans.
