Maryland health secretary to leave at month’s end

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ANNAPOLIS — Health Secretary Laura Herrera Scott will step down at the end of the month, Gov. Wes Moore‘s office announced Thursday.

Herrera Scott has led the department since March 2023. Her last day will be Feb. 28.

The governor has nominated Meena Seshamani, a former deputy administrator and director of the federal Center for Medicare, to assume the post. Pending confirmation from the state Senate, her first day will be April 8.

Ryan Moran, the deputy secretary for health care financing, will serve as acting secretary in the meantime.

The governor’s office didn’t provide a reason for the shakeup at the Department of Health in its announcement. But Herrera Scott’s department has come under intense scrutiny and questioning for its oversight of a state psychiatric hospital, management of services for developmentally disabled people and budgeting for Medicaid.

Seshamani is Moore’s second new secretary to come from the Biden administration, after former National Cyber Director Harry Coker Jr. began this week as the new commerce secretary.

The governor said that Seshamani is “among the nation’s top health leaders” whose career has spanned public service, medical practice, economics, academia and advocacy.

Moore maintained that Herrera Scott laid a “strong foundation” at the department over the last two years and “is to be commended for her service,” including ensuring that thousands of people remained eligible for Medicaid coverage following the pandemic.

“My friend and fellow veteran has done this administration and her state proud,” Moore said in a statement.

Herrera Scott also led negotiations for Maryland’s entry into a program for lowering health care costs, implemented programs addressing infectious and chronic diseases and improved the department’s ability to serve vulnerable populations, according to the governor’s office.

This is the administration’s second secretary-level change and the third switch-up in the Cabinet, but Herrera Scott will be the first at that level to leave the administration.

Former Commerce Secretary Kevin Anderson and former Chief Legislative Officer Eric Luedtke remained with the administration in senior advisor roles.

Legislators have in recent months grilled Herrera Scott and her deputy secretaries about several reported incidents at the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, a state psychiatric facility.

A Washington Post investigation found that officials there had ignored employee complaints about staffing and other issues for years, and that incidents of violence at the facility have included a patient brawl, a patient being raped by his roommate and a patient dying under unclear circumstances.

Following The Post’s investigation, Herrera Scott wrote to department employees that officials would be conducting a “top-to-bottom review” and an investigation into policies and procedures at Perkins, the paper reported.

Before the start of the 90-day session in January, state analysts said that a “staggering” error in projecting costs in the Developmental Disabilities Administration led to a $350 million shortfall in the department and pushed the state’s projected budget deficit to nearly $3 billion.

The analyst said that his team met last session with health department officials to discuss the risk of a shortfall in DDA’s budget, but that “the health department’s answers suggested they did not believe they had a problem … and what’s happened since shows that they were incorrect.”

Legislators have said that they’re still trying to learn exactly why the agency ended up with such a large shortfall.

At least part of the problem arose when the DDA switched its billing and tracking system, leading the agency to over-bill its providers, said Senate President Bill Ferguson. The agency then miscalculated when returning money to its providers and gave back too much.

To rein in spending at the DDA, Moore has proposed a series of cuts, including eliminating a program for low-intensity support services, which people rely on for services and resources like adaptive equipment.

Those who work with and advocate for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities have testified and rallied against the cuts, saying they would devastate nonprofit providers and diminish their services.

The recent DDA shortfall wasn’t the first budgeting problem in the health department. In 2024, technical errors and faulty projections resulted in a $236 million shortfall to cover Medicaid expenses.