NYAPRS Note: Paul Francis will be the new NYS Deputy Secretary for Health, a post that oversees the operations of the state mental health, alcoholism and substance abuse, developmental disability, children and family services agencies, among others. Paul played central roles in the Spitzer and Patterson Administrations and most recently headed Governor Cuomo’s Spending and Government Efficiency (SAGE) Commission, a body that recommended the consolidation of OMH and OASAS. See a NYAPRS member memo later this morning on yesterday’s NYC kick off public session on the consolidation.
Great thanks are due to outgoing Deputy Secretary Courtney Burke, a longtime supporter of our recovery and community integration agenda and for the rights of adult home residents with psychiatric disabilities.
Cuomo Taps Paul Francis as Top Health Advisor
By Jimmy Vielkind Capital New York July 14, 2015
ALBANY—The Cuomo administration is bringing back Paul Francis, a former state budget director, to serve as a top official overseeing health policy, Capital has learned.
An administration spokesman confirmed that Francis started this week as deputy secretary for health, a position held until recently by Courtney Burke, who left for a job at the Albany Medical Center.
Francis was a campaign policy adviser to former governor Eliot Spitzer, who later appointed him budget director and director of state operations. He stayed on when David Paterson became governor after Spitzer resigned.
Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed Francis as head of the SAGE Commission, which issued a report on streamlining government, and most recently named him to a casino siting panel, which he resigned in order to take this new position.
Last year, Francis was named to the board of trustees at Interfaith Medical Center, one of several people asked to help turn that hospital around after it declared bankruptcy.
Recently, Francis lost his arm during a bout with sepsis.
Francis is well known in business circles and was a board member of the United Hospital Fund and GNYHA Ventures, the for-profit arm of the Greater New York Hospital Association.
Ken Raske, president of the association, welcomed news of the appointment.
“The governor has outdone himself again in terms of a superb individual in that position,” Raske said. “I can think of nobody who is smarter or more policy savvy than Paul Francis….”
— Additional reporting by Dan Goldberg