I personally believed that Secretary of Health Kim Malsam-Rysdon would be going to either Avera or Sanford, and that assumption has proved correct, as the announcement came out this morning:
Kim Malsam-Rysdon is stepping down as state government’s secretary of health on January 7. She is joining Avera, where she will be vice president for public policy.
Again, good for Kim, and congratulations on her new role with the organization.
I would agree with many comments here that any one departure from the administration may mean nothing is wrong. The overall turnover, however, is concerning. Gov. Noem is already on her fifth chief of staff? That is a big problem.
She is listening to somebody. It’s just not them.
Kim has been Health Secretary since 2015. She can be presumed to know healthcare policy and state gov’t. No way of knowing what her role in the COVID-19 pandemic response did to her in terms of stress, etc. I can easily believe that now is a reasonable time for her to leave state government for a leadership role that pays a lot better than state government.
The timing of her job change also points out the lack of concern In SD about conflicts of interest and other ethical issues involved in such job changes between gov’t and the private sector.
Is she replacing Deb Fischer-Clemens or reporting to her?
Never mind, it says in the story that she’ll be reporting to her.
I would imagine her new salary is easily 10x what she was making as a state employee.
Thoughts?
She’s not making a million
Agreed, likely 2-3x her government salary
doubling or tripling of an annual salary is a good reason to change jobs
Pretty sad when paper pushers make more than Drs. Bring back the Nuns. Maybe healthcare costs and the Sherman Antitrust Act should be debated in the primary. Up for it Mr. Haugaard? We all know where you stand on guns, abortion, and ethics.
Hard to fell sorry for the docs, none of them are living in poverty.