Reinstated Official Will Head Dshs

Lyle Quasim, once fired from a top post at the state Department of Social and Health Services, on Monday was named the agency’s new chief - a position he called “one of the toughest” in state government.

Quasim, the state’s first black social services secretary, said he was committed to fighting for the basic needs of the poor, elderly and disabled, but vowed to carry out the task within the limits laid down by the governor and Legislature in an era of austerity.

The new DSHS secretary will replace Jean Soliz at the helm of the troubled agency. The job, which he will start Dec. 11, pays nearly $105,000 a year. Quasim is currently an assistant secretary in charge of health and rehabilitation services. Soliz announced last month she was leaving at year’s end.

“Lyle has worked his way up the ranks in the agency and knows many of the details involved in service administration and budgeting,” Gov. Mike Lowry said in announcing the appointment.

“Lyle shares my vision of making DSHS a more accountable and efficient agency and making the health and safety of children its top priority.”

Quasim, 52, was fired in 1987 as chief of the agency’s mental health division under the administration of then-Gov. Booth Gardner. Gardner and cabinet members contended Quasim had no spirit for negotiation and alienated a wide variety of people.

But Quasim won a wrongful-dismissal lawsuit and $240,000 in lost pay and damages. He noted Monday that a Superior Court jury agreed with his contention he was fired for refusing to help agency superiors hide a budget deficit from the Legislature.

He added that the experience gave him “a different perspective about how to manage large bureaucracies.”

Quasim called his new job “one of the toughest assignments in state government,” but said he was eager to take on the task.

He said he brings to the job a personal philosophy that “all human beings have dignity and have a right and a need for certain things - a good education, employment, good nutrition, housing and health care.”

But he also said he knows this is an era of limits, and his task is to do the best job possible with the resources granted by the Legislature and Lowry.

“We don’t turn straw into gold” at DSHS, he said.

Quasim is “a familiar face and respected in the Legislature,” said Senate Human Services Chairman Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam. “I think it is probably a wise decision to use somebody inside the agency.”

Quasim will lead a $5-billion-a-year agency whose days may be numbered. The Legislature is poised to break up DSHS into several smaller units in the aftermath of recent scandals.

They include departmental mishandling of widespread sexual abuse at the now-shut OK Boys Ranch in Olympia and other failures in protecting children.