RENO, Nev. (AP) — A state official has resigned from a department handling care for severely mentally ill people in Nevada after an audit found squalid conditions at taxpayer-funded homes under a program that she oversaw.
State Health and Human Services chief Richard Whitley tells the Reno Gazette-Journal that Amy Roukie is out as Division of Public and Behavioral Health administrator.
Roukie told The Las Vegas Review-Journal her ouster was political. She declined to say more.
Whitley says Roukie falsely told a legislative panel on Wednesday that a deputy state mental health administrator had been replaced due to the audit findings, although that departure was for other reasons.
Auditors found unsafe conditions at nearly all 37 sites visited more than a year after a Gazette-Journal investigation found similar problems with the program.