IF ONLY: The resignation and suspension of the top two officials at the Department of Employment Security rocked the State House last week.

DES Commissioner Tara Reardon and Deputy Commissioner Darrell Gates were both accused of having the agency hire their daughters, then lay them off so they would be eligible to collect unemployment benefits.

The Governor and Executive Council accepted Reardon's resignation Wednesday, and Gov. John Lynch suspended Gates on Thursday and nominated current Department of Labor Commissioner George Copadis to be acting commissioner of DES.

When Reardon resigned, many people wondered why Gates didn't, as well. But Gates is one of only three deputy commissioners who are not political appointees answering to the council, which affects his ability to stay employed. Commissioners and most deputy commissioners are “unclassified” employees who serve set terms and have to be vetted by the council before being reappointed. The idea is the person has a public review every four or five years and can be dismissed for inadequate performance.

Gates is a “classified” employee, which is the same classification as that of office workers, toll takers, liquor store attendees, social workers — the worker bees in general.

Gates has been with the agency for more than 25 years and has been deputy commissioner for a good part of that time.

Lawmakers tried to change the employment security's deputy commissioner's position from classified to unclassified in the 2007 session.

House Bill 885 would have required that the deputy commissioner be appointed by the commissioner with the approval of the Governor and Executive Council, and the person would serve at the pleasure of the commissioner.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Marshall “Lee” Quandt, R-Exeter, at the request of the State Employees Association. It initially had the backing of then-Commissioner Richard Brothers, Quandt said, but he later withdrew his support.

The House Executive Departments and Administration Committee recommended the bill be killed on a 7-0 vote, and the House killed it on a voice vote.

At that time, Rep. Pamela Manning, a Republican committee member from Goffstown, wrote: “The department has historically maintained these four senior management positions as classified in order to ensure consistency and continuity in senior management and maintain that these positions would be free from political influences. Historical knowledge of a job and long-time experience needed to run an efficient department would be lost ….”

Quandt said maybe things would have worked out differently last week had the bill passed five years ago.

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WHERE ARE THE JUDGES? At one time, judgeships were the pearls of gubernatorial appointments.

But these days, there are a significant number of vacant judgeships while court backlogs increase.

Under the revised court structure — the consolidation of the district, probate and family courts into the circuit court system — the vacancies are mostly in the district court division.

Lynch recently nominated two new judges, Jim Bassett to the Supreme Court and John Kissinger to the superior court. Kissinger's appointment brings the superior court positions to their full complement under the current budget, which sets a cap of 18 judges.

The budget also caps circuit judges at 28, plus three marital masters.

Just how many vacancies there really are is a rather complicated picture to interpret. While lawmakers capped the superior court judges at 18, by statute there are 22 judgeships, and ideally there would be a couple more to handle the caseloads before the 11 courts.

“The judicial branch has asked Governor Lynch to make seven nominations to the circuit court — five full-time and two part-time judges,” said court spokeswoman Laura Kiernan. “These vacancies are occasioned by retirements since July 2011. The governor has given us every indication that he will make these nominations.”

The governor's office said it intends to move forward with the nominations.

“The governor uses the judicial selection commission to vet potential candidates. The process is ongoing and the governor hopes to make nominations as soon as possible,” said Lynch's press secretary, Colin Manning. “These are important positions and it's a matter of taking the time to bring forward the best candidates.”

But that's not the whole story. The court system, like the rest of state government, has had to cope with budget cuts. As a result, some courts no longer have trials every week.

“We are grateful for the governor's assurances, but even if these seven nominations are confirmed by the Executive Council, there will still be a judge shortage because the current biennial budget has required us to keep eight previously existing judicial positions vacant,” Kiernan said. “Moreover, the Legislative Joint Fiscal Committee has tabled our request to convert the positions of three marital masters, whose terms will expire in September, into circuit court judge positions, which means there could be an additional three vacancies in the circuit court before the end of the year.”

Any way you look at it, it's still a lot of judges, and if it is your case that is taking forever to hear, you are not going to be happy.

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MANAGED CARE DELAYED AGAIN: A recent email from Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Nicholas Toumpas indicates the start of long-awaited managed care system for Medicaid, the state and federal health insurance program for the poor and disabled, may be delayed another month.

The current operational date is Dec. 1, but with federal Medicaid officials seeking more information about the state program, the start is now likely to be Jan. 1, 2013.

The change to managed care requires several approvals from the Center of Medicaid and Medicare Services, including an amendment to the State Medicaid Plan.

The information was sent to the center March 31; the center had 90 days to respond. The center took all 90 days and asked the state for additional information on June 28. Health and Human Services is expected to respond by the end of the month, but the center will then have another 90 days to decide and does not have a deadline to approve the state's contracts with the three vendors or the program rates.

“All of the readiness activities by the department and the managed care organizations will continue as scheduled; however, we believe that we need to change our timeline by one month,” Toumpas wrote. “Therefore, we are planning to begin the enrollment of the Medicaid population on November 1st and implement the program on January 1st.”

The change to a managed care system was expected to save the state $16 million in the current fiscal year, and any delay is bound to reduce the savings.

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POSSIBLE BAD NEWS: Before changes to the state's election law can take effect, the U.S. Department of Justice has to approve five bills lawmakers passed this year, including bills on the new photo identification requirement, new voter registration forms and the redistricting plans for the state's two congressional districts and five executive council seats.

The pre-clearance is necessary because 10 communities — mostly rural and in the northern part of the state — were snagged by the 1964 Voting Rights Act when less than 50 percent of the adults in those communities voted in the 1968 presidential election.

While many election law changes receive perfunctory approval, photo identification laws have not, particularly during the current administration.

DOJ officials have called state officials about the photo ID law; the new registration form, which requires a voter's address to be the same as his or her domicile and advises that car registration and driver's license have to have the same address as the domicile; and the executive council redistricting plan.

That executive council plan would create a heavily Democratic district in the center of the state, while making the three southern seats more Republican.

Justice Department officials were interested in hearing the debate on the executive council plan and trying to clarify how the two voting bills would be implemented, one state official said.

The photo ID bill is a hybrid, with one set of rules for the upcoming elections and another set for after September 2013.

The changes were submitted to the Department of Justice on July 5, and the feds have 60 days to respond, which puts the deadline at Sept. 3, just eight days before the Sept. 11 primary election.

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TWO NEW COMMITTEES: House Speaker William O'Brien has appointed two special committees to work over the summer and fall.

The Special House Committee on Defined Contribution Retirement Plans for Public Employees is one.

The majority of the House backed a plan this year that would have converted the current defined benefit plan into a defined contribution plan.

However, the Senate did not agree, with key senators believing much more preliminary work needed to be done before any attempt was made to change to a new system. One of those senators was Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, who led the retirement reform effort a year earlier.

The Senate had a similar conversion bill proposed by retiring District 6 Sen. Fenton Groen, R-Rochester, but the plan was quickly turned into a study committee. No compromise was reached with the House, and everything died.

O'Brien decided the House should move forward on its own, and he appointed the committee.

The speaker picked Rep. William Smith, R-New Castle, to chair the committee. The other members are: Reps. Neal Kurk, R-Weare; David Hess, R-Hooksett; Carol McGuire, R-Epsom; Spec Bowers, R-Sunapee; Gregory Hill, R-Northfield; Thomas Keane, R-Bow; Steven Winter, R-Newbury; David Campbell, D-Nashua; Robert Foose, D-New London; and Stephen Shurtleff, D-Concord.

The Republicans on the committee are certainly weighted heavily in favor of a defined contribution plan.

Along with studying and evaluating a new retirement system for public workers, the committee is also authorized to issue requests for proposals from vendors and to base its recommendations to future lawmakers on those proposed plans.

The other special committee will not have to work so hard.

Recently, the Legislative Budget Assistance Office performed a performance audit of the Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) program that indicated some problems.

The program provides court representatives for children of indigent parents or incapacitated adults in cases before the courts.

The special committee will review the audit and propose legislation to address the issues raised in the performance review.

O'Brien named Rep. Ingbretson, R-Pike, as the chairman. Ingbretson is chairman of the Committee on Redress of Grievances, which has heard several cases this year dealing with the GAL program.

The remainder of the committee is composed of members of the Grievance and Children and Family Law committees.

They are: Reps. Debra DeSimone, R-Atkinson; Brandon Giuda, R-Chichester; George Lambert, R-Litchfield; Andrew Manuse, R-Derry; Jeffrey Oligny, R-East Hampstead; Mark Proulx, R-Manchester; Anne Grassie, D-Rochester; Peter Schmidt, D-Dover; and Patricia Lovejoy, D-Stratham.

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Garry Rayno may be reached at grayno@unionleader.com.