New DSHS Head Has No Illusions -- He Says Job `Chews You Up And Spits You Out'

Lyle Quasim's appointment as head of the state Department of Social and Health Services caps an amazing story of revenge:

After being fired by the department in 1987, Quasim sued the state, won a $240,000 award and finally, all these years later, becomes head of the agency that sacked him.

The question is, who's getting revenge - Quasim or the state?

Given the difficulty of the job and the high burnout rate of those who have preceded Quasim, there's reason to wonder.

Seventeen DSHS secretaries have come and gone in the 25 years since lawmakers melded five social-service agencies to form the Department of Social and Health Services. That's an average tenure of about 18 months. Almost from the beginning, the word "troubled" has attached itself to DSHS in news accounts as if it's part of the agency's name.

Being secretary is a job that, as Quasim puts it following his appointment yesterday, "chews you up and spits you out."

The difference between Quasim and his predecessors, he offered, is that "I know it's going to chew me up and spit me out, the same as it did everyone else who's been here. . . . The thing is, while it's doing its chewing and spitting, I'm going to do a good job."

Those who have worked with him during his long career at DSHS and in Pierce County say that's more than the boast of a wide-eyed job applicant. They believe he may be uniquely qualified to survive - and even succeed - at the agency's helm.

He's described as intelligent, innovative, hard-working and, as his 1987 firing suggested, brutally honest.

"Lyle is very serious about his commitments. I think he's one of the finest people I've ever worked with," said Priscilla Lisicich, who succeeded him as director of Tacoma's nationally recognized Safe Streets Campaign, which he helped to launch.

Confirmation expected

State Senate Minority Leader Dan McDonald, R-Bellevue, predicted easy confirmation for Quasim.

After a short transition period that begins Monday, Quasim will take over for outgoing secretary Jean Soliz on Jan. 1, and his annual salary of $111,368 will match hers.

After spending most of his career in the agency - he has worked for nearly every one of those 17 directors, dating back to 1973 - Quasim knows the toll it can take.

Almost by definition, the DSHS secretary can count on more bad news than good.

As the agency that administers welfare, cares for the elderly, houses the infirm, nurses the alcoholic and drug-addled, treats the mentally ill and protects children (including finding homes for abused kids and confining juvenile offenders), DSHS mostly deals with people in trouble.

When the agency helps those people, Quasim says, you don't see it in the newspaper. But when tragedy strikes - such as when a child who has been in state care is released and dies at the hands of an abuser - it's often front-page news and the DSHS secretary may find that he or she is held personally responsible.

Inside the department, there are more thickets. With 16,000 employees and an annual budget of about $5 billion, the agency is the state's largest.

The organization is complicated, with divisions and sub-agencies crossing paths among a half-dozen regional offices. Workers always outlast directors, and they know it, so managing the troops can be difficult.

The sheer size of the budget makes it a target for legislators, yet entrenched advocacy groups make any budget cuts or other program changes almost impossible.

"There's an overwhelming responsibility with this job," Quasim said. "We serve 1.2 million people in the state of Washington. That's almost one of every five persons. This is a tough assignment."

It was with all this in mind that Quasim and his wife of 23 years, Shelagh Taylor, a computer-systems manager for the state Department of Labor and Industries, discussed the appointment over the weekend. At one point, he said, "she kind of wondered if I had a need to be publicly criticized a lot."

She had to be sold on his taking job

"I had to do a little bit of a selling job," he recounted yesterday. "I talked to her about how the job will impact us, about how in order for me to do it, we'll have to accommodate a 70-hour work week. She looked at me, and I'm kind of an overweight 52-year-old black guy, and I guess she thought, "He ain't got much else going for him,' and she said, `Go after it.' "

A Chicago native, Quasim came to Washington in 1967 while in the Air Force. He served in Vietnam in 1968, and when he was discharged settled in Tacoma.

He earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Puget Sound in 1970 and a master's in sociology from Pacific Lutheran University in 1973.

While studying at UPS, he worked as part of a psychiatric-counseling unit at St. Joseph's hospital, a job that sometimes included work as an attendant.

He went to work for DSHS as a mental-health-program administrator in 1973, then worked his way up the management ladder to become director of the mental-health division a decade later. He was responsible in that job for formulating statewide policy, as well as for 1,800 employees and a budget of $340 million.

By most accounts, he did the job well, though his direct manner with legislators and his supervisors rubbed some the wrong way. In 1987, then-secretary Jule Sugarman abruptly fired him in the midst of legislative hearings on the agency's budget.

Sugarman contended Quasim had lost the confidence of his employees and had alienated lawmakers. Quasim denied it; the real reason for his dismissal, he said, was that he refused to take part in a DSHS cover-up of a $6 million budget deficit that threatened accreditation of the state's mental hospitals.

Fired for being too honest

He was fired, he said, for being too honest.

Sugarman, in a later court deposition, said, "Lyle was not behaving appropriately in terms of his support for the governor's budget." Democrat Booth Gardner was governor at the time.

James Kelly, director of the state Commission on African-American Affairs, remembers that Quasim was upset by the firing but also determined to see it overturned.

"Anybody who knows anything about Lyle knows he's a person with integrity," Kelly said yesterday. "All along he was saying, `I'm right; I'm going to challenge them,' and he was real committed to that. There was never a question."

Quasim sued for wrongful discharge, and in 1991, a Pierce County jury found in his favor. He was awarded $240,000 in damages and lost wages.

In 1993, with Lowry in the governor's office and Soliz at the reigns of DSHS, Quasim returned to the agency as assistant secretary for health and rehabilitative services, which includes his old mental-health division.

In the interim, beginning in 1988, Quasim was a founder and the first director of Safe Streets. Lisicich, the current director, says a group of Tacoma leaders brainstormed the idea for a nonprofit street-level program to head off the city's growing crime problem. But it was Quasim, she said, who, through shoe leather on the street and a shoestring budget in the office, made the program work.

The accepted wisdom at the time was that certain young people had so few job options that they were bound to try the lucrative drug trade, she said.

"Lyle literally went out on the street and talked to young people face to face," Lisicich said. "He talked to them about if they're making so much money, why are they having to stand out there for 10 or 12 hours a day in the pouring rain. . . . So many times he was able to get young people to see they were doing things that were not very beneficial to themselves or anybody else."

Safe Streets has been credited with closing 250 drug-dealing locations, and significantly reducing 911 emergency calls in Pierce County.

As he prepares to take over DSHS, Quasim said his immediate goals are to strengthen management of the department's budget, and improve communications within the agency.

Both will be vital, he said, if the state is to survive deep budget cuts he expects from the federal government.

He also wants to consider restructuring the state's juvenile-rehabilitation program, which he described as "bursting at the seams," and to explore how best to care for the state's growing elderly population.

As for ascending to the top of the agency that fired him eight years ago, it's a victory he hasn't taken time to savor.

"The revenge issue is interesting, but I'll probably think more about it after I'm out," he said. "Mostly what I think about now is how I'm going to get the job done."

------------------- WHO IS LYLE QUASIM? -------------------

1943: Born in Chicago. 1967: Comes to Washington state while in the Air Force. 1968: Serves in Vietnam. 1970: Earns bachelor's degree in sociology from University of Puget Sound. 1973: Earns master's degree, also in sociology, from Pacific Lutheran University. Begins work for DSHS. 1983: Becomes director of the mental-health division. 1987: Fired from DSHS. 1991: Wins suit over firing. 1993: Returns to DSHS.