Gov. Tom Wolf announced Thursday that he will ask Insurance Commissioner Teresa Miller to take over the reins of the state's sprawling Department of Human Services effective Monday.
Wolf had already tapped Miller in May to head what he hoped would become the consolidated end result of a merger of the departments of Human Services, Health, Aging and Drug and Alcohol Programs.
The Legislature has, in the interim, declared that the consolidation needs more time.
But Wolf is moving forward with Miller's transition, perhaps in part because the current DHS Secretary Ted Dallas has been out on a medical leave since mid-June.
Dallas is expected to join Wolf's executive office staff when he returns, according to Wolf's press secretary J.J. Abbott. Abbott could not provide a timeline for that on Thursday.
Wolf, in a letter to the affected agency's employees, also noted he will nominate Miller's current chief of staff, Jessica Altman, to succeed her at the state Insurance Department.
Both Miller and Altman will need Senate confirmation to assume their new roles permanently, but they can start as the governor's nominees in the interim.
Teresa Miller (Pa. Insurance Dept. photo)
Miller, 42 and an attorney by profession, previously served in federal government with the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and as administrator of the insurance division for the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services.
Earlier in her career, the Oregon native also served as legislative director to former Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, and as an attorney for the Oregon Department of Justice.
Miller is a graduate of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., and holds a law degree from Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Ore. She, her husband Ivan Black, and their daughter live in the Harrisburg area.
Altman, a 29-year-old Cornell University graduate, has been working as Miller's chief of staff since June 2015.
She had also previously worked for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services before earning a master's in public policy from Harvard.