State Fund Notes Compliance With Regulator’s Order
State Compensation Insurance Fund on Tuesday stated in a letter to Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner (R) that it is moving "vigorously" with its internal investigation and already has taken several corrective measures that he ordered, the Sacramento Bee reports.
Following Poizner's directive to hire an interim CFO and a management consultant, State Fund has hired Stephen Kolakowski and Marjorie Berte into those positions, respectively, according to a spokesperson.
The letter from board Chair Jeanne Cain and interim President Lawrence Mulryan was in response to orders issued two weeks ago by Poizner to reform the state-backed workers' compensation insurer (Chan, Sacramento Bee, 4/12).
State Fund in March dismissed its president, James Tudor, and Renee Koren, vice president of group insurance, as part of an internal review of operations. The firings were made in the wake of an external review that uncovered poor accounting and mismanagement (California Healthline, 3/29).
Poizner also has undertaken his own review of State Fund's internal operations. A financial examiner, auditors and fraud investigators from the insurance department this week began investigating documents and computer files.
The letter to Poizner outlined several other corrective measures already taken by State Fund, including:
- Transferring internal audit oversight to the governing board and interim president;
- Limiting the general counsel's duties to legal affairs; and
- Drafting a code of ethics for employees (Sacramento Bee, 4/12).