What’s Next after Commissioner Brannan’s Resignation?
Texas Commissioner of Workers’ Compensation Ryan Brannan has announced that he will resign his position effective May 1, 2018. Commissioner Brannan is the third Commissioner to lead the agency since it was created in 2005. He has accomplished a lot in his tenure with the Division, including the development of a DWC fraud and prosecution unit, creation of a paperless initiative that included digitizing millions of claims, initiation of revisions to letters to injured employees to make them easier to read, and development of rules to open the door to telemedicine and curtail the use of compound drugs and dangerous opioids in workers’ compensation claims.
The Governor appoint a new Commissioner of Workers’ Compensation. Whoever that is will be faced with an upcoming legislative session in 2019, and preparing the agency for sunset review in the 2020-2021 review cycle. There are a lot of rumors about who will replace Commissioner Brannan and when the Governor will announce that replacement. Will the new Commissioner come from within existing or previous staff? Will the new Commissioner come from another agency? Or will the new Commissioner come from the private sector? The truth is that no one outside the Governor’s confidants knows the answers to these questions.
We can hope that the Governor will appoint as Commissioner someone with the ability to administer a large agency with field offices throughout the state. The new Commissioner should be someone familiar with a strong understanding of the Workers’ Compensation Act. Finally, an ideal Commissioner would be someone who knows how the Texas system has shed its 1980’s era reputation for sky-high rates and regulatory dysfunction and replaced it with a system that is held up as a role model for other states.
Whoever becomes the new Commissioner will be handed a workers’ compensation system that is healthy and thriving by any measure. As the agency recently reported, premiums have fallen by 63 percent since 2005, more employers are electing to participate in the state system, and more employees are getting treatment sooner, which has led to faster return to work outcomes.
Here’s hoping that the Governor’s choice is a smart one, and that it comes soon.
FOLIO
