State worker fired for benefit misconduct earned years of ‘100’ reviews from state health department

An employee of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services was fired in 2024 after allegedly not conducting interviews when making decisions about whether to approve benefits. That same employee received perfect scores on four assessment reviews before being fired.

Michigan Capitol Confidential obtained Ashanta Butler’s performance reviews through open records requests.

Those records show Rachel Hill, a health department supervisor, gave Butler a 100 in every category in the 2019 review for areas such as job knowledge, managing work, communication and contributing to team success.

Part of the performance review from 2023 praised Butler for communicating with “positive non-offensive and inclusive terms.”

The evaluation doesn’t mention that Butler allegedly skipped work and falsified documents, two reasons why Butler was later fired in 2024, as CapCon previously reported.

The 2023 evaluation read in part:

“Mr. Butler is able to articulate an understanding of the value of diversity and inclusion. He treats all people respectfully regardless of diversity. He communicates in positive non-offensive and inclusive terms with all people regardless of background or diversity. Mr. Butler works cooperatively with all people regardless of background or diversity. He understands how personal values and biases could impact behavior and strives to understand others’ backgrounds, styles, abilities, and motivations.”

CapCon exclusively reported that the state health department has decided to focus on pushing diversity, equity, and inclusion through 2030. It has, as CapCon has demonstrated in various stories, been slow to respond to fraud. Butler’s errors wreaked havoc on low-income Michiganders who rely on the state to eat, according to Butler’s termination documents obtained by CapCon.

“After several complaints from clients were received, a review of Mr. Butler’s cases revealed that he was not completing scheduled interviews prior to approving or denying benefits,” the termination letter read. “Of the 17 cases read, 7 cases were certified without completing and/or documenting an interview, 4 cases documented an interview but there were no calls to/from the client on the dates documented. In 11 cases, he failed to call the clients on their scheduled interview date/time resulting in them being marked ‘no show’ in Bridges. 3 cases were processed with no [Interview Guide] and 4 cases were processed with other errors.”

The state health department is the largest state government agency with over 14,000 employees. Despite its size, it fired a tiny number of employees from 2020-2024, according to records obtained by CapCon through an open records request.

The state health department only fired 58 employees over four years - less than 1% of its workforce. It hasn’t responded to a request for comment. 

MDHHS Dismissal From 2020 to 2024 (1) by mcclallen

CapCon has exposed rampant problems within the state health department, publishing more than 20 stories. One lawmaker has called to break up the agency that has bloated to over $35 billion.