Oxendine cries politics over plan to shift consumer division

Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine says some lawmakers are playing petty gubernatorial politics with the state budget at a time when the state is facing the greatest fiscal crisis since the Great Depression.

The state Senate is scheduled to pass on Wednesday a recession-battered spending plan that includes moving Oxendine’s 33-person, $1.86 million consumer services division to another state agency.

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Republican Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, the Senate’s president, is running in 2010 to replace retiring Gov. Sonny Perdue. So is the Republican Oxendine.

Senators call the consumer services shift an “efficiency” move, but Oxendine said Cagle’s fingerprints are all over the decision.

“The Senate is made up of good and honorable people, but Casey Cagle controls their committee assignments, controls their political careers,” Oxendine said. “There is no doubt in my mind he has personally ordered this.”

Jaillene Hunter, Cagle’s spokeswoman, didn’t directly address Oxendine’s accusation.

But she said, “The Senate Appropriations Committee identified numerous areas where the state could find further efficiencies and we applaud their effort to cut back on spending.”

Oxendine has used the successes of his consumer services division, which handles customer complaints, during previous campaigns. The stories of some of the people his office has helped have wound up in campaign ads.

Oxendine says the division has recovered $200 million for consumers from insurance companies over the past decade. It handled more than 8,700 complaints last year.

The Senate Appropriations Committee decided to cut the division’s funding from Oxendine’s budget and give $1.6 million of it to the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs to handle insurance complaints.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Hill (R-Reidsville) said it wasn’t about politics.

“The Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs offers similar services and this is simply another way we found to consolidate duplicate efforts across state government,” Hill said.

Oxendine said it’s no coincidence the issue wasn’t raised until Cagle’s Senate prepared to pass its version of the budget.

“Obviously they [Cagle backers] are worried,” Oxendine said. “Politics is politics, but government should be above that.

“It’s one thing for people to have different opinions. It’s another thing to say your personal ambition is so important that you’re willing to hurt Georgia families.”

The commissioner said every insurance commissioner in the country has a consumer services division. His said without his office, consumers would have to hire an attorney and sue insurance companies when they have a dispute.

The change isn’t final. Once the Senate passes its version of the budget, it will negotiate a final spending plan with the House. That final budget could keep Oxendine’s consumer services division open.

Every state agency, including Oxendine’s, is taking big spending cuts this year because of the downturn in the economy. The budget for the rest of fiscal 2009, which ends June 30, included more than $2 billion in cutbacks. The $18.6 billion proposal for the upcoming fiscal year has about $1.6 billion in spending reductions.