Gov. Janet Napolitano has appointed a former National Guard official as permanent chief of the department in charge of providing services to some 600,000 veterans in the state.
Napolitano made the appointment four months after the former director of the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services resigned following a public outcry over an inspection report that revealed cases of patient neglect at the state Veteran Home in Phoenix.
The appointee, Brig. Gen. Richard Maxon, has been interim director since March. The former director, Patrick Chorpenning, resigned the same month a day after Napolitano removed him from direct responsibility over the nursing home. He later said he was thrown “under the train” in the frenzy that followed, adding that the conditions at the home were unfairly equated with unrelated problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
“General Maxon is attuned to the needs of Arizona’s veterans and knows that they deserve the very best,” Napolitano said in a statement.
She described the general as the “perfect person to guide the agency in continuing to provide great services to Arizona’s veterans.”
The governor’s statement made no mention of the trouble that plagued the 200-bed nursing facility and spawned a legislative inquiry that also looked into how much her staff knew of the care home’s woes before they became public.
During a routine inspection in February, state regulators found deficiencies. The inspection report said activated call buttons were ignored, a patient was left with an oozing ostomy bag, and a resident burned holes in her clothing while smoking unsupervised.
Subsequent revelations by officials showed that the governor’s staff knew of the poor conditions at the home in early February, before the report became public. Napolitano said she was not told of the care home’s woes, and came to learn about it late in March. 
The report became the subject of a legislative inquiry, and the governor’s aides were called to testify. But the inquiry got embroiled in political grandstanding after Sen. Jack Harper, R-4, co-chair of the inquiry committee, questioned Alan Stephens, then the governor’s co-chief of staff, about his past relationship with Napolitano.
Stephens had responded that Napolitano was his lawyer when he was indicted in the 1991 AzScam scandal; Harper said that was a “shocking revelation.” Stephens said in fact, he was found innocent by the court. Fellow lawmakers were swift to point out that what happened two decades ago had nothing to do with the current situation at the Veterans Home. Stephens recently resigned to join a public policy group based in Arizona and Colorado.
 “Everything is in compliance,” the department’s public information officer, Dave Hampton, told the Arizona Capitol Times recently. “The home that we are talking about today is not the home of six months ago.”
Home now deemed in ‘substantial compliance’
Corrections have been made and systems put in place to ensure that the reported deficiencies do not occur again, he said.
For example, the nursing facility’s record keeping, which Hampton said did not meet standards, had been revamped and is now in “good shape.”
The Arizona Department of Health Services said May 7 that the care home is in “substantial compliance” with federal standards.
DHS said its personnel surveyed the facility on behalf of the federal Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services. The finding allowed the home to be relicensed by the Health Department. 
Maxon served as the National Guard’s assistant adjutant general. He retired earlier this week.  He served in the Army in the 1970s, became a judge advocate with the U.S. Naval Reserve, and had been with the Arizona National Guard since the 1980s. Maxon’s appointment is subject to Senate confirmation.
The new permanent director has brought in management people to improve the services of his department, according to Hampton.
“Maxon always believed that our purpose, our entire mission, is to better serve Arizona veterans. And everything we are doing… is geared toward meeting that mission,” he said.