LINCOLN- The Ombudsman’s Office says it’s being blocked from performing inspections of state facilities required by law, making it impossible to check into citizen complaints about institutions. State Ombudsman Julie Rogers said the “limited contact or communication” from the Nebraska DHHS has blocked her legislatively created agency from providing an annual report on the status and conditions at such institutions.

“For the first time, this information was not provided,” said Rogers. A spokesman with the DHHS said that an August legal opinion by the State Attorney General’s Office that served to block access to information by Inspectors General (IG) for child welfare and Corrections also applied to the Ombudsman’s Office, which oversees the IGs. DHHS said, “transparency, serving residents in our care, and finding resolutions to their issues" are still issues they are committed to.

The department will only share individual information with the Ombudsman’s Office “at the request of and with the appropriate informed voluntary consent of the individual, as allowed by law.” State Sen. Danielle Conrad, who is a lawyer, said that a report by DHHS on its own facilities isn’t close to good enough and that it was akin to a “big government entity” telling the public to “trust us.”

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