Kisha Thomas

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT KISHA THOMAS

The depth of my experience and education has given me the capability to work with people of all diversities, in any situation and under the most trying circumstances. My background is diverse and ranges from policy and grant writing, to program organization and development, as well as supervising a professional staff of statewide employees. As the State Lead/Program Director for the Louisiana Workforce Commission’s Disability Program Navigator (DPN) Initiative I was responsible for securing its funding as well as managing its budget. This responsibility gave me the opportunity to secure grants for the DPN Initiative totaling $699,600 and the Medicaid Infrastructure Grant (MIG) totaling $1.6 million. Working with this initiative also gave me the opportunity to help the MIG write contracts for and manage its subgrantees for two years. In this capacity I had the amazing opportunity to build and strengthen coalitions in pursuit of this goal. These include the Work Pays Coalition, the Louisiana Rehabilitation Service (LRS) Region Core Transition Team, and the Governor’s Advisory Council on Disability Affairs. This experience provided an avenue for me to join the Medicaid Policy team at the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) where I wrote and revised policies and procedures for Medicaid programs, prepared a “Briefing Book” about all Medicaid programs that was heavily relied upon by DHH leadership during legislative session, and worked closely with the administration to prepare reports that were sent to various entities. My work there allowed for a new opportunity to become available to me within DHH’s Office of Public Health’s Center for Community Preparedness (CCP). This position with the Administrative Finance section has allowed me to gain advanced understanding of fiscal and budgeting as well as continue expanding my knowledge in other areas such as contract management and development.