Jeanne Lambrew, a Cape Elizabeth native, agreed last week to take on the hardest job in state government.

The former Obama administration official and health policy expert was nominated by Gov.-elect Janet Mills to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a behemoth tasked with oversight of the crucial social service functions of state government.

It has 3,400 employees and consumes a huge portion of the state’s budget. And it has been fraught with failure under the administration of Gov. Paul LePage. And like a battleship, it may be hard to change its course.

When confirmed, Lambrew will face one immediate conflict that also emerged last week: a showdown between the LePage administration and the retired judge who oversees a consent decree that is meant to support community health services in the wake of the closing of the Augusta Mental Health Institute in the late 1990s.

The court master, who oversees the consent decree, objected to a plan by the LePage administration to hire a controversial private prison company to run a new mental health facility in Bangor.

The court master, retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Daniel Wathen, filed an objection to the LePage plan in Kennebec County Superior Court, arguing that the funds for the project had been earmarked for mental health community services.

The Nashville-based company, Correct Care Recovery Solutions, provides health-care services at Maine correctional facilities and has faced lawsuits in other states.

In the court memo filed last week, Wathen outlined the ongoing failure of DHHS to provide adequate mental health services, although funds are available.

“There is at present a pressing need for services and we have the ironic situation of unspent funds and yet waitlists for services,” Wathen explained, adding that some of the key providers of medication management services had long waiting lists. “(The department) has been unsuccessful in providing funds in a timely manner to the providers and clients.”

Maine has a long history of failure to provide adequate mental health care, as long-term problems at the Augusta Mental Health Institute finally reached a breaking point in the late 1980s and led to the facility’s closure and a consent decree meant to support community services. But it was under the LePage administration that the state’s main psychiatric facility, Riverview in Augusta, was decertified by the federal government for poor quality of care.

But LePage is determined to go out swinging, and the long battle over building a so-called “step-down” facility in Bangor is the latest skirmish in the long war. His administration had argued that the state needed a facility to house patients who no longer needed the intense level of care at Riverview. But the proposal, although it may be a good idea, was shrouded in secrecy and legislative objection.

LePage extended the trend towards the privatization of operation and health care in several of Maine’s institutions, including correctional facilities. The reliance on companies like Correct Care Recovery Solutions has brought complaints, and led to lawsuits in other states. The board of overseers of the Long Creek Youth Development Center last spring urged an audit of the care at that facility.

The state should review its use of private contractors, like Correct Care Recovery Solutions, before any new contracts are signed. And the advent of a new administration is a great time to start a comprehensive review of how adult and youth mental health services are provided.

Portland resident Marian McCue is the former editor and publisher of The Forecaster.