Janet Mills announces her pick for DHHS commissioner

Gov. Janet Mills announced on Thursday that she will nominate Sara Gagné-Holmes to serve as commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

Gagné-Holmes served as deputy commissioner of the department for five years before being promoted to acting commissioner on June 1 following the departure of former Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew.

As deputy commissioner, Mills said Gagné-Holmes was an integral member of the executive leadership team responsible for management, operations, budget, policy and human resources for the department’s more than 3,000 employees across eight offices and two psychiatric hospitals.

Gagné-Holmes grew up in Sanford. She earned an undergraduate degree at Bowdoin College in Brunswick and a law degree from the University of Maine School of Law. After law school, she served as a law clerk with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

She practiced law with a focus on health care at a Maine law firm before serving as a health policy and legal advisor in the governor’s office under then-Governor John Baldacci. She also led work in nonprofit legal services and advocacy at Maine Equal Justice Partners and philanthropy at the John T. Gorman Foundation.

She joined Maine DHHS in March 2019 and served alongside Deputy Commissioners Benjamin Mann and Beth Hamm in the department’s senior leadership team under then-Commissioner Lambrew, according to the governor’s office.

The nomination is subject to a hearing before the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee and confirmation by the Maine State Senate.