The head of the state Human Services Department will leave the department for about six months next year to manage Gov. John Hoeven's re-election campaign - a move that a Democratic official calls "putting politics over people."

Carol Olson, director of the Human Services Department, will take an unpaid leave of absence to be Hoeven's campaign manager "sometime after the state Republican convention" in early April through election night in November.

Olson heads up the state's biggest agency, with a $1.5 billion budget and about 2,000 employees. She said she doesn't have qualms about leaving the department because it has a strong management team. She said she'll stay in contact and only will be "like a block away." The Republican headquarters are just south of the state Capitol.

"There's good people here, and I know that they can steer the ship if I'm out of the picture for a few months," Olson said. She hasn't decided whether she'll have someone fill in for her.

"Right now the department of Human Services is really strong," she said. "We've come through some pretty big challenges both in dollar and people resources. Š I believe the department is much more focused on a mission."

The director of the state Democratic party, Vern Thompson, said Olson and Hoeven have apparently decided to "put politics over people."

"I think the citizens of North Dakota should have concerns when the head of Human Services leaves for six months for a political position," Thompson said. "There are big issues to be dealing with over this time, and who's gonna be minding the store? And what's more important? Delivering services to the people or trying to get John Hoeven re-elected? That's a question for the people to decide."

Olson was Hoeven's campaign manager when he ran for governor in 2000. Prior to that, she helped get Ed Schafer elected in 1992 by managing his campaign and then became his chief of staff. She served as Schafer's chief of staff until he appointed her to replace Henry "Bud" Wessman as Human Services director in 1997.

If Hoeven is re-elected, Olson said she intends to return to the department. She said there aren't a lot of people in North Dakota with experience running statewide campaigns - which she describes as a 24-7, intense, adrenaline-packed experience.

"You have a mission and a goal that you must achieve by a certain day, and if you don't get it done by that day, it doesn't matter," she said.

The deputy secretary of state also recently resigned his position to work for Hoeven's campaign. Cory Fong left his position in Secretary of State Al Jaeger's office to be Hoeven's campaign director. Fong also resigned from the secretary of state's office in 2000 to work on the Hoeven campaign and then was hired on in a new position in Jaeger's office after Hoeven was elected.

Jaeger said Fong will be replaced. "That's a type of position that I cannot have vacant for a year," Jaeger said, "so I need to fill it."

Fong said he hasn't thought about what he'll do after the election. "Hopefully I'll have a lot of options to do a variety of things," he said. Thompson said he's not surprised to see Fong take a political position.