Also leaving is MNsure board president Brian Beutner, whose last day is Tuesday. Beutner and fellow board member Thompson Aderinkomi, also departing, chose not to seek reappointment by Gov. Mark Dayton when their terms expired.
The remaining five board members will meet again May 19, the day after the scheduled end of the 2015 legislative session. By that point, the panel may have been abolished.
In the final weeks of the legislative session, the Senate has approved a bill transforming MNsure from a quasi-independent agency with its own board of directors and CEO to a normal state agency under the direct control of the governor. Another measure, passed by the House, would keep MNsure's board of directors but expand it and make its CEO appointed by the governor instead of the board.
Which direction the Legislature goes in the final two weeks is anyone's guess. Gov. Mark Dayton on Monday said he's in wait-and-see mode.
"I'm not going to move to fill those positions until we know what the Legislature's going to do regarding MNsure," Dayton said.
Asked whether the turmoil surrounding MNsure played a role in his departure, Leitz said "It didn't."
Into this uncertainty steps MNsure's new interim CEO, Allison O'Toole. O'Toole had been a MNsure executive in charge of marketing, communications, partnerships and other interactions with the public.
On Monday, O'Toole declined to offer any thoughts on MNsure's future.
"I just got the job five minutes ago," she said.
The MNsure board met in closed session Monday to approve the leadership change.
It will take up the process of a permanent leader at the May 19 meeting -- if legislative changes haven't removed the board's ability to appoint a CEO by that point.
O'Toole is now MNsure's third executive director in two years. Leitz was appointed in 2013 after the resignation of April Todd-Malmlov, the health insurance exchange's first leader.
At the time, MNsure was in the midst of a problem-ridden rollout, with high-profile technological glitches making it hard for the public to sign up for health insurance on it. Dayton and Beutner credited Leitz with helping to right the ship and lead to a less dramatic open enrollment period this year.
"Mr. Leitz stepped into a very difficult situation," Dayton said. "He's been an excellent leader of MNsure in improving so many aspects of its functioning and correcting so many of the deficiencies."
But Republicans, who have been critical of MNsure from the start, said Leitz's resignation is another example of dysfunction at the controversial agency.
"The amount of turnover in MNsure's leadership is a telltale sign of systemic failure in the organization," Sen. Michelle Benson, R-Ham Lake, in a statement. "Scott Leitz is jumping ship before the whole organization sinks under the weight of its failures, and who can blame him?"
Beutner, on the other hand, argued that Leitz's departure -- and his own -- signify nothing worrisome.
"MNsure has been like the dozens of startups I've been involved in," Beutner said. "What I see here today is quite frankly a normal, healthy transition for a startup organization like MNsure."
©2015 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
