Stephen Pawlowski
Stephen Pawlowski

Stephen Pawlowski

Managing Director

Burns & Associates

Phoenix, AZ

Email [javascript protected email address]

Phone (602) 466-9840

Stephen Pawlowski has devoted his professional career to improving supports for vulnerable populations by enhancing the efficiency and accountability of health and human services both as a state agency executive and as a consultant.

Stephen joined Burns & Associates (B&A), now a division of HMA, in 2009 and has led its home and community-based services practice since 2015. Stephen has led projects across a wide array of programs including early care and education, child welfare, and services for older individuals and persons with mental health needs. He has also led rate-setting, program design and reform, community assessments, budgeting and financing, and government affairs efforts for those populations.

Stephen’s particular focus has been supporting states’ intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) programs. He has consulted to the I/DD authorities in more than 20 states, including leading comprehensive provider rate studies in more than 10 states. His other areas of emphasis include program redesigns and the adoption and implementation of assessment instruments to inform payment rates and individual budgets.

Prior to joining B&A, Stephen served four years as the chief financial officer of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, which is responsible for most of Arizona’s human services programs, including long-term services and supports for persons with I/DD, child care subsidies, child welfare services, vocational rehabilitation and other employment programs. He has also been instrumental in supporting programs aimed at providing community-based supports for older individuals, victims of domestic violence, and individuals experiencing homelessness. Stephen also spent two years working in the Arizona Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting.

Stephen is a member of the Finance Committee of Arizona First Things First, the State’s early childhood health and development agency, and a Fellow of the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership. He earned his Master of Business Administration from Arizona State University.

In his free time, Stephen moonlights as a jungle gym for his two preschool-age children.