One of the primary functions of the State Ethics Board, on paper at least, is to guard against conflicts of interests on the part of state employees and appointive and elected officials.
So what happens when a member of the State Ethics Board has a conflict of interests?
If you are an appointee of Gov. Bobby Jindal, the answer is: apparently nothing.
Nothing, that is, until you are called out by a member of the media.
Then you quietly resign.
Scott Schneider, vice chairman of the Louisiana Board of Ethics, submitted his resignation just weeks after the Tribune, a newspaper serving the African-American community of New Orleans published a story in its May/June issue headlined “Kira, Kira on the Wall” which explained Schneider’s own conflict of interests in ruling on an Aug. 21, 2012, conflict of interest decision about Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) member Kira Orange Jones.
New Orleans attorney James Babst had sought the opinion on behalf of client Jones because of her position as executive director of Teach for America (TFA) which holds a lucrative contract with the Louisiana Department of Education.
Ethics Board staff attorneys informed the board that the state Code of Governmental Ethics would prohibit Kira Orange Jones, while she serves as a member (of BESE), from providing compensated services to Teach for America at a time when TFA has or is seeking a contractual, business or financial relationship with either the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) or the Recovery School District (RSD),” the Tribune said.
Enter Schneider to save the day for Kira Orange Jones, Superintendent of Education John White and Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Schneider argued against the staff recommendation, ultimately prevailing with the logic that Jones was merely head of the New Orleans office of TFA and not the entire organization.
In a three-page letter from staff attorney Tracy Barker, the Ethics Board noted that while TFA has contracts with DOE in amounts exceeding $50,000 and that while BESE is required to approve and sign the contracts, and that as a member of BESE, Jones voted on those contracts, somehow no conflict existed.
The legislation cited by the board said there is no conflict so long as the following criteria are met:
- The employee must be a salaried or wage-earning employee;
- The employee’s salary must remain substantially unaffected by the contractual relationship;
- The public servant (BESE member Jones) must own less than a “controlling interest” in the company, and
- The public Servant (Jones) must be neither an officer, director, trustee, nor partner in the company.
So just what part of “executive director” did the Board of Ethics not understand?
That, it turns out, might be the key. Babst, it seems, merely identified his client as an employee of TFA, being careful to note that she did not sit on the board of directors of the national TFA but apparently neglecting to identify her as executive director of the New Orleans office.
And it seems reasonable to assume that whether or not she continues to receive paychecks would hinge in great part on her success in placing TFA teachers in public and charter schools in the New Orleans area through those lucrative contracts with DOE. So much for her salary remaining “substantially unaffected” by the contractual relationship.
And what was Schneider’s motivation in coming to the defense of Jones even as Ethic Board staff attorneys were ready to point out the obvious conflict?
Well, it seems that The Tulane University Cowen Institute’s partnership with TFA last year boosted Tulane to fifth in the nation in the number of university graduating seniors applying to TFA.
Schneider serves as an associate general counsel for Tulane University but somehow never deemed that fact and Tulane’s association with TFA important enough to inform the Ethics Board staff or to recuse himself from the discussion.
Ethics Board—Schneider—Tulane—TFA—Kira Jones—BESE;
BESE—Kira Jones—TFA—Tulane—Schneider—Ethics Board.
Hmmm. Either way you look at it, it fails to pass the smell test.
Ironically, way back in September of 2008, when Jindal announced his appointment of Schneider, he did so with a strong statement about conflicts of interest.
Mary Dumestre had just resigned from the board, saying she wanted to avoid a potential conflict with her appointment and her private law firm work.
That prompted Jindal to stress how important it was “that ethics board members are completely free of any and all conflicts of interest.”
So, perhaps Gov. Jindal can explain how BESE President Chas Roemer continues to be able to take part in discussions and to vote on matters affecting charter schools while his sister, Caroline Roemer Shirley, serves as Executive Director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools.
Or how the President and CEO of Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana, which is taking over the LSU Medical Center in Shreveport and the LSU-run E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe, can simultaneously serve on the LSU Board of Supervisors which negotiated a blank contract with the Biomedical Research Foundation for that takeover.
The only reasonable explanation for all these things—and we have given this a lot of thought—is that Gov. Jindal simply holds the Louisiana electorate in contempt, in total disdain—inconvenient distractions, as it were, to be mollified only when politically expedient to do so.
Louisiana Voice 
Once again Tom comes through with the TRUTH! Is there nothing Jindal and his cronies won’t do to dishonor this State? The TFA ties are beyond cause for concern. Jindal, if he hasn’t figured it out, should be concerned. Gonna need a better lawyer for his criminal matters than he bothered to hire for our State.
I would say that when Ms. Orange-Jones signs a $million contract between LDE/RSD and TFA as its Exec. director that a “contractual relationship” exists. As anyone can see in the BESE agenda archives of 2011, that’s exactly what Ms. Orange-Jones did. I suppose that now Mr. Tipton (Louisiana TFA Director) has taken on that responsibility to avoid any “appearance” of collusion.
Whether Ms. Orange-Jones takes a trip to the powder room during a vote on TFA contracts is irrelevant when she signs off or takes responsibility for the money on the back end. This challenge needs to be brought forth again with more determination and proof that Ms. Jones does, in fact, benefit from a contractual relationship amongst the parties!
He can also always say “he didn’t know of the relationship” or ignorant to these facts as he was out of town, which he probably was and then he can blame someone else. Wonder who will take the fall for this and resign with a pocket or suitcase full of money??? Blame it on the Board of Ethics for not doing their job? Just follow the money! Great summation, wish it was a conclusion, Tom!
And Little “Turncoat” Caldwell, our totally useless Attorney General, sits on his thumbs seeing, hearing, and speaking nothing about more and more unethical state contracting where the citizens pay through the nose to reward Jindal’s political contributors and ALEC cronies.
I wish our “cracker jack” legislators had spines. But they are so bent over genuflecting to Sadhu Piyush they too see, hear, and speak no evil; just BS.
Leges who are members of ALEC need to be voted out of office! ALEC members do not serve people, they serve corporations! Once they are voted out, maybe we can get back to the people’s business.
Incredible. Back in the 1970’s when I worked as a buyer in Purchasing at big Charity in NO, one of our coworkers, a clerical employee, became engaged to one of the drug reps for the hospital. She was told if they married an ethics violation would exist and one or the other would have to sever their relationship with the hospital due to conflict of interest … never mind that the drugs were on contract from State Purchasing and she held no position to influence the purchasing of the phamaceuticals. She ultimately left due in part to the fact that her husband to be made enough money they didn’t need the two incomes and the fact the ruling was ridiculous against a non-managerial, non-decision maker! This case is outrageous. If you have any decision making influence, you must step down or at the very least recuse yourself from any input in contract evaluation process (yea, I know she was still part of the gang, but the appearance of propriety could have a least been argued, though weakly). Now the solution seems to be just a revolving door of job suicide zombies.
But how do we fix these problems?
Cate, I think about that question all the time. This state is in a Free-Fall. I keep coming back to accountability. None of us are accountable right now. Voters are apathic and lazy and the cost of running for office leads elected officials to make deals with the devil just to get in the door. The best example of how far Louisiana will go to avoid accountability is the new Office of Debt Recovery that LouisianaVoice wrote about last week. We created a brand new department to deal with years of fines instead of requiring our existing State Departments to hold contractors accountable. If a contractor has not met the requirements for this year and the State is forced to levy a fine, why not refuse to do business until they comply? Well …. Because of the deals with the devil. No one can say no. Its a vicious cycle that voters are going to have to consciously break. I think it starts by replacing Gov. Jindal with someone who CAN and WILL say NO. Personally, I’m putting my money on John Bel Edwards. I don’t know if you know anything about him but he has twice the character of anyone in the field. As citizens we have a responsibility to be engaged, our elected officials can’t do it alone. We need to educate others on these issues, give our time and our money to candidates to remind them of what is at stake. The next time the polls open let’s look for the candidate who ran a campaign on $45 donations. That person went out and talked to people. There is simply no other way to reverse this train wreck. I feel sorry for our next Governor, but I’m encouraged that someone like John Bel is willing to step up to the challenge. I’ve never volunteered for a campaign before, I’ve written checks but never given time, until now. I don’t even know what to do but I know it’s time to do something (and I’m hoping someone from his campaign will tell me HOW to help 🙂 It’s gonna take people to fix Louisiana. Let’s hope Louisiana voters are informed, engaged and ready in 2015.
Here’s a link to a video about John Bel ….I didn’t think I needed to watch it because I’ve followed his work on the House floor; however I’m really glad that I did because I was blown away by what I didn’t know about him.
Until we the citizens insist on laws that require all candidates 1 way to run for office-using the same fixed amount of public dollars giving candidates an equal playing field to make their case for why we should elect them, we continue to perpetuate the election of candidates who can access the most $$$ & the need for candidates to seek funding throughout their terms. It’s not rocket science or brain surgery-just remove the candidates need for big bucks to be elected & re-elected. Will some still take bribes? I’m sure. But there will no doubt be an increase in those who would do a good job who don’t have the $$$ & don’t want to be indebted to ALEC & corporations. Remember Jindal’s promises of transparency in government? It’s a clear & transparent as can be- the citizens are getting @#$*! without even getting a kiss 1st! But I do agree that as long as we allow it it will continue. Wake up Louisiana!!
[…] last month– a coincidence that just happened to immediately follow the publicizing of his own apparent conflict of interest involving TFA’s partnering with Tulane’s Cowen Institute, with which Schneider was […]
[…] last month– a coincidence that just happened to immediately follow the publicizing of his own apparent conflict of interest involving TFA’s partnering with Tulane’s Cowen Institute, with which Schneider was […]