As the Jindal administration considers even more budgetary cuts—as much as 35 percent—in an attempt to offset the effects of an anticipated fiscal free fall estimated to be as much as $2 billion next year, the sacrificial lambs of higher education and health care are once again being led to the altar for the ritualistic bloodletting.
Meanwhile, as is usually the case when the legislature is faced with budgetary shortfalls, many other spending programs by lawmakers go on unabated. As puzzling as it must be to taxpayers constantly bombarded with bad news out of Baton Rouge, the elected representatives and senators just can’t seem to bring themselves to exercise the fiduciary discipline to keep reckless spending in check.
They are, to use a time-worn metaphor, the foxes guarding the henhouse.
A good example of the leadership void can be found in the way the legislators spend unexpected financial windfalls. When agencies fail to spend all of their budgets during a fiscal year, the excess funding reverts back to the state treasury where lawmakers are waiting like so many vultures to pounce on it for local pork barrel spending.
Take this year’s HB-76, the so-called “ancillary appropriations bill.” As soon as the extra money was “found,” legislators, instead of allocating all the new money to education and health care, poured $33 million into local funding projects like convention centers, municipalities and parishes, arts councils, councils on aging, and museums.
As irresponsible as all this may seem, it pales in comparison to what the state has spent on golf courses, baseball parks, and other recreational complexes down through the years.
Because figures prior to 1997 are unavailable, this post will address only those expenditures dating back to that year. But those 14 years should be sufficient for even the casual reader to detect a disturbing trend in spending priorities in this state.
Since 1997, the state of Louisiana, through the legislative process, has deemed it necessary to spend $141 million on golf courses.
One doesn’t have to be a math wizard to see that that averages out to $10 million per year. And that doesn’t include various university golf courses. These are private golf courses, one and all.
Another $18.5 million was spent during that same time frame on baseball parks, including nearly $4 million on a baseball stadium in Baton Rouge, which has no baseball team.
The real irony in all this can be found in two 2007 appropriations for the city of Westlake, near Lake Charles. That year, $6.12 million was appropriated in Priority 1 funding for golf course planning and development. That same year, $100,000 in Priority 2 funding and $800,000 in Priority 5 funding was appropriated for planning and construction of a new emergency response center for Westlake, which was putting up $900,000 in local matching funds.
The difference in Priorities 1, 2, and 5? Priority 1 means that the fund are virtually a certainty. Priority 2 means next year. Maybe. Priority 5 means lots of luck, you may get the money and you may not.
Over the 14 years in question, the Westlake golf club received nine separate Priority 1 appropriations totaling $37.96 million.
Not to be outdone, the Tournament Players Club in Jefferson Parish got seven separate appropriations totaling $48.2 million. City Park Golf Complex in New Orleans, with seven Priority 1 appropriations, got $33.8 million.
Other golf course expenditures included:
• $16.1 million for the England (Airpark) Golf Course in Rapides Parish;
• $600,000 for the Bayou Segnette Golf Course in Jefferson parish;
• $2.7 million for development of a golf resort at Toledo Bend;
• $2 million to promote the Audubon Trail golf courses in efforts to promote more rounds;
• $16,000 for the Delhi Municipal Golf Course;
• $301,000 for the Black Bear Golf Club at Poverty Point (part of the Audubon Trail);
• $250,000 for the 2002 Compaq Golf Tournament in New Orleans;
• $550,000 for junior golf facilities and the Fore Kids Foundation golf tournament;
• $250,000 for promotion of the Classic Foundation golf tournament in New Orleans;
• $1.7 million for the Louisiana Junior Golf Commission.
The state also spent an additional $5.25 million on the LSU golf course, part of which was relocating four holes on the course, money some might suggest would come from the LSU athletic department.
Of course, golf is not the only interest of the legislature. It also has appropriated funding for such projects as the Hot Air Balloon Championship in Baton Rouge ($50,000), the RedFish Tour ($75,000), the National Baptist Convention in New Orleans ($75,000), and the Bayou Classic football game between Southern and Grambling universities ($100,000), the Zephyrs’ baseball stadium in Jefferson Parish ($4.68 million over four years), a baseball complex for Iberia Parish ($7.34 million over eight years), improvements to a Baton Rouge baseball stadium with no tenant ($3.95 million over three years), construction of baseball fields at Negreet and Killian high schools ($35,000), and construction of a baseball-softball complex in Rapides Parish $2.73 million).
The Black Bear Golf Course at Poverty Point was constructed on private property owned by the Poverty Point Development Corp. under the auspices of the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development as part of a retirement community developed by State Sen. Francis Thompson and his brother, Mike Thompson. Once completed, the golf course was donated to the Louisiana Office of Culture and Tourism with the proviso that a “professional manager” be appointed to administer the day to day operations of Black Bear. The manager appointed was Mike Thompson.
The Tournament Players Club Louisiana Golf Course (TPC) has proved to be the real money pit for the state. Promoted by Sen. John Alario of Westwego and developer Buckner Barkley, Jr., TPC has been a money loser from the outset. The course was developed in an effort to pull a major PGA tournament into Jefferson Parish.
The state, during the administration of Gov. Mike Foster, entered into an agreement with TPC and Marrero Land and Improvement Association whereby the state guaranteed a minimum number of rounds played. The rounds were required to be booked through New Orleans hotel concierges promoting the course. The hotel industry initially was not informed of the agreement and was unable to meet booking quotas.
The annual Zurich Classic is played at TPC and the fear was that it would lose the tournament and should that have happened, the property, with no professional tournament facilitator, would revert to Marrero Land. To avert that occurrence, the Superdome Commission and commission chairman Doug Thornton negotiated a new deal whereby the state would pay off TPC’s $10 million indebtedness and take ownership of the property in exchange for a six-year commitment from the PGA to keep the Zurich Classic there.
While some legislators maintain the state should not be in the golf business, proponents of the arrangement insist it is the best option for the state, that it is good for the economy.
Likewise, supporters claim that the golf courses, such as Black Bear, are good for economic development and make the state’s investments a good idea.
Manufacturing plants, Wal-Marts, and job-intensive industry also make good economic sense. So why doesn’t the state just go out and buy a dozen or so Wal-Marts, open a few car dealerships and manufacturing plants and give people jobs instead of taking over golf courses and putting a legislator’s relative in charge?
Don’t be surprised when next Spring, one of those tiny Smart Cars pulls up in front of the State Capitol and 144 clowns, complete with orange wigs, big shoes, red noses, seltzer bottles, pies, and horns, pile out, run up the steps of the Capitol and into the Senate and House chambers to call the 2011 legislative session into disorder.
Louisiana Voice 
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