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Archive for February, 2011

State can’t wean itself of golf course involvement

Posted in Budget, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Taxes, tagged , , , , on February 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The State of Louisiana just can’t seem to wean itself of its involvement in the golf course business.

Even though several golf courses in Louisiana have gone under in recent months, the state continues to invest its resources into the construction and management of several facilities across the state.

Most recently, the Office of State Purchasing received proposals for the management of the Black Bear Stay and Play Lodge at the Poverty Point Reservoir State Park near Delhi.

While the proposed bid opening was on Jan. 4, no contract has been awarded, nor has any information been forthcoming as to the bidders’ identities or if the bid opening was even held on schedule.

The 7,100-yard, 300-acre course was designed by Bechtol Russell Golf of Austin, Texas, and constructed by Weitz Golf International. It is operated under the administration of the Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism (DCRT).

The request for proposals (RFP) stipulates that lodge personnel shall include a “first-class” hotel manager, meaning that he or she must be knowledgeable, experienced, and effective, and that the contractor shall submit a detailed monthly accounting of all transactions.

The lodge includes 17 guest rooms, a swimming pool and fenced tennis court and maintains a 61 percent occupancy rate, according to the RFP, which also said the DCRT “intends to work diligently with the successful proposer to ensure the profitability of a Stay and Play Lodge operation at Black Bear Golf Course. The economic, professional, social, and recreational elements critical to the success and image of a quality golf environment are foremost in consideration.”

The RFP also said the State Legislative auditor, federal and internal auditors of the Division of Administration “shall have the option to audit all accounts directly pertaining to the contract for a period of five years” after the contract goes into effect. “Records shall be made available during normal working hours for this purpose,” it added.

A check of the Legislative Auditor’s web page could find no instance of an audit ever having been conducted of either the Black Bear Golf Course or Poverty Point Reservoir State Park.

The Louisiana Legislature last year appropriated $301,000 for the Black Bear Golf Club and since 1997 the state has poured more than $141 million into golf courses all over the state.

The Black Bear course 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 DCRT with the proviso that a “professional manager” be appointed to administer the day to day operations of Black Bear.

The manager who was initially appointed was Mike Thompson. Thompson was convicted in federal court in January 2010 for violation of the Hobbs Act and in July, he was sentenced to 18 months in the federal correctional facility in Pollock. Specifically, Thompson was charged with having an employee of the Poverty Point Reservoir District perform work on Thompson’s private property during the time the employee was on the clock at the district.

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Department of Corrections to receive prison phone bids

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Prison, Transparency on February 1, 2011| 3 Comments »

Vendors who wished to provide prison pay telephone service were scheduled to have submitted their bid proposals this week, according to information received from the Louisiana Department of Corrections.

Prison telephone service is big business, profitable to the vendor and to the Department of Corrections but has been a source of controversy across the country for several years.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has been conducting a long legal battle against what it terms as inflated collect phone call rates and “kickback commissions” paid to states.

Louisiana’s contract, awarded on a competitive bid basis, does not approach CCR’s claim of charges levied against prisoners’ families who are the ones who ultimately pay the cost of the phone calls. While CCR maintains that some phone services charge up to $6 per minute for calls (in California, the rate is about $3.50 per minute), Global Tel Link Corp. charges from 9 cents to 25 cents per minute, depending on the distance and time of day.

In addition to the per-minute charge, there is a surcharge for each phone call placed from any state correctional facility that varies from 80 cents to $4.50, depending upon whether the call is local or person-to-person collect. All charges are paid by the call recipient, not the prisoner and therein lies the rub.

CCR and an organization called the New York Campaign for Telephone Justice feel that the exorbitant charges are not only wrong, but illegal. New York State receives 57.5 percent of all profits from prisoner phone charges. That comes to about $200 million per year for New York. Global Tel Link pays Louisiana 55 percent under its contract.

Some of Louisiana’s commissions are spent on computer software and security.

“We are not challenging how the commissions are spent,” CCR said. “But the high rates for prison phone calls are being paid by the families of incarcerated people.”

Louisiana’s 12 prison facilities grossed slightly more than $3 million during fiscal 2009-2010, netting the state more than $1.6 million, state records show.

In some states, the practice appears to be more questionable. While Louisiana, with the largest rate of incarceration in the nation, generated only $3 million in phone bills in FY 2009-2010 charges to California prisoners’ families came to more than $120 million.

Not surprisingly, prison phone contracts are a prized commodity in other states. Some carriers offer California counties signing bonuses. In the case of Los Angeles County, the bonus for the 2004 contract was $17 million.

An investigation conducted by Associated Press revealed that California counties received more than $300 million in revenue from prisoner phone calls over a five-year period.

“It’s a gouging of family members, those who have never committed a crime, said Charles Carbone, an attorney with Prison Focus, a San Francisco-based prisoner rights group.

The California State Assembly passed a law in 2000 that would have required negotiating for lower rates but then-Gov. Gray Davis vetoed the bill, saying it would cost the state $30 million per year in revenue.

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