Louisiana Voice

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—Two scheduled events dealing with the future of two Jindal administrative appointees and of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) came and went with no official action though one of those has been re-scheduled for Friday.

It turns out that confirmation hearings on two of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s appointees may be held on Friday.

On the other, a spokesman for the Division of Administration (DOA) was less than congenial in responding to a status inquiry from LouisianaVoice.

The Senate and Governmental Affairs (S&GA) Committee was slated to continue its confirmation hearings on Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater and Deputy Commissioner Mark Brady but those hearings were cancelled Tuesday night. Different reasons for the cancellations were given by Sens. Ed Murray and Karen Peterson.

Peterson (D-New Orleans) said the confirmation hearings were pulled because the Senate Committee on Revenue and Fiscal Affairs was scheduled to meet. Three members of S&GA also sit on the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs committee. “We didn’t have enough time,” said Peterson, adding that the confirmation hearings were rescheduled for Friday at 9:30 a.m.

Murray (D-New Orleans) said the reason for cancellation was that the committee members received the Chaffe Report on OGB that it had requested earlier. No mention was made of additional hearings on Friday.

The Chaffe Report was released by an anonymous senator Monday night even though Rainwater had requested that the document not be released to the public. Sen. D.A. “Butch” Gautreaux (D-Morgan City), one of the more vocal critics of Jindal and DOA over the OGB privatization plan, said he was not the one who released the report. “But whoever it was, I’m glad it was done,” he said.

Gautreaux also is a member of the OGB Board of Directors.

The report was done by Chaffe & Associates of New Orleans and was basically an overview of the financial picture of OGB. Chaffe was retained to complete the report in time for Gov. Bobby Jindal to include the data in his executive budget that was due on March 19. Nothing in the executive budget made any reference to OGB.

That led to speculation that the report did not reflect Jindal’s opinion on the rationale for selling OGB. Those suspicions were confirmed with the Monday release of the report that said if OGB is privatized, premimums will increase and services will likely be cut.

One source said Wednesday evening that Friday’s meeting was for confirmation testimony only from Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein.

Greenstein had difficulties of his own with the committee last week when he refused to divulge the name of the winner of a 10-year, $34 million-per-year contract with DHH. It took 40 minutes of sparring with members of the committee, but Greenstein finally admitted the contractor was CNSI of Gaithersburg, MD. Greenstein once worked for CNSI, prompting more criticism from senators.

The State Constitution mandates that the committee must make its recommendations on confirmation to the full Senate which must vote up or down on appointees before the end of the session. The session ends at 6 p.m. next Thursday.

A decision was also scheduled Wednesday on naming of a financial analyst to evaluate the assets of OGB and to help market the agency to potential buyers or third party administrators but DOA apparently did not meet that deadline.

Goldman Sachs was one of three firms to submit proposals on the RFP, the second to be issued by DOA. Goldman Sachs was the lone bidder on the first RFP but withdrew over a refusal by the state to indemnify the Wall Street banking firm from any liability in the event of litigation.

A second RFP was issued by the state. The deadline for submitting proposals on that RFP was June 6 and Wednesday, June 15, was the tentative date to name the contractor.

DOA Chief of Staff Dirk Thibodeaux, asked if a contractor had been selected, responded rather curtly, “If you read the RFP, you will see that June 15 was a ‘tentative date.’”

LouisianaVoice acknowledged the “tentative date,” and asked again if a “tentative decision” had been made.

“No decision has been made,” Thibodeaux said.

A follow up email was sent to Thibodeaux, Rainwater, and Brady asking that LouisianaVoice be notified as soon as a contractor was selected. Kirkpatrick opened his email but, like Brady and Rainwater, did not respond to the public records request.

Just another open and accountable day at the Jindal administration of tentative transparency.