BATON ROUGE (CNS)—There’s one thing that Gov. Bobby Jindal and Treasury Secretary John Kennedy agree on: the need to reduce the number of state employees and for those remaining to “do more with less.”
Accordingly, state employees are being subjected to salary freezes and cutbacks while teachers all across the state are being laid off in the ongoing macabre program of official parsimony.
Yet, LouisianaVoice has learned that Alexis Thompson, wife of Office of Risk Management Director Julian “Bud” Thompson, was allowed to retire from her $118,892.80 per year job on July 31, 2010, and return to work for the same agency last March 31. While her hourly pay remained the same, her hours were reduced by 20 percent, to 32 hours per week, in order that she might be classified as a part time employee.
Her new annualized “part time” salary? $95,114.24 (80 percent of her old salary). But wait! That’s in addition to her retirement income which, according to state law is reduced while she is working for the state as a rehire. Even with the reduced pension, it’s great for those fortunate enough to land such a gig but it’s a cruel joke to state employees who struggle to pay for luxuries like food, shelter, gasoline, tuition, clothing, etc.
All this occurred, mind you, during a time when civil service employees have been denied pay raises for two straight years because the state is strapped for money.
Her agency? The State Bond Commission, which is part of Kennedy’s Treasury Department.
She retired from her $57.16 per hour position as Assistant Director of the Debt Management Program, better known as the State Bond Commission, on July 31, 2010. She was re-hired as a part-time “special projects officer,” according to agency’s Employee Notification Form. It was not immediately clear what a special projects officer does but the Department of Treasury’s Conditional Offer of Employment listed her position as that of “consultant.”
Ron Henson, first assistant state treasurer, signed off on her appointment to her post-retirement employment on March 16. He would be John Kennedy’s second in command. That’s the same John Kennedy who so desperately wants to save state revenue by reducing the number of state employees by 5,000 per year for three years.
Mrs. Thompson’s husband, Julian “Bud” Thompson, is director of the Louisiana Office of Risk Management. Bud Thompson, who makes approximately $110,000 per year, presided over the demise of his office through a phased-in privatization program that has forced dozens of state employees to lose their state benefits and to seek employment with the private company that is taking over ORM–a company that was sold less than a year after the takeover but not before successfully negotiating a $7 million amendment to its contract only a week before the sale.
Bud Thompson is the first cousin of State Sen. Francis Thompson of Delhi, often cited as the single state legislator with the highest number of family members on the state payroll.
In all, Louisiana has more than 6,000 retired-rehired employees, many of those in parish school systems and universities across the state. The Jefferson Parish School system, with 570 retired-rehired, leads the list, followed by Calcasieu with 442 and East Baton Rouge with 399.
Terrebonne Parish has 179 retired-rehired employees at the same time that it was forced to lay off more than 150 full-time and 160 part-time workers because of budgetary cuts. Lafourche Parish was forced to cut 100 full-time positions while nearby Nicholls State University was rehiring 18 retirees.
Louisiana Tech likewise was forced to lay off more than 100 employees over the past three years but re-hired 25 retirees during that period.
Other local school systems and universities and the number of re-hired retirees include:
• Acadia Parish—137;
• Tangipahoa—124;
• Grambling State University—12;
• Southeastern Louisiana University—16;
• University of Louisiana at Monroe—18;
• Northwestern State University—13
Did we mention that state classified employees have been denied merit raises and cost of living increases while all this is going on?
Louisiana Voice 
Nice how some things never change..
Louisiana has to rank first in hypocrisy.
I am a retired state employee and occasional viewer of your blog. While I often agree with the ideas you present, I have noticed on more than one occasion that you are careless with your facts. Normally that doesn’t concern me, but this time you are targeting a former co-worker, and I feel I must speak up.
You stated that Ms. Alexis Thompson retired in March from The Treasurer’s Office the day before she was re-hired for a special project. That is not true; she retired in July. Your own blog entry from August 20 referred to her as having recently retired.
You also stated that Ms. Thompson will earn upwards of $95,000 a year for the work she is doing, while she is collecting her full LASERS retirement benefit. I’m no expert, but I know that she is subject to the same rules as all other re-hired retirees and must choose between 3 options: 1) limit her earnings to 50% of her annual retirement benefit; 2)regain membership in retirement system by repaying all benefits received since retirement plus interest; 3) Suspend retirement benefits effective the date of re-employment. So what you are saying can not be true.
There are other things that you don’t state as fact, but simply imply. For example, you implied that Ms. Thompson owes her position to her husband and his cousin. In fact, Ms.Thompson’s career as a Civil Servant precedes her relationship with her husband by many years, so that also can not be true. You implied that she is working (wink-wink) from home while being paid by the Treasurer’s Office. I know her to be a person of integrity. She would never be a part of the arrangement you describe.
I have some knowledge of the Treasurer’s Office, and like most state agencies, they are struggling to adapt in this era of budget cuts and downsizing. Due to staff reductions and the recent retirement of key members of the remaining staff, there was no one available in-house to perform the work that Ms. Thompson is performing. The project has a defined time frame, a stated maximum cost, and Ms. Thompson will not receive the benefits paid to full time state employees. It seems to me that, Mr. Kennedy simply made a wise management decision to hire a temporary employee to complete a special project which will allow his agency to do more with less on an ongoing basis.
The salary and retirement amounts as well as the retirement and rehire dates were obtained from documents provided by the Treasurer’s office and from LASERS.
Linda F, she is in fact part of the arrangement described in the above article.
Because you were careless with the facts again, I feel I must post another comment because it is important that the public has the correct information. Treasury provided you with a copy of Ms. Thompson’s Employee Notification form, a standard report from the state’s HR system that reflects history on the actions, positions and jobs of the employee. Ms. Thompson’s Employee Notification form actually reflected the following information:
Action History
Action Type Rehire From 03/22/2011 to 12/31/9999
Action Type Separation From 07/31/2010 to 03/21/2011
Action Type Change in Pay From 07/01/2007 to 07/30/2010
In other words, the HR system report reflected Ms. Thompson was retired from July 31, 2010 to March 21, 2011 before being rehired on March 22, 2011.
Position History
Position 50413739 -Special Proj Off From 03/22/2011 To 12/31/9999
Position 99999999 From 07/31/2010 To 03/21/2011
Position 00124378 – St Treas Debt Asst Dir From 05/31/2005 To 07/30/2010
In other words, the HR system report reflected that Ms. Thompson was not in a state position during the period of July 31, 2010 to March 21, 2011.
Job History
Job 00507680 – Special Proj Off From 03/22/2011 to 12/31/9999
Job 00154950 – St Treas Debt Asst Dir From 05/31/2005 to 03/21/2011
Job 00163420 – IT Statewide Sys Dpty Dir From 06/16/2004 to 05/30/2005
The HR System report reflected the history of the jobs held by Ms. Thompson. The reason “03/21/2011” appeared as the ending date for the St Treas Debt Asst Director job is because the HR system must have a delimiter date between records. If Ms. Thompson had never been rehired, the report would have reflected the ending date of 12/31/9999 (as shown above for Action and Position History).
For some reason, you chose to use the “03/21/2011” in your article as Ms. Thompson’s retirement date. I admit the Employee Notification form (as well as the HR system itself) is difficult for the average person to understand. However, you were actually a state employee and are suppose to be knowledgeable about government and its workings. It would seem that you would know how to correctly read this form.
Also the Employee Notification form showed an hourly wage of $57.16 per hour for Ms. Thompson, so I have to ask from where did the amount of $95K come?!!
Further you made the public records request to LASERS the day after you published the article about Ms. Thompson. In the request you made to LASERS, you listed Ms. Thompson’s retirement date of 3/21/2011 along with her salary, personnel number and date of birth and then asked LASERS to provide Ms. Thompson’s retirement income. That is the only information LASERS gave you because you never asked LASERS to confirm her retirement date.
If the public is relying on you to provide the truth in government, it is your responsibility to be careful in your research and to always provide accurate information. You weren’t trying to mislead the public like the politicians, were you?!!
While I normally do not publicize my opinions about government or people, I must comment after reading the many inaccuracies in this article, in which you chose to portray Alexis and Bud Thompson as “living off the fat of the land” rather than as the hard working citizens they actually are.
I have personally known the Thompsons for many years. They are true public servants who have given their talents and an inordinate amount of time, especially after the Hurricane Katrina, to make our State a better place, sometimes at the sacrifice of their own family. Both have implemented solutions and improved work processes that have saved the taxpayers thousands of dollars. In fact, if Louisiana had more state employees with the work ethic of the Thompsons, then maybe our state would not be in its current state of affairs.
I know without any doubt that Alexis actually retired in July 2010. You certainly also knew that since you wrote an article on this blog dated August 20, 2010 (https://louisianavoice.com/2010/08/20/with-the-thompsons-its-a-family-affair/) in which you stated “Bud Thompson’s wife recently retired from her position with the Louisiana Bond Commission.” However it seems you chose to misinterpret information provided by Treasury and make it sound as if she left state employment one day and return to work the next day. In fact, there was an 8-month gap in which Alexis, in addition to enjoying a well-deserved retirement after 35 years of service, also began giving back to our community by donating untold hours of her time as volunteer for the Baton Rouge Symphony League. She temporarily returned to work when Treasury requested assistance on a project for which there was no staff available. Because of her knowledge and experience, the cost of completing the project will be lower than if an outside consultant had been hired.
You stated that Bud is responsible for the demise of the Office of Risk Management, which was caused by the “phased-in privatization program that has forced dozens of state employees to lose their state benefits and to seek employment with the private company…” Many of us taxpayers want government to be more efficient, including the out-sourcing of functions that can be best performed by the private sector, and have state resources concentrate on those functions which only government can provide. Bud should be commended for having the courage to do the right thing. It is also my understanding the privatization plan included a provision for the company to hire the adjustors who were state employees. In today’s tough economic times, most people being laid off would love to be provided such an opportunity.
It appears you may be the real perpetuator of the untruths about state government. And it is sad to think people who are not informed or have no connection to state government actually believe everything you write when you are so careless in accurately providing facts. It makes one wonder what your motive was in writing such an article that contained so many blatant errors. Where you trying to sell more of your books or do you really have a hidden agenda?
John B and Wes, I am not Alexis Thompson, nor am I a fool. I know personally of several instances in State government of high level employees who retired and were rehired the next day to do the EXACT SAME job they left. That is not the case here. This was a malicious misrepresentation of the facts to malign an innocent person.
The special project performed by Ms. Thompson was created several months after she retired and was a one time effort to restructure Treasury’s organization and permanently reduce the number of positions. Since Treasury is the smallest department of state government (only about 60 to 65 people), there was no existing staff to complete the job study. Would you have preferred that Treasury enter into a professional services contract where much higher hourly rate(s) would have been paid for a longer period of time to develop such a job study? That would have cost the state more money. To me as a taxpayer, there was justification for the retire/rehire in this situation because it made good business sense.
I too am fed up with the retire/rehire practice. It is an unethical manipulation of the rules and regulations of State government. Mr. Aswell is doing a service by “outing” these violators. My point is just that Ms. Thompson’s case does NOT fall into this category and Mr. Aswell owes her an apology.
Linda F. is not “Alexis Thompson” in disguise — she is exactly who she said she was, a former co-worker. And she certainly is no fool!! She has access to the same information that was provided to Mr. Aswell and just wanted to ensure the public was being provided accurate facts.
I am the real Alexis Thompson and I am capable of speaking for myself. There appears to be two points Mr. Aswell was trying to make in this article (1) that retired/rehireds should not be allowed because of the additional financial strain on state government and (2) it is acceptable, in order to make the first point, to use inaccurate information or to misrepresent information for the purpose of depicting myself and my husband, Julian “Bud” Thompson (Mr. Aswell’s former employer) as unsavory persons who do not care about the state’s best interest.
The purpose of these comments is only to address the first issue because there is a much better mechanism to handle the second one.
It is easy for any person to sit back and expound how things should be done. Where it gets much harder is when you are assigned the responsibility of actually having to direct or operate programs. In that regard, the one item that hasn’t been addressed yet, which I feel must be, is there are few options available to management of state departments and universities faced with continuing to provide vital services to the citizens while positions are being cut from their budget without the elimination of entire programs, something that the Chief Executive and Legislature of this state have not seemed willing to do.
Because I understand the difficulty in meeting such a challenge, I agreed to provide assistance on a special project when Treasury contacted me in March 2011. The reason I was approached is that management believed my expertise would ensure the project could be completed quickly at a minimum cost to the state since Treasury had no available staff with the expertise to complete it. This special project involved the restructuring of the Office of Statewide Depository Control to provide for continuing operations with less staff, an evaluation of job levels at the State Bond Commission, and the development of a process for implementing work procedure updates. In fact when the project was initially discussed with me, the primary goal identified was for me to achieve a reduction in the number of positions.
After thoroughly analyzing all existing jobs, I was able to remove a whole tier of supervision and reduce the number of positions by rearranging duties between the other positions. And I managed to accomplish that without eliminating any filled position or causing any employee to be laid off. To complete the project, I had to rewrite all job descriptions, revise job specifications and evaluate pay levels before submitting an entire job study packet to Civil Service Commission for approval.
I worked approximately 28 – 32 hrs per week for 22.5 weeks during a 6 ½ month period to complete the necessary work that permanently reduced the number of positions at Treasury. During the period I was working on the special project, vacant positions in Treasury were left unfilled, which means there was no INCREASE in overall salary costs for the department.
The job study was approved by the Civil Service Commission on September 7, subsequently approved by the Governor and became effective on Tuesday, October 4. If you know anything about state government, you will realize that was a rather remarkable task to accomplish in less than 7 months of working part-time. So I did my job well and I am proud of that work product. The only regret that I have is that in completing the project, I have been misrepresented to the public by Mr. Aswell as another “retired/rehired” who returned to do the same job. While that trend may occur elsewhere in state government, it is something I would never agree to do.
I have held many management positions while working 35 years in state government. Each and every time before I moved to another position or into retirement, my staff was fully prepared and did not need me to return to complete assignments or provide training. My philosophy has always been I would have accomplished nothing if the work could not continue once I was gone. And I have absolutely no desire to ever jump back on the monthly “Bond Commission” treadmill even if the bait was a much higher salary.
I totally get the concept of “walking the talk” and that is what I did while working at Treasury. Hard to believe that can be classified as “rank hypocrisy”!!!
The morals of this story are: (1) not everything is what it appears to be on first glance and (2) a person cannot simply classify one option (i.e., retired/rehired) as being wrong without considering the specifics of each particular situation. And the bottom line is … management in each state department must utilize available options to provide the most efficient service at the least possible cost in the best interest of the taxpayers of Louisiana.
Tom, keep shaking things up. The Louisiana State Legislature had great difficulties getting good information from state agencies about their contracts with outside services and frequently get inaccurate or misleading information from agencie heads, including the Division of Adminstration. You won’t get the truth by going straight to the source and you will be stonewalled by the state agencies if you inquire.
I say, put it out there for everyone to see and they can belly-ache all they want!