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Archive for November, 2011

If ethics board investigates Livingston assessor for political campaigning, it should also investigate Jindal’s involvement

Posted in BESE, Ethics, Governor's Office, Transparency on November 30, 2011| 1 Comment »

The Louisiana Ethics Board recently announced it was investigating Livingston Parish Tax Assessor Jeff Taylor for his involvement in the local race for Livingston Parish President. Taylor sent out letters to Livingston Parish voters endorsing challenger Layton Ricks over incumbent Mike Grimmer. Ricks won in a runoff with 56.8 percent of the vote.

The ethics board said it was investigating the propriety of Taylor’s involving himself in the election with his letter. The letter was sent out under his private letterhead but included the telephone number of the tax assessor’s office. Taylor said the inclusion of the telephone number was an oversight. Taylor also said he spent his own money on the mailout.

The Board is looking into whether the flier violated state law which says public servants can’t use their authority to coerce people to engage in political activity.

If the ethics board can somehow find wrongdoing in Taylor’s involvement in the race, it will be interesting to see how it treats the presence of Jindal’s heavy hand in the BESE elections. In those races, his campaign generated automated phone calls in which he used his voice, his name, his influence and the status of the governor’s office to urge voters to cast ballots for his favored candidates—including Chas Roemer and Jay Guillot, among others. Moreover, Jindal contributed thousands of dollars from his own campaign war chest to favored candidates. That would seem to qualify as a public servant using his authority to coerce people (voters) to engage in political activity.

Frankly, it’s quite a stretch to define the activities of either Taylor or Jindal as illegal or even unethical. A public servant’s use of his authority to coerce his employees to engage in political activity would be illegal but Taylor’s letter went to voters throughout Livingston Parish–not just to his employees. Jindal? His biggest sin was to become a nuisance during the campaign. It got a little tiresome to pick up the phone and hear a pre-recorded message from the governor. A live call from Jindal would at least afford the opportunity for a little voter feedback but it’s somewhat unfulfilling giving a Bronx cheer to a recording.

There are other matters that warrant the board’s consideration as well.

Jay Guillot, recently elected to the District 5 seat on the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), won’t have to bother getting an opinion from the ethics board on the propriety of his serving on a state board while holding a multi-million dollar state contract.

LouisianaVoice has saved him the trouble.

Guillot, for whatever reason, neglected to get an opinion from the ethics board prior to qualifying to run against incumbent Keith Guice. Guillot won the election with 54.6 percent of the vote, thanks in large part to the support of Gov. Bobby Jindal who, along with other key donors, poured tens of thousands of dollars into Guillot’s and other BESE candidates’ campaigns.

A sampling of contributions to Guillot included $5,000 from the Jindal campaign committee; $7,100 from the state Republican Party for television advertising; $10,000 from ABC Pelican Political Action Committee; $4,000 from Charter Schools USA of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; $5,000 from the Louisiana Federation for Children; $5,000 from ISC Constructors, a contributor to ABC Pelican PAC; $5,000 from another ABC contributor, Cajun Industries; $5,000 from Todd Grigsby, an executive for ISC Constructors, and $10,000 from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Guillot contacted Ruston’s Morning Paper on Sunday to say that his attorney, Jimmy Faircloth, Jr., would complete his request to the ethics board for an opinion on his legal status sometime this week but that the agency for the board is closed for December. That would mean that the board would not be able to consider a request from Fairchild until January—after Guillot is sworn in at BESE’s January meeting.

But not to worry; LouisianaVoice got its request in on November 2, one day before the cutoff for the December 15-16 agenda.

In fact, the request submitted by LouisianaVoice was two-pronged:

• Should Guillot be allowed to serve on a state board when he simultaneously holds nearly $17 million in contracts with the state—one contract alone is for $16 million?

• Should Chas Roemer be allowed to continue to make motions and vote on matters coming before BESE pertaining to charter schools when his sister, Caroline Roemer Shirley, serves as executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools?

Normally, a candidate in Guillot’s position would have sought an ethics opinion long before qualifying for and spending tens of thousands of dollars on a bitter campaign for public office.

Guillot, in fact, showed no inclination to seek such an opinion until pressed by the Morning Paper and even then, his responses were vague and non-definitive.

With the latest revelation that he would seek an opinion after all, only caused further head-scratching at his choice of legal counsel for the request.

Faircloth is the one-time and once-again legal counsel for Jindal and was apparently retained by Guillot to make the inquiry of the ethics board. That, in itself, would seem to be a conflict of interest, given Jindal’s political and financial support for Guillot’s candidacy and the governor’s tacit yet unmistakable influence on the board.

But it’s not as if Faircloth, who worked from January 2008 until July 2009 as Jindal’s executive counsel and now is again employed by the governor’s office, is unfamiliar with the ethics board and breaches in ethics.

On March 18 of this year Faircloth signed a consent judgment in which he agreed to pay a $1,000 fine for accepting $7,000 in fees for representing the Louisiana Tax Commission, beginning on Jan. 12, 2010. State law requires a waiting period of one year before a former state employee may represent a state agency.

He did the work for the tax commission under a $20,000 contract approved by the Attorney General’s office and the Office of Risk Management. Faircloth’s entering into the contract was in violation of Section 1113D(3)(a) of the Code of Governmental Ethics, according to the ethics board.

So now it comes down to what the board will decide and what board attorney Tracy Barker will write regarding Docket No. 2011-1688 later this month.

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Telemarketers are people, too (but still fun to mess with)

Posted in Uncategorized on November 22, 2011| 3 Comments »

There are a lot of telemarketing scams out there but there’s one that is particularly annoying—and illegal.

You get this call and a pre-recorded message tells you that you have been sent several messages. The authoritative woman’s voice then says, “This is the last notice you will get” to lower your credit card rate.

If that “last notice” bit were only true, it would not be necessary to be writing this post right now. I get the calls on my land line and my cell phone on virtually a daily basis.

They move around, so it’s all but impossible to track them down or to even file a complaint about them. Most of the calls originate from area codes in Utah and San Francisco and it does no good to put the number on the “do not call” list, because they simply ignore that. It also is futile to block the number because each call originates from a different number.

The calls are almost as irritating as all those automated political campaign calls during the recent election cycle, but at least you know the political solicitations are fraudulent. The credit card scam almost sounds convincing in its pre-recorded promise to lower your card’s interest rate to as low as 6 percent. All I have to do is press “1” to speak to a representative.

It’s nothing more than an identity theft scam designed to obtain your credit card number. Never, and I do mean never, give any personal information such as your social security number, bank account number or credit card number to any telephone solicitor. Repeat: any telephone solicitor. You’d do just as well by taking that Nigerian up on his email offer to dump $10 million into your bank account or falling for that European lottery you never entered but somehow managed to win.

There’s an old adage that says necessity is the mother of invention, so out of necessity, I had to either find a way to stop the calls or at least have some fun from it all. Since it is impossible to stop the daily afternoon nap interruptions, I had to find a way to make it fun, or at least somewhat entertaining.

At this point, it is probably useful to say that while my ploy was devised as a response to this particular scam—and it is a scam, make no mistake about it—it’s good for any telemarketer who has the audacity to interrupt Dancing with the Stars to pitch some product or service to you.

I first tried a tactic with female telemarketers only. I would let them get about halfway into their spiel and then interrupt in the sleaziest voice I could conjure with, “What are you wearing?” It always worked with female solicitors; they couldn’t hang up quickly enough, but unfortunately, most of the calls came from males, so I changed to a practice I now use with all unwanted callers.

I went to the local Holy Shrine (Wal-Mart, to the less erudite) and purchased a cheap referee’s whistle—the same kind that football and basketball officials use—and put it on my key chain.

Now, I actually look forward to the calls. I always press “1.”

As soon as someone comes on the line, I deliver an ear-piercing blast right into the phone. They usually hang up immediately but occasionally, they will respond. On one recent call from the friendly credit card scam people, a man’s voice offered to place my whistle in the nether regions of my anatomy “if I knew where you lived.” Ironic, isn’t it, alluding to his inability to determine my location when they depend on anonymity for survival–and to avoid prosecution?

On another, a woman came on the line and, after the initial blast, said simply, “That’s really cute.” I blasted again. “Cute,” she said again.

“Well, I can do this as long as you can,” I responded. Another blast.

She left me with a verb and a pronoun before hanging up.

It’s nice to know we can get under their skin, too.

The only problem is when I get one of those calls while I’m driving. With the key in the ignition, it’s difficult to get to the whistle without wrecking.

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ORM, an unwanted orphan, taken over by third company; could this be the future of OGB, prison privatization?

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Privatization on November 21, 2011| 1 Comment »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—The crown jewel of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s privatization drive has taken yet another bizarre turn.

Well, maybe the Office of Risk Management (ORM) is not the crown jewel, but it his first effort at a move toward privatizing any state agency that shows up on his radar.

And if the path that ORM has followed since being taken over by private industry little more than a year ago is a fair example, legislators would do well to take a long hard look at any future moves in that direction—particularly as it might pertain to the Office of Group Benefits (OGB).

The $400 million agency, it was recently learned, will be transferred to its third operating company within 15 months. This time ORM is going to be run for a while by York Claims Service of New York City.

York operates as an independent adjustment company and third party administrator and is a subsidiary of York Insurance Services Group of Parsippany, New Jersey.

On March 15, 2010, ORM Director J.S. “Bud” Thompson, in a gathering of agency employees, broke the news that the agency was to be taken over by F.A. Richard and Associates (FARA) of Mandeville. It was at that same meeting that he laughingly informed his subordinates, “I still have my job.”

It wasn’t his last attempt at inappropriate humor. During a legislative committee hearing held to consider the approval of the transfer, he joked that he deserved a raise. That remark drew a sharp rebuke from State Sen. Ed Murray (D-New Orleans) who reminded Thompson that a serious matter was being considered and that he should treat it as such. Thompson did not return for the afternoon committee session.

Under terms of the contract that went into effect on July 1, 2010, the state was to pay FARA an amount “not to exceed” $68.2 million. FARA was to phase in its takeover over a five-year period.

The actual transfer began in September of 2010 when ORM Loss Prevention and Worker’s Compensation sections went over to FARA.

In May of 2011, less than eight months after the first units were transferred, FARA and Thompson were back before the committee seeking an additional $6.8 million that would bring the new contract to “a maximum amount” of $74.9, according to language in the amendment document.

Committee members were surprised to learn that the amendment was actually already a done deal because under law, the Office of Contractual Review may approve contract amendments of up to 10 percent one time without legislative approval and the amendment was exactly—10 percent.

Both ORM and the Office of Contractual Review are under the supervision of Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater.

Rep. Jim Fannin was somewhat miffed that the House Appropriations Committee, which he chairs, was circumvented by the 10 percent rule. It didn’t help that Patti Gonzales, assistant director of ORM informed Fannin that the full $6.8 million wasn’t really necessary because it was expected that only about $2 million of that would actually be spent.

Left unasked was the question of why it was deemed necessary to ask for the full $6.8 million.

The nearest thing to an explanation was a memorandum to Rainwater dated Feb. 28, 2010, in which Thompson requested Division of Administration (DOA) approval of the contract amendment.

“Since the implementation (of the FARA takeover) began, ORM has begun experiencing difficulty in retaining our experienced adjusters, as many are seeking employment elsewhere in state government,” Thompson said. “We are currently utilizing contract adjusters to supplement our in-house staff for lines not yet transitioned to FARA, at considerable expense to the state and with a significant loss of efficiency.”

Only about a week after Thompson weathered that committee hearing and the $6.8 million amendment was approved (the committee legally had no choice), it was learned that FARA had been sold to Avizent, a national claims and risk management company in Columbus, Ohio, that had an office in Baton Rouge staffed by only one employee.

Considering the complexities involved in such a transaction, it would seem reasonable to think negotiations had been ongoing for some time before the $6.8 million amendment was approved. Yet, not once was the pending sale revealed to committee members.

FARA’s senior management, including CEO Todd Richard “will also assume executive leadership positions in the parent company,” according to an announcement on FARA letterhead dated May 20, 2011.

On Oct. 26, an email from Gonzales to remaining ORM personnel announced that Cherie Pinac, manager of FARA’s Baton Rouge office, had submitted her resignation to accept a position with Hammerman and Gainer Claims Adjusters.

Now, less than month later, it has been learned that FARA has been sold to York and ORM will be handed off to yet another third party administrator.

This could mean one of two things:

• Private firms are finding that they cannot run the agency more cost efficiently than can the state;

• Once privatization takes place, the state loses all control of what happens to the agency down the road.

Or it’s entirely possible that both could—and will—occur.

This should be something for the Jindal administration to ponder carefully and with all due caution before plunging headlong into additional moves at privatization of OGB, prisons, public schools and Medicaid.

But don’t bet on it.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Education, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Notable Quotables on November 17, 2011| 3 Comments »

“The health, safety and best interests of our children is of paramount concern…”

–Gov. Bobby Jindal, in announcing his executive order that anyone employed by a public Louisiana college who witnesses child abuse or neglect must report it to law enforcement within 24 hours.

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Jindal out front on Penn State scandal: strangely quiet on Michigan Matt’s Safe School Law and Louisiana’s HB112

Posted in Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Transparency on November 17, 2011| 5 Comments »

Perhaps we were a bit hasty in our last blog in which we accused Gov. Bobby Jindal of finding a parade, jumping out in front and yelling, “Follow me!”

That was written after Jindal issued his executive order directing any employee of a public college or university who witnesses child abuse or neglect to report it to law enforcement within 24 hours.

In typical Jindal grandstanding, the governor was attempting to jump aboard the bandwagon of understandable public fury over the sex scandal swirling around former Penn State defensive coach Jerry Sandusky and young boys left in his care.

It must be pointed out, however, that the indignant outrage he apparently felt over the mess at Penn State University did not carry over to the abhorrent behavior of his fellow Republicans in the Michigan State Senate.

In Michigan, Matt Epling was a child who was subjected to constant bullying in middle school in East Lansing. His last day of eighth grade, he was given a “Welcome to high school” beating. When school officials did nothing, his parents went to police. Matt, fearful of retribution from the bullies, committed suicide.

Over the next nine years, another 10 students subjected to regular bullying killed themselves—all while the Michigan legislature did nothing because Republican lawmakers repeatedly blocked attempts to pass an anti-bullying law.

This year another attempt was made and Republican State Sen. Rick Jones tacked on an amendment that said torment is not bullying if “a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction” is behind the bully’s actions.

That’s right, it’s not bullying if the bully says he has a moral or religious hatred of Jews, Muslims, gays or blacks.

The law as amended by Republicans also specifically addresses cyber bulling—but only if the bully uses “a device owned or under control of a school district”—not a student’s personal cell phone. Finally, Republicans withheld support of the bill until it was agreed that school officials would not be held accountable for failing to act.

Matt’s father, Kevin Epling described the bill as “government-sanctioned bigotry.”

The bill passed with 26 Republicans voting in favor and 11 Democrats voting no.

Democratic State Sen. Gretchen Whitmer called the amendment a “blueprint for bullying.” She told her fellow lawmakers, “Here today, you claim to be protecting kids, and you’re actually putting them in more danger.” Her speech on the senate floor went viral last week and the resulting pressure forced Smith to back off on his amendment, all while Jindal remained strangely quiet.

No bandwagon there.

Nor, apparently has the governor displayed any moral outrage over the failure of the Louisiana Legislature to pass HB 112 earlier this year.

HB 112, by Rep. Austin Badon (D-New Orleans), would have prohibited “harassment, intimidation, and bullying of students by students” and further defined such terms as including “intimidating, threatening, or abusive gestures or written, verbal or physical acts motivated by actual or perceived characteristics including race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, physical characteristic, political persuasion, mental disability, and physical disability, as well as attire or association with others identified by such categories.”

Actually, such a law is already on the books in Louisiana. The law, R.S. 17:416.13(B), for some inexplicable reason, however, exempts six parishes: East and West Feliciana, East Baton Rouge, St. Helena, Tangipahoa and Livingston. Badon’s bill would have removed those exemptions.

HB 112 also would have further defined the terms “harassment,” “intimidation,” and “bullying” to include “any intimidating, threatening, or abusive gesture or written, verbal, or physical act by a student directed at another student occurring on school property, on a school bus, or at a school-sponsored event.”

So, how did the vote come down on HB 112?

It failed by a vote of 43-54—even after the bill was watered down with amendments that deleted references to “race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or physical disability.” In other words, even after the bill was rendered toothless, it still couldn’t pass the smell test of the Louisiana Legislature.

More importantly, how did the vote fall in the six affected parishes, which are still exempted from R.S. 17:416.13(B)?

As might be expected, the vote was split right down party lines with six Democrats voting in favor of bringing their parishes into compliance and seven Republicans voting against the measure.

The Democrats voting in favor of HB 112 included Reps. Regina Barrow, Stephen Carter, Dalton Honore, Michael Jackson and Patricia Smith, all of Baton Rouge, and John Bel Edwards of Amite.

Republicans voting against the bill were Reps. Franklin Foil, Hunter Greene, Erich Ponti and Clifton Richardson of Baton Rouge, Mack “Bodi” White and Rogers Pope of Denham Springs, and Tom McVea of Jackson.

Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport) said, “This bill was intended to promote an agenda and force teaching alternative lifestyles to our children.”

Excuse me? At precisely what point did protecting children become a teaching tool for alternative lifestyles? How did someone this delusional ever get elected?

Incredibly, Seabaugh didn’t know when to shut up. He continued: “Every person who testified (on behalf of the bill) was either gay or testifying on behalf of someone who is gay, so let’s not delude ourselves about the intent of this bill. This language (in the bill) is straight out of the lesbian, gay, transgender playbook.” So just how was it that he came to be such an authority on that particular playbook?

And is this really where the governor wishes to align himself politically? Where was Bobby Jindal’s outrage, his moral indignation, his concern for the “health, safety and best interests of our children” that he trumpeted in issuing his executive order in reaction to the higher-profile Penn State scandal when this bill came up for consideration?

You would find those emotions hiding behind the Louisiana Family Forum, which called HB 112 part of the “homosexual agenda.”

Where was Jindal’s apprehension for the children of Michigan?

Apparently it could be found cowering in the same dark shadows as those 26 Michigan Republicans.

No parade for Piyush to lead there.

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