The Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA) is the latest state agency to be scheduled for privatization by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration, LouisianaVoice has learned.
LOSFA, the administrative arm of the Louisiana Student Financial Assistance Commission and the Louisiana Tuition Trust Authority, has been instructed by the governor’s office to outsource the office’s loan program.
The agency comes under the organization umbrella of the Board of Regents. Jindal, in presenting his executive budget to the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget, targeted 2,837 jobs in higher education for elimination. Many of those are vacant positions that will not be filled.
In all, Jindal is proposing to eliminate 6,371 authorized positions, again meaning that an unspecified number may be vacant positions.
LOSFA will lose between 50 and 60 positions in the outsourcing action, according to Gus Wales, director of public information for the office. The affected employees are scheduled to be laid off by June 30.
Like the privatization of the Office of Group Benefits, the latest outsourcing move makes little sense in that the office’s loan program is funded from self-generated revenues, not the State General Fund.
What’s more, after June 30, students with questions about their loan repayment will probably have to talk to someone in another state instead of in Baton Rouge as before meaning Jindal will have taken jobs from Louisiana residents and given them to citizens outside Louisiana.
Many of the employees scheduled to lose their jobs have as much as 20 years of service but three unclassified staff members, reportedly making in excess of $100,000 each, will be retained, according to information provided to LouisianaVoice.
Unclassified personnel in the office include Executive Director Melanie Amrhein, Deputy Executive Director Sujuan Boutté, Assistant Executive Director of Marketing and Outreach David Roberts, Assistant Executive Director for Fiscal and Administrative Affairs Jack Hart and General Counsel George Eldredge.
The administration reportedly was approached by Great Lakes Higher Education Corp., a student loan servicing company in Madison, Wisconsin. The company was said to have told the governor’s office that the state could cut a significant number of employee positions by giving them the portfolio.
The agency has forwarded an invitation to bid (ITB) to State Purchasing for public release, sources said.
Louisiana Voice 
By all means get those Louisiana citizens out on the street, especially the worker bees. Locate an OUT OF STATE provider to come in an take the work away. Perhaps it is not going overseas, but it most certainly is NOT staying within Louisiana as the Governor swore he was focusing on. When will we see some Legislative intervention or even Civil Service saying “NO” and standing toe-to-toe? Does everything in this State have to be destroyed before Jindal finds some other area of interest? Simply disgusting!
Can a list be compiled of how many out of state business will take over the privatization of Louisiana’s state government? Once the list is compiled is there a way to get this information to the public?
To NotGone…: Apparently the whole system has to be destroyed and dismantled before the legislature and civil service wake up to Bombay Bobby’s evil.
Why don’t we just contract out the Governor’s job as well .. if contracting is good for every thing else in the State, then why NOT the Governor’s job?? Can’t be any worst than what we have now.
Why is anyone surprised by this? We are sheeple and are treated accordingly.