The Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) has been a state agency abuzz with commotion this week—commotion that more closely resembles Larry, Moe and Curly trying to shovel water with a pitchfork than productive activity.
And it’s all part of the Bobby Jindal School of Good Government.
Martha Manuel has been Teagued and DHH has retreated for the moment from its efforts to put 69 information technology (IT) employees out of work in favor of contracting its services to the University of New Orleans (UNO).
Manuel, 63, was fired from her position as executive director of the Office of Elderly Affairs on Wednesday just one day after testifying against the transfer of her agency to DHH.
What’s more, the firing was done by her supervisor Tammy Woods, Director of Community Programs—by telephone.
If the pattern seems familiar, that’s because it is—beginning back in October of 2009 when Melody Teague, a Social Services grant reviewer, was fired one day after testifying against Jindal’s program to streamline government.
It took her six months but she got her job back but then last April 15, her husband Tommy Teague was fired as executive director of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) when he didn’t jump on board the Jindal Privatization Bandwagon quickly enough, particularly when it came to the agency he had taken from a multi-million-dollar deficit to a $500 million surplus.
Thus the term Teagued.
Those were just two. Others included a Board of Elementary and Secondary member who didn’t kowtow to Jindal, the director of the Highway Safety Commission who opposed Jindal’s repeal of the state motorcycle helmet law.
Gone.
Jindal, through DHH Center for Health Care Innovation and Technology chief Carol Steckel, tried to fire the 69 IT employees last December in favor of handing off the contract for their work to UNO under the state’s Medicaid program.
The employees were called in for a teleconference at which time they were told they would be unemployed in January. Upon their return to their work stations, the employees found they were locked out of their computers.
But the State Civil Service Board vetoed Steckel’s proposal on Feb. 1. She first cited a savings of $2.1 million, then $7 million, prompting one member to say he had “zero confidence” in her numbers.
Steckel came to Louisiana from Alabama where she served as that state’s Medicaid Commissioner. In was in that capacity that she inferred that Alabama’s indigent amputees did not need artificial limbs. Her budget for 2008 cut programs that pay for prosthetics and orthotics (used to correct deformities) because, she said, the programs were optional, not mandatory.
The Civil Service Commission was scheduled to take the matter up again on Wednesday of this week but DHH withdrew from the agenda on Monday. One source said that UNO decided to opt out of the contract agreement. Another said that questions arose about the use of Medicaid funds for non-Medicaid costs in the contract, a practice that is strictly prohibited.
The fate of the IT employees, meanwhile, remains uncertain. “We have been misinformed on future employment by DHH executives on three occasions,” said one of the workers. “At each meeting we had, we felt as though we were being threatened with furlough without pay.”
If the administration felt it was punishing Manuel, however, it may have miscalculated. She had already retired once and when the directorship of the Office of Elderly Affairs opened a year ago, she applied and was appointed by Jindal. She now simply moves back into retirement, albeit involuntary.
She testified on Tuesday that senior citizens would be better served by leaving the Office of Elderly Affairs where it is.
Jindal’s executive budget calls for transferring the $45.3 million agency and its 51 positions to DHH where Manuel feels her agency will become lost in the DHH bureaucratic shuffle. “At no time was I asked for my input on this transfer,” she testified to the House Appropriations Committee.
Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater disagreed, saying that senior citizens would receive more, not fewer services. He said more federal funding can be generated through DHH’s guidance.
Manuel, contacted at home on Wednesday, said DHH plans to funnel Office of Elderly Affairs’ $45.3 million through nursing homes and hospitals in order to qualify DHH for additional federal funding.
“That almost sounds like money-laundering,” she said. “DHH calls this leveraging but there’s no guarantee that the dollars will keep coming back to the local councils on aging,” she said.
“They (the administration) said they have a vision, but when pressed by the committee, they admitted they had no real plan. Well, we (her former agency) have a vision and we have a five-year plan.”
She said she had her cell phone turned off during her testimony but when she turned it on after she spoke to the committee, “it was full of voice mails and each one was angrier than the last.” She said the messages were from Woods and her assistant.
“I took the rest of the afternoon off and they continued to barrage my office with calls, even though they were told I was not in. They apparently didn’t believe it, so they actually came to my office at 6 p.m. to check to see if I was in.”
Manuel said she called in sick the next day because she simply didn’t feel like facing all the hassle. “The general council (of the Office of Community Programs) called me at home today (Wednesday) and Tammy Woods was also on the line. She told me I was not in line with the governor’s thinking and she fired me over the phone.
“This (Woods) is a person who refuses to return telephone calls and who cancels meetings with no advance notice. She once had an appointment with people from New Orleans. They drove all the way into Baton Rouge only to be told the meeting was cancelled.”
Manuel said she has received flowers from several local councils on aging as a result of her dismissal. “I’m gratified at the response of the local councils but I have to say I’m very disappointed in our governor. I really believed there would be transparency in government.”
Jindal said simply that the administration had decided to “go in a different direction.”
Louisiana Voice 
Typical Jinanigans, but scary and sad. “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
― Harry S. Truman. I do hope you enjoy your retirement, Ms. Manuel.
Jindalvision: A ruthless consolidation of power.
Dudification: Extreme devotion to a really dumb idea.
We need a dicktionary.
Best wishes for your Retirement, we government workers appreciate you. The Jindal uprising is winding down, and he knows it. His arrogance and incompetence, unfortunately, will prolong the agony. He should resign and go to Disneyworld. rrt
If only it were so. But wait…Booby does not just take away. He giveth. We may actually be allowed to subsidize our own 1% merit increase. 4% (merit) – 3% (contribution to state general fund) = 1% increase in pay.
The corollary to the arrogant belief in one’s own superiority is the belief in everyone else’s ignorance.
I should correct my own math: less than 1% increase:
$20 * 1.04 = $20.80 *.97 = $20.18. That $0.18 = .9% merit
Question: Since Legislators also participate in LASERS and were not among the exclusions, thus subject to the 3% salary retirement surtax, how long before they increase their per diem to offset the loss of income?
Actually, they do not, unless they joined the system prior to the 1996 Constitutional amendment. I would like to add with some disgust, though, that we were supposed to think it funny that Rep. James Armes III relaxed when he discovered the planned changes won’t affect HIS wife’s retirement plans. I’m not really knocking Mr. Armes, who is at least questioning the changes, but the cutesy reporting of that exchange left me ill.
I stand corrected in regards to the new legislators, though the ones grandfathered in, as has been pointed out in an earlier LV post, are busily securing high-paying appointments to boost that 3-year average pay and subsequent pension. According to a Sept. 2011 post in the “The Hayride”, 10 of these grandfathered legislators are still serving.
I agree wholeheartedly with your disgust at the “as long as it doesn’t affect me” attitude of these legislators. Well, as has been said, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
After all the hype about the president’s “dictator/gangster/mophia” style of leadership, I must say this far surpasses even his avenue of supremacy!
This is very disheartening to say the least.
How did jindal become governor? Was he appointed or did a whole lot of people say he was what Louisiana needed and voted for him?
He got 66% of 40% = just over 27% with no real opposition. Not sure that counts as “a whole lot of people.” I’d say a whole lot of people were just indifferent.
Here I go with another scattered rant!! “He got 66% of 40% = just over 27% with no real opposition.” Unfortunately, that was all he needed. The two party system is out of business in this state and the good old boys can run rampant through the tax payer money and any other resources they can get their hands on. Nevermind about the billion dollar surplus he inherited, never mind the millions and millions flowing in as the price of oil and gas goes higher and higher. They keep telling us there’s no money and that way, they get to keep making more and more of it pay high ranking, figure head salaries for hundreds of Jindal appointees, cronies and supporters. Jindal is proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that authoritarian rule and a near dictatorship are his forte. He claims to be a Christian/Catholic: Really? How could someone who claims to be a Christian, and truly is a Christian, treat his fellow citizens so ruthlessly? One wonders if Mr. “Bobby” still believes in the Hindu Caste system where citizen’s are stratified into 4 different classes (he would be in the ruling class and the state workers in the lowest class, which is the commoners/peasants/workers)? Does he believe he is the best man in the state, the smartest man in the state and maybe even a messiah of sorts who is the only one who can bail this sorry assed bunch of hicks out of their financial dilemma? On the other side of the coin is Bobby as good ole boy. He wears his Catholic faith like he wears his cowboy boots, cargo pants and an LSU shirt. Look at me people, I’m just like you, pass me a beer and let em get on some of those crawfish. This is to show that he is the stuff that Louisiana is made of, not least of which is his ability to draw money from businesses because that’s the way it’s done here. You want to play, you gotta pay (established long before Edwin and Huey P. were conceived by a long history of graft and corruption.) Of course the money he’s drawing isn’t for the state, oh no, it’s all for Bombay Bobby, his wife’s charitable ventures and his war chest to ultimately mount his campaign to become the the president of the Unitied States. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine. How else can he claim that he will not sign into law any new taxes, while proposing to increase state workers payroll withholding by 3%? That doesn’t seem like much money, does it, 3%? Well if you make $50,000.00 a year, that’s another $1,500.00 you don’t have to use for your household. If you make $80,000.00, another $2400.00 a year. How many citizens in the private sector can take that kind of hit on their household money, in this economy? If the federal government wanted to jack social security witholding up on them by 3%, this country would be up in arms. Mr. Jingo figures that the state workers are a captive group of peasants that he can rob, pillage, rape and plunder without answering to anybody, right? If any state worker complains, snicker snack, off with their heads!! Who gives a care about the first ammendment to the US Constitution? Certainly not Bombay Bobby. He’s immune to scrutiny and hey, who cares about state workers anyway, right? They’re a drain on the taxpayer and have no real function in the grand scheme of things. I have news for Bobby: State workers pay taxes, they own homes, they support the infrastructure and more importantly than anything else, they VOTE! I hope Mr. Jindal realizes that his time is coming and he will reap what he is now sowing. Since I’m a Christian, I will not wish any particular ill will upon Piyush, I will make this prayer however, I hope God gives Piyush “Bobby” Jindal what he truly deserves. Amen!
DHH and the Governor’s Office needs a lot more legislative oversight and maybe some some investigation into their terrorist tactics. It is time to take a strong look at a violation of First Amendment rights!
So Jindal hires the best qualified person to unclassified jobs on one condition, they MUST agree with everything he says.