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Archive for March, 2013

More layoffs imminent? Reports have DEQ, DNR merging HR and IT sections; other changes may also be proposed

Posted in Civil Service, Jobs, Layoffs, State Agencies on March 2, 2013| 5 Comments »

While the Jindal administration has said nothing publicly, more major changes may be in the offing with the merger of departments of three major agencies as a means of further reducing the number of state employees, according to confidential state sources.

A public meeting was held two weeks ago among workers in one of the agencies to be affected by the proposed merger of human resources, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF).

The immediate goal is apparently to lay off about one-third of the staff of the agencies being merged. Initial reports indicate that DEQ and DNR will merge their human resources and information technology sections.

The move is anticipated to save about $3 million, one source told LouisianaVoice.

Other changes as yet unconfirmed have the human resources section of the Louisiana Department of Revenue (LDR) being moved under the Division of Administration along with five departments of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB).

Efforts at creating a state Environmental Protection Agency in 1972 failed and much of the enforcement of environmental violations was left to LDWF and DNR. It wasn’t until 1984 that DEQ was officially created during former Gov. Dave Treen’s administration to relieve the other two agencies of their enforcement responsibilities and moved its offices from the DNR building.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Auditor, Health Care, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables on March 1, 2013| 6 Comments »

“In January 2011, DHH eliminated all but one internal audit position. In February, the one remaining auditor retired, leaving no internal audit function at all at the end of Fiscal Year 2011.

“Each year, in the Appropriations Act, the Legislature requires agencies with budgets in excess of $30 million to use existing positions for internal audit services.

“Considering DHH has over $650 million in assets and over $7 billion in annual revenue, an effective internal audit function is critical to safeguard state assets and operations.”

—Wes Gooch, audit manager for the Legislative Auditor’s Office, in testimony before the Legislative Audit Advisory Council on Feb. 21.

“I am outraged that a member of our staff would allegedly willfully misuse public funds that were intended for health care services.”

—DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein, in a prepared statement Friday after it was learned that a DHH employee in the Bureau of Health Care Integrity is suspected of misappropriating $800,000 in DHH funds.

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Greenstein eliminates internal audit function at DHH; two years later, $800K misappropriated (privatization at work)

Posted in Auditor, Health Care, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, Privatization on March 1, 2013| 7 Comments »

Two years after the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) eliminated its six internal audit positions, an employee of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) has been placed on leave and is expected to be fired and prosecuted for the misappropriation of more than $800,000 in state funds, LouisianaVoice has learned.

The employee, a woman, is accused of depositing checks made payable to DHH into a non-DHH account. She would then withdraw the funds from that account for personal use, investigators said. The internal investigation was conducted by DHH’s Bureau of Health Care Integrity.

In addition to conducting its own investigation, DHH notified the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office and the office of East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore. The district attorney’s office will be asked to conduct an external investigation and to prosecute the employee. Restitution also will be sought by DHH.

“In January of 2011, DHH eliminated all but one internal audit position and the following month the one remaining auditor retired, leaving no internal audit function at all at the end of Fiscal Year 2011,” Wes Gooch of the Legislative Auditor’s office told a meeting of the Legislative Audit Advisory Council just over a week ago, on Feb. 21.

He said a recent audit showed for the second year, there was “no effective internal audit function” at DHH.

“In December of 2011, DHH contracted with one auditor to perform internal audit services from December 2011 through December of 2012,” he said. “In May of 2012, this contractor submitted a proposed updated internal audit charter and one internal audit report. No other internal audit activity occurred that year,” Gooch said.

“In June of 2012, this contractor exercised the contract termination clause, leaving no internal audit function in place at the end of 2012.

Gooch told the seven legislators in attendance that each year in the Appropriations Act, “the Legislature requires agencies with budgets in excess of $30 million to use existing positions for internal audit services.

“Considering that DHH has over $650 million in assets and over $7 billion in annual revenue, an effective internal audit function is critical to safeguard state assets and operations,” he said in his testimony.

For his part, DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein was appropriately outraged over the latest findings. We know this because he said so. “I am outraged that a member our staff would allegedly willfully misuse public funds that were intended for health care services,” he said in a prepared statement.

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$12 trillion NGO request to legislature from mythical Georgia applicant manages to sneak onto 2013 wish list

Posted in Budget, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Revenue on March 1, 2013| 9 Comments »

Non-government organizations (NGOs) traditionally submit requests for funding each year before the legislature convenes but in recent years those projects have met with increasing difficulty obtaining needed revenue given the financial plight of the state.

NGOs include organizations like councils on aging, various foundations, the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport, local tourism associations, and even the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and in the past, requests have numbered as many as 450 as recently as 2010 but that number has dropped off sharply to 170 in 2011, about 90 last year and just 81 so far this year.

Many of those that were approved by the legislature were subsequently vetoed by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Among this year’s submissions are requests for:

• $3.25 million for the 2014 NBA All-Star Host Committee;

• $544,000 for the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation;

• $280,577 for the New Orleans Bowl;

• $2.47 million for the Jazz Festival;

• $2.5 million for the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport;

• $403,100 for the Washington Parish Fair;

• $12 trillion for the National Security Agency’s Leonard Cross Hendrickson, Jr.

Wait. What? How much and for whom?

That’s right: $12 trillion for something called the National Security Agency’s Leonard Cross Hendrickson, Jr.

Obviously, the request is someone’s (probably someone named Leonard Cross Hendrickson, Jr.) idea of a joke.

And the fact that the request actually got past whatever passes for the legislature’s screening process or committee indicates Hendrickson’s joke is an unqualified success.

To request NGO funding, entities must complete a detailed questionnaire, which Hendrickson did but some of the answers he provided should be a cause of some red faces somewhere in the state bureaucracy.

Let’s start with the requesting recipient entity’s mailing address: 7998 Hwy. 5, Douglasville, GA.

An out-of-state entity seeing a state appropriation of $12 trillion (the national budget is something in the neighborhood of $3.8 trillion) should have sent up sufficient red flags and triggered enough alarms to catch someone’s attention.

But wait. There’s more.

The request form asks applicants to provide the name of each member of the recipient entity’s governing board, to which Hendrickson obligingly listed the CIA, DEA, DNI (Director of National Intelligence) and the Bush administration.

“Provide a summary of the project or program,” the questionnaire instructed, to which Hendrickson responded: “Measure waste water from space and space-based earth assets control and code enforcements water cosmic ray shields.”

Had that nonsensical response appeared on a federal grant application, Hendrickson probably would have received the money.

“What is the budget relative to the project for which funding is requested?” was the next question on the application form. Hendrickson’s response was classic:

• Salaries—$75 million;

• Professional Services—$250 million;

• Contracts—$12 billion (with the Jindal administration, that’s entirely believable);

• Acquisitions—$9 billion;

• Major Repairs—$12 billion;

• Operating Services—$100 billion;

• Other Charges—$100 trillion.

If you did the math as you read this, you know that the last item, $100 trillion for “other charges” is more than eight times the total amount requested.

For his contact information, Hendrickson provided two telephone numbers, both in the Atlanta area code. One was a non-working number and a woman answered the second number only to say she had received several calls for Leonard Cross Hendrickson but that no such person lived at that number.

So we Googled Mr. Hendrickson and a web address appeared: http://www.lookwhogotbusted.com/douglas-county-ga/hendrickson-leonard-cross-2.

Against our every instinct, we clicked on the address and up popped a photo of a smiling man identified as “Hendrickson, Leonard Cross,” 35, who, according to the website, was booked into Douglas County, GA. Jail for probation violation.

We have no way of knowing why he was on probation or what he did to violate that probation but we have to give Mr. Hendrickson high marks for successfully sneaking in his request.

Now the big question remains: will it be approved by legislature and if so, will Jindal veto the appropriation?

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