State Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard believes he may have found a way in which to cut into the state budget deficit to the tune of about half-a-billion dollars.
HB-73 by Richard would require a 10 percent reduction in the total dollar amount for professional, personal and consulting service contracts under the jurisdiction of the Office of Contractual Review (OCR) for Fiscal Year 2013-14.
The proposed law also would require the OCR to submit reports on the status of the implementation of the law to the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget on Oct. 1, 2013, Jan., April 1 and July 1 of 2014.
It also would require that the OCR director to submit a monthly report to the House Appropriations Committee summarizing all contracts and dollar values awarded the previous month.
The Legislative Fiscal Office (LFO) said the annual report of the OCR released in January of this year showed there were 2,284 professional, personal and consulting contracts with the state with a combined contract value of approximately $5.28 billion.
The LFO said the bill would result in an “indeterminable decrease” in overall state expenditures in FY-14. “To the extent this bill would have been enacted during the 2012 regular legislative session, the projected 10 percent reduction in the value of OCR approved professional, personal and consulting services contracts for FY-13 would have equated to approximately $528 million less,” the LFO’s fiscal notes said.
Richard’s bill would allow exceptions but only if certain conditions were met, namely:
• There were no state employees available or capable of performing the needed work;
• Required services are not available as a product of a prior or existing contract;
• There be a written plan to monitor and evaluate performance of the contract;
• The proposed contract would be determined to be a priority expenditure by the Commissioner of Administration.
Such a reduction, should it be approved and implemented, would help close a gaping budget hole of hundreds of millions of dollars for the state.
Louisiana Voice 
The Department Of Ed should be added to that bill.
V
I agree with this entirely. Teach for America workers have to be one of the largest outsourced contracts in LA. No certification and no accountability: what an appetite for abuse that exists there?
Love this Bill! Take a five minute spin on LaTrac and it’s evident that this State doesn’t have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem! This is a step in the right direction!
The proposed contract would be determined to be a priority expenditure by the Commissioner of Administration.
That sounds like a hole big enough for Ms. Nichols to drive a dump truck through.
Fredster: My sentiments exactly.
Mine, too.
Short sighted. This will only result in needed ones getting cut and the useless ones for their cronies staying in place.
Another good point. What is required is a common-sense review of all these contracts, followed by holding the department heads we are paying 6 figures to manage these departments accountable. The question is, who is going to hold them accountable? The answer is apparently nobody who is in a position to do so.
No state employees to perform the work……
State procurement code is a complicated mess that has evolved to prevent massive abuses that have occurred over the years, but the end result is that procurement in this state takes forever. No successful business procures materiels in this way. The proposed legislation will not decrease the budget by 10%, but instead, will only slow the pace of procurement even further. WHy not just institute an across the board 10% decrease in all DoA departments?
Sometimes slowing the pace is the best we can hope for. Across the board cuts of any kind only punish the good along with the bad and give managers excuses for not managing. Believe it or not, there are some good agencies – even in the DOA. Of course, the philosophy sometimes seems to be the better job they are doing. the likelier their candidacies for privatization.
Across the board cuts of any kind only punish the good along with the bad
Exactly Stephen. All you have to do is to look at the federal sequester to see what happened there to see what happened to Head Start, Medicare, Food inspections, NOAA and other agencies.
^ Me above. That was so poorly written I apologize from the bottom of my heart but I hope you get the drift of it.
IMHO, Mr. Richard is the most ethical member of our elected officials. I wish he would run for Gov. At least he would try to make things right from a common sense perspective.
Doesn’t OCR only review contracts that exceed $50,000? Lots of state agencies dodge this by running a series of smaller contracts at just under the 50k level. The DOE spin doctor that lives in Florida is working on a series of four-month contracts at $12k per month, an arrangement that may be extended for up to three years. And just under the OCR radar.
2284 Contracts seems like a large number, but it really isn’t that insurmountable. For instance, there are over a dozen contracts to people to review and approve Course Choice Providers. There is the contract to “warehouse” student information with inBloom. Contracts with Course Choice providers. How many contracts regarding the voucher program administration? Those are now all illegal so they all go away in their entirety.
The right people (honest state employees disgusted with obvious waste and political patronage) could and would gladly identify in no more than a week I’d estimate $2 Billion+ in contracts to cancel or defund.
Tom Aswell has personally reviewed this entire list and he has identified hundreds of $millions in waste, corruption, and just plain stupidity. He and a select few other Bloggers and a couple of mainstream media writers have singlehandedly turned this State away from the brink. Give them a shot at bringing fiscal sanity to the State contracting realm. I’d bet they could finish the task in 7 days and in so doing create a new world in which we grateful citizens will thrive and flourish.
Unfortunately Tom is not in the legislature. And Dee’s proposal, I would conjecture, is to make a point on the floor rather than solve a problem that has ballooned over the past 6 years. You know, kind of a “Bayou John the Baptist”.
As one who used to deal with contracts, it is strictly a play of words. The ones who can write descriptively will always win out
Unless there is a revolution about to occur in the Legislature, I predict this bill will not get any traction. I also predict that you will see the volume of contracts and most certainly the related dollar values of contracts continue to escalate, all under the guise of reducing the size of state government. Some of the “back office” consolidation projects proposed by the Commissioner’s office are nothing more than management by org chart. Place like titles with like titles. Don’t worry about unique duties, responsibilities, or business processes. If something breaks, then obviously we don’t have any state employees that ‘can do the job’, so let’s find a contractor. Now we can get rid of even more state employees. Fewer employees means smaller government right? Who cares about the reduced quality of service and the much higher cost to tax payers? Group Benefits, Risk Management, healthcare, charter schools/vouchers/online courses, call centers, print services, state buildings, information technology, revenue collection…… Welcome to the State of Louisiana brought to you by Corporate America. Please have your credit card ready. Folks, if you think we have a budget/spending problem today just wait until the final tab of this administration comes due. I also shutter to think about the cost to repair the damage, and in some cases total destruction, they are creating.
In all honesty folks, this is really a simple bill. There are actually at least 20,000 of these consulting contracts and the bill would REQUIRE that the administration cut by 10% the total value of last year’s contracts (fy2012-13). Irregardless of who (Comm of ADmin., etc) does the cutting the bill says they shall cut 10%. I’m astounded by you naysayers who disagree with this. Its only one cost-cutting measure but if it saves a quarter of a billion dollars I’m for it. dee
Rep. Richard…Thanks so much for your response. I do appreciate your efforts, and I applaud your goal. As one person suggested, I think the outcome of the proposed law will likely be to reduce the throughput of contract approval by 10%. If contracts are approved more slowly, then the result should be a decrease in the amount spent on contracts. Of course, to ensure that contracts are approved (even) more slowly, the approval process will likely become even more tedious. As before, politically astute agency leaders will continue to gain approval more quickly than administrators in other agencies. I would really like to see administrative processes improve in tandem with the cost savings, but improving administrative processes while saving money may be hoping for too much.
lamiss
Rep Richard, I do applaud your bill. I simply have serious reservations that Bobby and Kristy will abide by it.
Rep Richard, I do applaud your bill. I simply have serious reservations that Bobby and Christy will abide by it.