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Archive for August, 2013

Difference in Jindal’s 2012 retirement ‘reform’ and these retirement gigs brings double standard into sharp focus

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Boards, Civil Service, Congress, GOHSEP, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, Transparency on August 10, 2013| 13 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—You may recall Gov. Bobby Jindal’s ill-fated retirement “reform” bills of 2012, all written by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and introduced individually by Jindal’s lackeys in the House and Senate.

An example of how those “reforms” would have worked if passed can be found in the case of a single state employee whom we know but who is representative of thousands of state civil service workers.

In her case, she was (and still is, given that no civil service pay raises have been approved for five years now) making $52,000 per year and had 20 years’ service in 2012 (21 now). Her plan was to put in 30 years and retire. At her current pay, with no pay raises for the remainder of her career (which appears more likely with each year of the Jindal administration), she would retire at $39,000 per year. With inflation and no raises taken into account, $39,000 a year won’t go very far.

Had Jindal’s “reforms” passed, however, her annual retirement would have been reduced to $6,000 per year—a $33,000 per-year hit. And state employees do not pay into nor do they receive Social Security benefits. Six thousand dollars per year for 30 years’ service. Period.

And she was not an anomaly; stories like this would have been the case throughout state government.

Jindal claimed his retirement package was aimed at restoring the various state retirement systems to some semblance of stability by reducing the unfunded liabilities. But rather than continue to pay the state’s share of contributions to the systems those payments were actually reduced.

The bottom line is Jindal has complete and total disdain for the plight of those in the trenches—the ones who actually make state government work by showing up for work each day (which is certainly more than he does, given his extensive travel itinerary) and listening to the complaints of hostile citizens who don’t understand why they have so much difficulty getting the services they need—from road repairs to college and university infrastructure repair to services for the developmentally disabled where the waiting list is 10,000 persons—and growing. http://theadvocate.com/news/6739937-123/la-officials-try-to-shrink

And he’s made their job much harder by laying off rank and file employees while fattening the unclassified (appointed, non-civil service) payroll.

At the same time, he has been careful to take care of favored legislators with six-figure, do-nothing jobs which serve only to beef up their retirement benefits, some by more than tenfold.

LouisianaVoice, with the information available, did a before and after calculation of retirement benefits for several of those washed up legislators and local politicians. All calculations were based on the assumption they will remain in their new lofty positions at least three years. Here is what we found:

  • Former Rep. Jane Smith, by virtue of her appointment by Jindal to Deputy Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue at a yearly salary of $107,500, saw her retirement benefits climb from a modest $6,700 a year to $56,400 annually.
  • Former Rep. Kay Katz, appointed to the Louisiana Tax Commission at a $56,000 yearly salary will go from $6,700 per year to $29,400 a year in retirement benefits.
  • Troy Hebert who left the House to assume directorship of the State Alcohol and Tobacco Control Board, went from $4,500 to $37,500.
  • Lane Carson, who recently retired as Secretary of the Louisiana Office of Veterans Affairs at $130,000 after five years on the job will retire at nearly $64,000 instead of about $7,500 on the basis of his service in the legislature.
  • Former St. Tammany Parish President and now Director of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) at $165,000 and former St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro, now the $150,000 Director of Hazard Mitigation and Recovery are only guesses. Because we are unsure of their previous salaries or their tenure in office, we have arbitrarily given them 15-year tenures (including their current positions) which put their retirement at $85,000 and $75,000, respectively—estimates both.
  • Former State Sen. Robert Barham saw his modest $7,500 legislative retirement balloon to $84,500 on the basis of his $124,000-a-year position as Secretary of the Louisiana Office of Wildlife and Fisheries.
  • We already wrote about Congressman Rodney Alexander who is leaving Congress to accept Lane Carson’s former position as Secretary of the Louisiana Office of Veterans Affairs at $130,000, a comfortable position that will boost his retirement from 15 years in the Louisiana Legislature prior to his election to Congress from $7,500 to $83,500.
  • But the grand prize goes to former State Rep. Noble Ellington. His 16 years in the House earned him a pension of about $8,900 but his hiring by Commissioner of Insurance Jim Donelon (at the behest of Jindal—his fingerprints are all over this appointment) as Deputy Commissioner of Insurance brought his retirement to almost $100,000 ($99,750).

Smith, Katz, Hebert, Carson, Barham, Alexander and Ellington qualify or will qualify for a combined retirement of more than $455,000 per year—an increase of $395,700 (667 percent) over their pre-Jindal appointment collective annual legislative retirement incomes of $59,300.

Now we harken back to Jindal’s aborted retirement “reform” which would have reduced our friend’s retirement from $39,000 to $6,000. On contrasting the two scenarios, one must ask, “What’s wrong with this picture?”

What is wrong is we have a governor who is just as slick and oily with the filthy ooze of dirty politics as any governor in the history of this state—while cloaking himself in the mantel of righteousness.

What is wrong is we have a governor who knows how to enrich his friends and stick it to everyone else—while pretending to act in the best interests of the state.

What is wrong is that we have a governor who entered Congress in January of 2005 as a man of modest means but emerged three years later as governor a multi-millionaire—and no one has asked how that happened.

What is wrong is that we have a governor who has demonstrated repeatedly that he has no compassion for the sick, the elderly, the developmentally disadvantaged, the mentally ill, state workers—and certainly not Louisiana citizens in general.

And what is wrong is we have a governor who does all that while hiding behind a façade of honesty, integrity, transparency and a “gold standard” of governmental ethics.

And now that same governor is attempting to call the shots in the election to fill the unexpired term of Rodney Alexander by promoting his puppet State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) for Congress. He did this by manipulating (a) the timing of Alexander’s retirement, (b) his immediate offer of a cushy job to Alexander, (c) turning over former Chief of Staff Timmy Teepell and chief fundraiser Allie Bautsch to work on Riser’s behalf, and (d) sewing up endorsements from State Sen. Mike Walsworth (R-West Monroe) and a host of Louisiana Republic congressmen, including former Payday Loan magnate John Fleming of Minden.

We in Louisiana are used to being conned by crooked politicians but they did it with so much more class than Jindal and his gaggle of sycophants.

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CenLamar blog posts a few hard-hitting questions for State Sen. Neil Riser relative to sudden congressional candidacy

Posted in Uncategorized on August 10, 2013| 6 Comments »

Often one of our fellow bloggers like Bob Mann, C.B. Forgotston or Crazy Crawfish will post something that makes us say, “Wow! I wish I’d said that!”

Our friend Lamar White (CenLamar) has done just that today (Saturday, Aug. 10) with a list of questions put to State Sen. Neil Riser and his candidacy for retiring Congressman Rodney Alexander’s seat in a development where both moves (Alexander’s retirement and Riser’s announcement) looks suspiciously well-coordinated:

http://cenlamar.com/

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Jindal mainstays Teepell, Bautsch said to be going to work on behalf of State Sen. Neil Riser’s Congressional campaign

Posted in Congress, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Uncategorized on August 9, 2013| 12 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—The word out of Baton Rouge is that OnMessage, the political consulting out of Alexandria, VA., that made Timmy Teepell head of its newly established Southern office, is a little disenchanted with Gov. Bobby Jindal’s alter-ego.

Teepell was hired after Jindal won his re-election in 2011 to drum up business for OnMessage and he immediately signed up Congressman Bill Cassidy who subsequently fired Teepell before paying him or OnMessage a dime.

Teepell was supposed to be the Grover Norquist of Louisiana—able to get his candidates to leap tall political polls in a single bound and to attract money like vultures to a rotten meat wagon (a somehow appropriate analogy).

But something no one counted on occurred: Jindal’s poll numbers tanked and suddenly Teepell couldn’t scare up any bidness for the partners back in Virginia and things began to get a little testy.

Of course it’s difficult to be a rainmaker when you spend all your time on the fourth floor of the Capitol, controlling Jindal’s every move and mood.

Coinciding with the rumored parting of the ways in the future between Teepell and OnMessage is the Rodney Alexander exit from Congress. Enter State Sen. Neil Riser in one of the most transparently-orchestrated political moves in recent history. Oh, sure, spokespersons for both Alexander and Riser (and Jindal, for that matter—if one could ever pen them down long enough to get them off Twitter) will deny that the fix was in but, c’mon, we may have been born at night but it wasn’t last night.

Of course Alexander had to have something to fall back on; he couldn’t be expected to make it on his congressional pension and social security.

The fact that Jindal was waiting in the wings to offer Alexander that $130,000-a-year job as Secretary of the Louisiana Office of Veterans Affairs that could bump his state retirement from about $7,900 to $81,900 per year was just a little too coincidental. Our friends at another blog, The Daily Kingfish, pointed out that the skids had been greased some time ago by State Sen. Mike Walsworth (R-West Monroe) and Alexander’s fellow Congressman John Fleming. (Walsworth, you might remember, was the one who asked a teacher during a committee hearing if her class was growing humans from cultures in her science lab.)

Now, word is, both Teepell and Jindal’s chief fundraiser, Alexandra “Allie” Bautsch, will be working on Riser’s behalf for the next couple of months until the election—but for her firm The Bautsch Group (which is still in good standing with the Secretary of State) and not OnMessage. That should sound the death knell for the Teepell-OnMessage partnership. You can probably expect the announcement of their transfer to Riser’s campaign any Friday now. Jindal prefers making those kinds of announcements late on Fridays so as not to attract too much media attention.

Bautsch at one time held the dual role of chief fundraiser for Jindal and treasurer of the Supriya Jindal Foundation for Louisiana’s Children.

She apparently is more proficient at fund-raising than Teepell is at attracting new clients. Since Jindal’s re-election, she has pulled in more than $1.2 million—and this for a lame-duck governor who insists he has no aspirations to higher office.

Of course, Jindal could, if he wishes to do so, pour much of that money into the campaign of a preferred candidate—like Riser.

So, with the Jindal crowd actively working on behalf of Riser, better known for his whack-o gun rights bills than anything else he’s ever done in Baton Rouge (a conflict of interest, we might add, given that he runs a couple of funeral homes), it would appear that he might be a shoo-in for the position, right?

Maybe not.

There is also word that Monroe’s Harris Brown might challenge Riser. The former President of the Tensas Basin Levee District, Brown is a capable politician who has—and can raise—money, is likable and who knows his way around well enough to be a viable opponent

There are other potential candidates as well—one, Louisiana Tech alumnus Adam Terry, who would have the important backing of Ruston’s James Davison who is a former Jindal ally but who became disenchanted when the governor stopped taking his phone calls.

Terry is Alexander’s chief of staff, so he ran and won, he would enter office already knowing the important contacts inside the Beltway.

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Jindal minions use Twitter to attack pesky bloggers who dare criticize their boss but look like playground bullies instead

Posted in Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Retirement, Transparency on August 9, 2013| 7 Comments »

It looks as though they’re starting to get really thin-skinned on the fourth floor of the State Capitol.

First it was Timmy Teepell, the alter-ego for Gov. Bobby Jindal, who engaged Bob Mann in a Twitter war of words over the ice purchased for Hurricane Isaac. You will remember that the bottom line price for the ice was $28 per 10-pound bag after paying $7.1 million that included “loitering time” for truck drivers, ice purchases and restocking fees—and then allowing the ice to melt in an unrefrigerated storage building in St. Tammany Parish.

Now, Jindal’s assistant chief of staff Kyle Plotkin has weighed in with a few tweets of his own to Mann and his comments smack of juvenile playground retorts—not very dignified for someone who serves as Jindal’s public mouthpiece. Also not very mature for someone who has to know that any elected official, especially a governor, is going to be subjected to close scrutiny and criticism—by bloggers and voters. http://bobmannblog.com/2013/08/08/jindal-aide-to-bloggers-and-tweeters-shut-your-traps/#more-3038

“I knew that Gov. Bobby Jindal and his staff were intolerant of dissent,” Mann wrote in his introductory remarks. “Jindal has fired so many people who disagreed with him that we’ve all lost count.

“But until now, I assumed that the intolerance extended only to people who work for Jindal, not journalists and bloggers who critique Jindal’s leadership or policies. You know, citizens, who speak out in a democracy in a way that the Founders thought was essential for a strong democracy.

“But in Jindal’s world, dissent is not tolerated in any form. But at least they had the good sense to keep their intolerance of citizens’ commentary to themselves.

“Until Thursday night, that is.”

This time the exchange was over Mann’s repeated claim on his blog Something like the Truth that the administration, in its dogged pursuit of education “reform,” fails to take the state’s poverty rate into account when addressing school achievement.

“In every country, ever state, that has tried every possible reform, the achievement gap doesn’t close until poverty addressed,” Mann tweeted, followed by a quick “Oh yeah? So’s your old man” type retort by Plotkin.

“I’ve got an idea,” he fired back at Mann, “run 4 gov. Put ur ideas up 4 debate instead of just tweeting & complaining.”

Ouch. That’ll leave a mark. Did Plotkin somehow forget that Jindal’s approval ratings at the present time are in the 30-something percent range?

Mann, in an apparent effort to keep the exchange on a higher plane, responded, “You really think no one can legitimately criticize you without first running for office? Seriously?”

“If ur ideas are so great. (sic) Go try and change the world,” Plotkin sniffed back.

Referencing one of the worst episodes of any television series, Mann harkened back to the 1977 Happy Days episode in which Fonzie, in an effort to boost the show’s sinking ratings, jumped a shark while on water skis—thus giving birth to a term synonymous with acts of desperation. “You and your administration officially jumped the shark on that one,” he wrote.

At that point, education blogger Crazy Crawfish, who has gained a reputation for his research and documentation with his own blog about public education, chimed in with, “He’s got a point. Jindal and his disciples like Kyle Plotkin are changing the world. Just a shame it’s not for the better.”

Mann got in the last shots on his blog:

“Just contemplate what it means if that’s truly the opinion of (the) governor’s senior staff—that you shouldn’t speak out or criticize the governor unless you become a candidate for public office. Everyone else, keep quiet. The public sphere isn’t for mere citizens!!”

Mann said he feels his 14-year-old son’s tweets would be “more mature and more circumspect than Plotkin’s.

“And, unlike Plotkin, he also knows about the First Amendment,” he wrote.

It would be nice if these were the only examples of Jindal’s people putting their mouths in motion before putting their brains in gear. Or, in the vernacular of my late grandfather: letting one’s alligator mouth overload his jaybird backside.

Unfortunately, they appear not to be the exception, but a trend.

Back in early 2012, I had my own legitimacy called into question by the administration. When Jindal presented his Executive Budget to the legislature, Division of Administration (DOA) spokesman Michael Diresto was handing out copies of the budget to the media. When I stepped up to get one, he informed me they were only for members of the media who had offices in the press corps area of the Capitol.

I motioned to a reporter to whom he had just handed a copy and said, “He doesn’t have an office in the Capitol.”

“They’re for legitimate media only,” he said. “You’re not legitimate.”

Inasmuch as I was a “traditional” reporter for a quarter-century and I now cover state government for about a dozen newspapers statewide in addition to my blog, I was naturally curious as to what equated to legitimacy in his narrow view.

I eventually got a copy of the budget but only after appealing to then Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater.

And then there is retiring Congressman Rodney Alexander.

Alexander, whom Jindal offered the position of Secretary of the Louisiana Office of Veterans Affairs (he served six years in the U.S. Air Force Reserve) at $130,000 per year, apparently feels much the same way about the First Amendment.

Walter Abbott of Ruston has a blog called Lincoln Parish Online and on Thursday he alluded to an interview Alexander did with the Ouachita Citizen of West Monroe. In that interview, Alexander indicated he had a problem with social media and “non-traditional” news outlets such as blogs. http://lincolnparishnewsonline.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/alexander-unhappy-with-people-who-are-not-necessarily-in-the-news-business/

“The Facebook and all of that—people who are not necessarily in the news business—are driving what people do, and at times, that’s had a very negative impact on how the Congress operates.”

(Funny we didn’t hear him complain when Dan Rather was disgraced and forced into retirement by bloggers over that bogus Texas Air National Guard letter about George W. Bush.)

No, Congressman-cum-double dipper, bloggers aren’t the problem. Congress itself is the one dominating factor in the negative impact on how Congress operates. How dare you try to foist the inability of 535 lobbyist-purchased senators and representatives to accomplish squat onto a handful of bloggers. That’s a cop out and you know it.

Apparently, Alexander feels that the First Amendment is applicable only to those who are paid to write in traditional media, says blogger-attorney C.B. Forgotston of Hammond. “He blames the ills of our country on those of us who express our views in non-traditional ways,” C.B. wrote. “We caused Congress to be a do-nothing group. Yeah, right.

“If Alexander can’t take the heat of hearing from citizens of the United States, (it) isn’t going to be any more comfortable working on the state dole for Bobby Jindal. Yes, we have Internet in Louisiana,” Forgotston wrote.

“Rodney, if you are so concerned about the public outcry, perhaps you should refuse Jindal’s job offer and come back to Louisiana as a private citizen. You might find it educational to learn what it’s like to be a mere citizen and why we are upset with people like you who look down your nose at us.

“Meanwhile, get over yourself before you come back to our state.”

In his interview with the Ouachita Citizen, Alexander was less than candid about his future plans when asked. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Something will come up.” http://www.ouachitacitizen.com/news.php?id=12879

That “something” already had come up. Jindal officially extended his offer of a job the day after his announcement that he would not seek re-election in 2014 but anyone who does not believe the fix was already in, has his head in the sand.

Here is the scenario:

Those in the employ of the state, including legislators, are eligible to retire at 2.5 percent of the average of their three highest-earning years times the number of years of service. An employee making an average of $50,000 for a minimum of three years who retires after 20 years, for example, would retire at $25,000 per year. ($50,000 X .025 X 20).

Alexander served in the legislature 15 years, from January 1988 to January 2003, at which time he entered Congress. While he took out his contributions to the state retirement system (LASERS), he would have the option of buying back his time when he begins his new job. The retirement benefits for legislators, based on salaries of less than $20,000 and his years of service would not be that much, but if he remains on the job for the duration of Jindal’s term (three-plus years) at $130,000, the numbers change rather dramatically.

Because of his age, if he chooses to buy back his time, his retirement would be at 3.5 percent of $15,000 (an arbitrary figure; it was probably less back then), times 15 years of service would come to $7,875 per year.

But take an average of $130,000 per year and add three more years to his tenure and his retirement income would take quite a jump. Suddenly, at 3.5 percent of $130,000 times 18 years, that retirement increases more than tenfold, to $81,900 per year—in addition to his federal retirement (based on his 10-year tenure and his final three-year average salary of $174,000), plus his Social Security benefits.

No wonder Alexander and the Jindal administration hold bloggers in such low esteem: we can do the math.

Perhaps those of you reading this would wish to email Plotkin at kyle.plotkin@la.gov

or call the governor’s office at 225-342-7015 to let them know that you can do the math, too—just for fun, of course.

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Never let anyone say Gov. Jindal isn’t green; no one is better at recycling old politicians into cushy retirement positions

Posted in ATC, Congress, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, State Agencies on August 8, 2013| 19 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—Gov. Bobby Jindal is green and we can prove it.

He must have the welfare of the environment uppermost in his mind. He is all about recycling. The man was born to recycle. Just examine this list:

  • He recycled defeated State Rep. Jane Smith to Deputy Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue at $107,500.
  • He recycled former State Rep. Kay Katz to the Louisiana Tax Commission ($56,000).
  • He recycled former St. Tammany Parish President and defeated lieutenant governor candidate Kevin Davis to Director of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness ($165,000).
  • He recycled former Slidell police chief and mayor Ben Morris into a position at GOHSEP (unknown salary).
  • He recycled former House members Rickey Hardy, Tank Powell and Mert Smiley and former Grant Parish Sheriff Leonard Hataway to the State Pardon Board ($36,000 each).
  • He recycled former State Rep. Noble Ellington to Deputy Commissioner of Insurance ($150,000).
  • He recycled defeated St. Barnard Parish President Craig Taffaro as the new Director of Hazard Mitigation and Recovery ($150,000).
  • He recycled term-limited State Rep. Troy Hebert as Director of the Alcohol and Tobacco Control Board ($107,000).
  • He recycled former State Sen. Nick Gautreaux to Commissioner of the Office of Motor Vehicles (no salary available, but it doesn’t matter; he was forced out after a few months).
  • He has recycled former executive counselors Tim Barfield and Jimmy Fairchild more times than we can count and Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols has been recycled a few times in her own right.
  • He recycled former State Rep. Lane Carson to Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs ($130,000).
  • And now that Carson is retiring after four years on the job, we get word that Jindal is recycling Congressman Rodney Alexander to fill Carson’s post.

No sooner did Alexander announce on Wednesday that he was retiring from Congress because of his stated dissatisfaction with partisan gridlock than Jindal made the offer.

Major League Baseball’s managerial revolving door has nothing on Jindal when it comes to running the same tired old names through the system, allowing them to fatten their retirements even as Jindal is laying off state employees who need their jobs—and who actually perform work as opposed to these appointees who only occupy a desk and suck on the public teat.

It just seems to us that there are others out there who are equally—or more—qualified for these positions and it gets more disgusting with each appointment of the same fat cats to these six-figure jobs.

Of course, we know the underlying reason for recycling all these washed-up legislators: it’s to bump up their retirement benefits—at the expense of you, the taxpayer.

You see, legislators don’t really make that much in outright salary, so their retirement benefits aren’t that much—unless they can secure a six-figure job and remain in it for three years. Retirement is computed at 2.5 percent of one’s highest three years of average earnings times the number of years of service. Thus, 2.5 percent of $130,000 is considerably more than 2.5 percent of $16,000 or so.

Now with Alexander, it’s different: he already has a federal pension from his tenure as a congressman. But now, even though he cashed in his legislative retirement from his days in the legislature, he can buy all that time back and draw a state pension based on his $130,000 salary for the final three years of Jindal’s administration.

Nice gig if you happen to have the stroke to get it and of course there’s nothing like being governor and having the power to screw the taxpayers while running around preaching fiscal responsibility and laying off state workers.

Granted, we are a bit jaded and cynical from covering this administration, but if someone can convince me that fix wasn’t already in on this retirement/appointment, we’re willing to listen.

We can’t help but wonder what Alexander’s duties will entail, duties that someone else was not qualified to perform—especially since Jindal already gave out all those veterans’ medals before his 2011 re-election.

Thanks, Bobby and thanks, Rodney, for all that “good, ethical government.”

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