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Archive for September, 2013

Could Sports Illustrated story on Oklahoma State be part of underhanded anti-SEC scheme by all those BCS also rans?

Posted in Uncategorized on September 12, 2013| 7 Comments »

It’s not often that we agree with the writers who ply their trade with The Hayride, a web blog that is decidedly pro-Bobby Jindal—especially when the blog refers to Baton Rouge District Judge Janice Clark as a “bully” for threatening to jail members of the LSU Board of Stuporvisors for their failure to comply with her order to release public records to the media.

That said, we rarely call out other bloggers for their opinions because we believe in everyone’s right to his or her own opinions. It’s a position we hope they hold in the same high regard and to date, The Hayride has called me out only once and that was for a sloppy error on my part.

So, we both go about doing our thing, each reading the other on a regular basis and most times disagreeing with the other’s position. That’s the First Amendment working at its best and I hope it can remain that way.

Today’s post by Oscar about the Sports Illustrated series about Oklahoma State and Les Miles found us agreeing in part and adopting a slightly different conspiracy theory, thanks to the suggestion from a friend who put the bug in our ear.

  • That the SI exposé is a piece of tabloid journalism best suited for the now defunct Weekly World Guardian: agreed.
  • That the series was written by an Oklahoma Sooner fan who has his own agenda. Agreed.

But that is as far as our commonality of conspiracy theories goes. His is a bit limited and localized; mine is much more far-reaching and spiced with more intrigue, kind of like the grassy knoll, the inside job on the Twin Towers, Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate and CIA drone assassinations all rolled into one.

No, wait. That CIA drone assassination thing just might be real.

Oh, well, never mind. Here’s our theory.

The Southeastern Conference (SEC) has been kicking butt in the Bowl Championship Series, almost to the point of boredom.

Since 1998, its inaugural year, SEC teams have won nine titles. The ACC, Big Eight, Big East, Big Ten and PAC 12 divided the remaining six championships.

Even more humiliating to the other conferences, the SEC has won the last seven consecutive titles and eight of the last 10. And let’s not forget that in 2011, the championship game featured two SEC teams, Alabama and LSU. With the exception of LSU’s 2003 title and Auburn’s squeaker over Oregon in 2010, all 10 SEC wins have been by double digits.

We’ve already seen how anemic the NCAA is in both its ability to investigate reports of wrongdoing and to mete out appropriate punishment. To illustrate that weakness, one need only look at the Pete Carroll, Reggie Bush, USC “investigation,” the Cam Newton “investigation,” and the Johnny Manziel “punishment.” A half-game suspension? Really? If Manziel was innocent of selling his autographs (and we’re not suggesting guilt or innocence here), he should have received no punishment. If he was guilty, he should be ruled permanently ineligible under existing NCAA rules. A half-game suspension is a joke. Let’s just split the baby.

So, it is left to hack journalists, with the help of the weak sister conferences, to do the dirty work.

It’s this simple: Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma and USC can’t compete on the field with the SEC, so they compete in the only way they can—character assassination, innuendo, and stories based on interviews with players who may or may not have an axe to grind. No matter, if the stories can weaken the SEC’s stranglehold on the national championship it’ll open the door to those schools whose boosters are starting to grumble about the lack of top-tier competiveness.

This is not to say that “student-athletes” (I hate that term) don’t screw up. Of course they do; they’re kids away from home perhaps for the first time and they will test the waters. LSU has had its share under Miles and he did exactly what he should have done in each case: He fired the players. And they were front-line players: Ryan Perrilloux and Honey Badger Tyrann Mathieu (the latter after everyone in Baton Rouge had purchased black market Honey Badger T-shirts). I personally disagree with Miles’ decision to allow Jeremy Hill back on the team, but on balance, I like what I see in Miles as a decent human being and a very good coach, his detractors’ opinions notwithstanding.

I recently had lunch with Miles, along with my two sons-in-laws. One son-in-law was the successful bidder on the lunch which benefitted an organization for the hearing impaired. I went in expecting Miles to show up, go through the motions but to be largely aloof and distracted from the moment at hand, to simply go through the motions of fulfilling his public relations obligations.

What I saw was a man who was most attentive to his guests, quite talkative (a talkative Les Miles, imagine that!), friendly and receptive to any questions we might wish to lob his way. He spent most of the lunch talking about the difficulties experienced by his brother, who has been deaf since birth and how teachers initially believed him to be mentally retarded. We found a Les Miles who was able to talk openly about a very personal subject; we saw a man who was warm, open, congenial and personable—traits not normally associated with his predecessor at LSU.

But back to our original point. Is it coincidence that all those stories have come out in recent years about Florida, Auburn, Mississippi State, and now LSU? Three of the four—Florida, Auburn and LSU—have BCS championship trophies (LSU and Florida have two each). Mississippi State was indirectly involved in the sordid Auburn-Cam Newton story and LSU, in addition to being a two-time BCS champion, is joined at the hip with the latest accusations at Oklahoma State by virtue of Miles having coached at both schools.

Of course, it was never necessary to do a hatchet job on Arkansas. Former Coach Bobby Petrino took care of that himself in that bone-headed motorcycle accident with a female employee/girlfriend as his passenger.

Do the Florida, Auburn and Oklahoma State stories represent the opening salvos in the campaign to take down the SEC? Perhaps. Stranger things have happened.

If so, you can look for the next shoe to drop somewhere around Tuscaloosa. (‘Bama, after all, has three BCS trophies.) There are already stories circulating about former ‘Bama players Luther Davis and D.J. Fluker. Fluker, now with the San Diego Chargers, recently tweeted that he took money while a member of the Tide football team. That may explain why ‘Bama Coach Nick Saban lost his temper (what else is new?) and walked out on his weekly news conference on Thursday. (It also explains why I shall never have a Twitter account.)

Whether or not this scenario plays out, one thing is for sure: Sports Illustrated, like the rest of the print media, has fallen upon hard times. Unlike most other periodicals, however, SI seems to be taking desperately sordid measures to forestall the inevitable: the death of a once great but now sadly mediocre—or worse—publication.

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‘Deliberative process’ defense used to protect ALEC records in Texas; reminiscent of 2012 LouisianaVoice experience

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Transparency on September 11, 2013| 7 Comments »

Because we have all the metaphorical snakes we can kill right here in Louisiana, it’s rare that we dwell on events in other states unless there is a direct link to developments in the Louisiana political arena.

But a request for public records in Texas pertaining to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) under that state’s Freedom of Information Act raised a red flag when a favorite but questionable phrase of Louisiana officials was invoked by a Texas legislator in an effort to prevent the release of records.

For the record, we do not believe it a coincidence that the “deliberative process” ploy, so popular with Gov. Bobby Jindal and his minions reared its ugly head in Texas over the issue of whether or not ALEC records are public.

It is our opinion, impossible to prove because of the veil of secrecy thrown over this organization in an effort to conceal its agenda from public scrutiny, that Jindal did not originate the deliberative process maneuver to protect public records from becoming just that—public.

But he certainly knows how to use—perhaps abuse is a better word here—the exception that he slipped into a law that he proudly points to in his national travels as the “gold standard” of transparency that he rammed through the legislature in 2009.

While that 2009 law requires elected and appointed officials to disclose their personal finances, it did little to open up the records of the governor’s office to public examination.

Now, the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas (FOIFT) has filed a brief with the Texas Attorney General in support of a request for records by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD).

That request challenges ALEC’s efforts to declare its communications immune from state public records law—even communications with Texas elected officials.

FOIFT’s brief, filed late last month, supports CMD’s position and raises additional arguments countering claims by Rep. Stephanie Klick that the lobbying organizations communications with lawmakers are not subject to disclosure.

Texas was the first state in which ALEC made a formal request of the Attorney General that its records should be exempt from Texas sunshine-in-government laws. ALEC has even begun stamping documents with a disclaimer that says materials such as meeting agendas and model legislation are not subject to any state’s open records laws.

FOIFT counters that assertion by saying the arguments by Klick and ALEC are “mutually inconsistent.”

“Rep. Klick invokes the deliberative process privilege, which involves policy discussions internal to a governmental body,” not between a legislator and a third-party special interest group funded by lobbyists trying to influence legislation,” the brief says. At the same time, it says, “ALEC invokes its members’ First Amendment right of association, which involves its internal discussions and membership.”

Accordingly, it says, because ALEC is communication with Klick in her official capacity as a state representative, the requested documents should be officials records to which the public has a First Amendment right of access.

All of which raises the question of which came first the chicken (Jindal) or the egg (ALEC) insofar as the origination of deliberative process?

Our opinion, for what it’s worth, is that Jindal devised that ploy straight from ALEC’s playbook—just as have so many of his policies, from privatization of prisons and hospitals to school vouchers and charters to pension, healthcare and workers’ compensation reform to massive layoffs of state employees.

Jindal and his legislative floor leaders are in lock step with ALEC and that’s a sad commentary on those officials’ inability to think and act for themselves. Their every move is dictated by ALEC, which writes “model legislation” for its members to introduce in state legislators and assemblies back home.

Sometimes, lawmakers even forget to change key wording in their bills, exposing their efforts for what they are—shams, sacrifices offered up at the altar of profiteering enterprise either by puppets or co-conspirators.

It’s no wonder that ALEC wants to protect its records at all costs.

The affair in Texas is reminiscent of our own experience with Rep. Joe Harrison (R-Gray) in July of 2012.

Harrison, the State Chairman of ALEC, sent out a letter on state letterhead soliciting contributions of $1,000 each from an unknown number of recipients of his form letter to finance the travel of Louisiana legislative ALEC members to an ALEC conference in Salt Lake City set for July 25-28.

The letter opened by saying, “As State Chair and National Board Member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), I would like to solicit your financial support to our ALEC Louisiana Scholarship Fund.”

Not college scholarships, mind you, but to support “over thirty Louisiana Legislators serving on ALEC Task Forces.” Contributions, Harrison said, “will allow the opportunity (for legislators) to attend conferences funded by the ALEC Scholarship Fund.

“The conferences are packed with educational speakers and presenters, and gives (sic) the legislators a chance to interact with legislators from other states, including forums on Medicaid reform, sub-prime lending, environmental education, pharmaceutical litigation, the crisis in state spending, global warming and financial services and information exchange. All of these issues are import (sic) to the entire lobbying community.

“I, along with other members of the Louisiana Legislature, greatly appreciate your contribution to the scholarship fund. Your $1,000 check made payable to the ALEC Louisiana Scholarship Fund can be sent directly to me at 5058 West Main Street, Houma, Louisiana 70360.

LouisianaVoice submitted a public records request to Harrison requesting, since the contribution solicitation was written on Louisiana House of Representatives letterhead, that Harrison provide the identities of every person to whom the solicitation was sent.

Harrison never responded to the request but House Clerk Alfred “Butch” Speer jumped into the fray, responding, “I have looked further into your records (omitting the word “public” from our request). Rep Harrison sent that one letter to a single recipient,” he said, overlooking the fact that it was a form letter that opened with “Dear Friend.” Not a very personal way for a letter to be sent to a single recipient.

Also unexplained by Speer was how a single $1,000 contribution might cover the travel expenses of “over thirty” legislators to attend the conference.

Speer, ignoring that the letter was printed on state letterhead, said, “The origin of a document is not the determining factor as to its nature as a public record. Whether the letter was or was not composed on state letterhead…does not, per force, create a public record.

“What Rep. Harrison was attempting is of no moment unless he was attempting some business of the House,” he said.

Speer again apparently ignored the fact that the House and Senate routinely pay per diem, travel and lodging for lawmakers to attend ALEC conference. In fact, between 2008 and 2011, the House and Senate combined to pay 34 current and former members more than $70,000 for attending ALEC functions in New Orleans, San Diego, Washington, C.C., Phoenix, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Austin.

If those ALEC trips were not for state business, why in hell were the House and Senate shelling out that money for legislators’ expenses and per diem?

Mr. Speer’s reasons for protecting the names of the recipients of that letter was, to say the lease, quite disingenuous and his effort to protect that information goes against the grain of everything for which a public servant is sworn to uphold, protect and serve.

What’s more, his arguments don’t even come close to accurately defining what is and what is not a public record. We don’t claim to be attorneys at LouisianaVoice, but we can read the public records act.

For Mr. Speer’s erudition, it can be found in LA. R.S. 44:1-41 and Article XII, Section 3 of the Louisiana Constitution.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, Revenue, Taxes on September 7, 2013| 2 Comments »

“A lot of people know they owe money. This gives an opportunity for them to save some money and get the debt cleared.”

—Senate President John Alario (R-Westwego), on the two-month tax amnesty program that goes into effect on Sept. 23 and which will allow delinquent taxpayers to save 100 percent on penalties and half of the interest on their late taxes.

“By creating the Office of Debt Recovery and better collecting funds owed to the state, we can use taxpayer dollars more responsibly and ensure that we continue funding critical services like education and health care.”

—Gov. Bobby Jindal, on signing HB 629 (Act 399) into law, creating the Office of Debt Recovery within the Department of Revenue.

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Trying to reconcile spending millions to collect overdue state debts with granting amnesty to 300,000 deadbeat taxpayers

Posted in Budget, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Revenue, State Agencies, Taxes on September 7, 2013| 9 Comments »

Some things are just downright difficult to understand;

  • Item: On June 20, Gov. Bobby Jindal signed HB 629 (Act 399) into law. The bill, passed during the 2013 legislative session, created the Office of Debt Recovery within the Louisiana Department of Revenue for the collection of delinquent debts owed to certain government entities—taxes that one source said far exceed the official estimates.
  • Item: A month later, on July 21, Jindal signed HB 456 (Act 421) into law that created a tax amnesty program whereby those owing taxes to the state may have 100 percent of their penalties and half the interest waived. The letters being sent out this week to delinquent taxpayers, however, could provide them with an argument on a legal technicality that also won’t have to pay the tax principal amounts.

As we said, some things just don’t make sense.

On the one hand, the legislature passes and Jindal signs into law a bill creating an agency whose specific purpose is to collect debt—lots of debts—owed to the state.

The new agency, according to the Legislative Fiscal Office will create 23 new state positions (the antithesis of the Jindal philosophy of government) at a cost of $1.7 million per year in salaries and benefits and another $4.4 million in administrative costs.

But with nearly $1.4 billion in payments owed to state government that are at least six months overdue, that would seem to be a good investment in that one estimate says that if the state increases debt collection efforts on such outstanding debts as delinquent college tuition installments and unpaid environmental monitoring fees by as little as 10 percent, it could generate an additional $100 million per year for the state.

On the other hand, Jindal’s new $250,000-a-year Secretary of Revenue and the Louisiana Legislature, by virtue of Act 421, will let delinquent taxpayers off the hook for all penalties and half the interest owed on those back taxes.

The Legislative Fiscal Office estimates about 300,000 persons and businesses who owe some $700 million in delinquent taxes will be eligible for the amnesty program, though only about 30,000 are expected to take advantage of the amnesty date, which will begin on Sept. 23 and end on Nov. 22.

The state anticipates receiving $200 million from the program for the current fiscal year with the revenues earmarked for health care bills. Any shortfall will result in even more health care cuts.

LouisianaVoice, however, has received information that indicates the amount of delinquent taxes, interest and penalties may be far larger than the $700 million estimate—almost three times that much, in fact.

Figures provided us shows that the total owed exceeds $2 billion. That includes taxes of $1.03 billion, interest of $687,000 and penalties of $301 million.

“It is amazing how many taxes are not paid,” said our source. “Amnesty will give us another few years in ‘garage sale’ money and then when it runs out, say four years from now in the middle of the next administration (the) Jindalites can cry foul and push for more of the same type programs.”

The amnesty letters are being printed this weekend and will be mailed out within the next few days. “The letter tells taxpayers what they owe and explains that they owe half the interest and no penalty,” the LDR employee said. “But it doesn’t mention anything about paying the tax. A good lawyer could mount a good argument on this.

“The word is that the error was discovered this week and the change would have been minimal (by) adding the words ‘tax and’ before the interest comment,” the employee said. “The really interesting thing is this form letter was put together some time ago and at the last minute someone decided to proofread it. Still, it seems as though someone, maybe in the legal department, would have been given this to read.”

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Sur-prise sur-prise, Gomer: Deloitte wins IT contract after spending year consulting with state on consolidation plan

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Computers, Governor's Office, IT, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals on September 5, 2013| 10 Comments »

As anticipated, Deloitte Consulting, which met regularly with state officials over the past year to assist in planning for a comprehensive consolidation of information technology (IT) services for the Division of Administration, was named winner of the contract for “Information Technology Planning and Management Support Services,” according to an email announcement by the Division of Administration (DOA) that went out to IT employees Thursday morning.

The announcement, which did not mention a contract amount, came only hours after LouisianaVoice indicated that Deloitte had the inside track for the contract on the strength of its working with state officials in the planning of a request for proposals (RFP) for the work.

The email said that the evaluation of proposals was complete and that work under the contract is slated to begin on Monday, September 16.

The announcement cited five other states with full IT consolidation. These included Michigan, Utah, Colorado, New Hampshire and New Mexico. It also listed eight other states with limited IT consolidation: Alaska, Arizona, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey and North Carolina.

The email, however, made no mention of the massive cost overruns experienced by several states in attempts at computer conversion and IT consolidation, including North Carolina, one of those put forward by the administration as an example:

  • North Carolina, one of the states cited as a model by the email has seen costs of a contract to modernize only one system, one to process the state’s Medicaid payments, go from the original $265 million to nearly $900 million;
  • California pulled the plug on its court computer system that was to connect all 58 of the state’s counties when the price tag leapt from $260 million to more than $500 million—with only seven courts using the system before the project was terminated.
  • Tennessee experienced repeated delays, missed deadlines and cost overruns and finally stopped work after seven years of development of its Vision Integration Platform (VIP). As is becoming more and more common with bad news, the announcement came late on a Friday in order to have minimal political impact. Tennessee also experienced problems with its much ballyhooed IT state projects that affected the Department of Children’s Services, the Department of Labor and Workforce Development and the state’s Project Edison payroll system. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, by the way, announced last April that all of the state’s 1,600 information technology workers would be required to reapply for their jobs.
  • A consolidated service and network support project was supposed to consolidate IT services for 20 state agencies in Wisconsin at a cost of $12.8 million but cost overruns ran the price to more than $200 million, wiping out anticipated savings.
  • In Virginia a 10-year, $2.3 billion contract with Northrop Grumman to consolidate the state’s computer systems has been an ongoing nightmare of cost overruns and missed deadlines

The email touted lower overall operating costs through leveraging volume procurement, elimination of duplication, data center virtualization and standardization of IT architecture statewide.

It also said the project’s approach strategies would include capitalizing on vendor experience in other states, phased approach to consolidation of staff, agency involvement in the process and effective communication with agency staff regarding consolidation goals.

Now that Deloitte has been chosen for the contract, the next steps, according to the DOA announcement will be the selection of a project team, education of the vendor on Louisiana’s IT infrastructure and operations, survey and assessment, development of a plan of operational changes, and the request of software and hardware inventory.

Nothing was mentioned in the approach strategies about impending layoffs of state employees but that is a near certainty given the track record of other privatization/consolidation schemes rolled out by the administration.

And while DOA assures us that 36 states were reviewed in reaching the decision to consolidate the state’s IT services, one has to wonder if any time was spent examining other states in an effort to determine the cause of massive cost overruns, delays and missed deadlines.

Or is this simply yet another program fronted by Gov. Bobby Jindal but being pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council?

This is not to say IT consolidation is the wrong thing but with the state’s budget already in the tank, it seems that a more open discussion, more sunshine as it were, would be appropriate before plunging into something that could ultimately break the bank—and still leave us with an inoperative system.

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