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Archive for October, 2014

LouisianaVoice fund drive enters final two days; first five today get signed copy of Dayne Sherman’s new book Zion

Posted in Uncategorized on October 30, 2014| 3 Comments »

The final two days of the LouisianaVoice fundraiser for 2014 are today and tomorrow (Oct. 30 and 31). We promise no pleas for contributions before the end of the year and, if all goes well, not until sometime late next Spring. That’s right: our pestering you for contributions will actually end before we hear the last of those very annoying, irritating, seemingly endless negative ads for Mary Landrieu and Bill Cassidy.

We’re still a little short of our goal (but not by much) which will help underwrite our efforts to churn out a comprehensive look at Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration which we anticipate will be out in time for his final push for the GOP presidential nomination.

But first things first: Dayne Sherman of Hammond, a prolific and talented writer, has just published his latest book, Zion, and the first five persons to contribute to our fund drive, beginning at noon today, will receive a free, signed copy of Dayne’s book. The amount does not matter; it can be $1, $5 or $50 or more. We’re just trying to help Dayne promote his new book about religion, family, friendship, deception and evil. Set in rural Louisiana, it’s a story of a war fought over the killing of hardwoods in Baxter Parish. The story begins in 1964 and ends a decade later but the Hardin family, faithful members of Little Zion Methodist Church, will carry the scars for life.

PowerPoint Presentation

Here’s how it will work: click on the “Donate” button at the right and make your contribution via credit card. If you don’t see a “Donate” button, it’s probably because you receive our email alerts to new posts. Go to https://louisianavoice.com/ and look for the “Donate” icon. Be sure to send us, in a separate email, your mailing address so that we may provide it to Dayne for shipment of your book. Dayne will not keep, sell or otherwise share your information. In fact, it will be destroyed once your book is shipped.

If you prefer not to contribute, not to worry: you can still get the book free on Kindle through Saturday, Nov. 1. Here’s the link:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OWN9S5Y/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_IDzuub0M6B8EY

If you don’t wish to pay electronically, you may mail your contribution to:

Capital News Service/LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727-0922

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Sec. of State Tom Schedler furious over DOA order to destroy OGB records; Atty. Gen. Buddy Caldwell refuses to intervene

Posted in Attorney General, DOA, Governor's Office, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency on October 29, 2014| 30 Comments »

The controversy surrounding the sweeping changes being proposed for the Office of Group Benefits just got a little dicier with new information obtained by LouisianaVoice about the departure of Division of Administration executive counsel Liz Murrill and the possibly illegal destruction of public records from the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) and the involvement of at least two other state agencies.

While it was not immediately clear which OGB records were involved, information obtained by LouisianaVoice indicate that Murrill refused to sign off on written authorization to destroy documents from OGB.

We first reported her departure on Oct. 14 and then on Oct. 22, we followed up with a report that Murrill had confided to associates that she could no longer legally carry out some of the duties assigned to her as the DOA attorney.

But now we learn that the issue has spilled over into two other agencies besides OGB and DOA because of a state statute dealing with the retention of public documents for eventual delivery to State Archives, a division of Secretary of State Tom Schedler’s office.

Reports indicate that Schedler became furious when he learned of the destruction or planned destruction of the records because records should, according to R.S. 44:36, be retained for three years and then delivered to the state archivist and director of the division of Archives, records management and history. https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=99704

Schedler reportedly became so upset with the decision to destroy the records that he copied Attorney General Buddy Caldwell with a letter he wrote to Nichols directing that DOA comply with the statute but Caldwell for his part, refused to intervene, saying he did not want to become involved.

If that indeed is the case, then LouisianaVoice goes on record here and now as contending that Caldwell is unfit to serve in that capacity and should resign immediately.

We made every effort to allow Caldwell to respond. We called his office and asked to speak to Buddy Caldwell or his son, Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell. We were told, “We don’t put calls through to them; we take a message and they may call you back.” They never did. We also spoke with AG Press Secretary Laure Gerdes and explained the story we were working on and told her if we did not hear back from Caldwell, we would suggest that he was unfit to serve as AG. Again, we never heard back from either Caldwell.

The attorney general simply cannot cherry pick which laws he feels should be enforced and to allow the destruction of vital public documents, particularly at a time when so much raw emotion has erupted over changes to the OGB benefit structure. To sit idly back and allow the administration to flout the law in the faces of 230,000 OGB members, retirees and beneficiaries is unconscionable and if Caldwell allows such action without at least advising DOA of the consequences he is not worthy of calling himself a public servant. He should take his Elvis impersonation act back to Tallulah.

And if Caldwell is reluctant to give legal advice to DOA, then Hillar Moore, as District Attorney for the 19th Judicial District, has all the statutory authority required to prosecute state officials should he ever decide to exercise that authority. The state government, after all, is domiciled in East Baton Rouge Parish.

Too much is at stake and those records could hold the key to the motives behind the administration’s decision to dramatically increase co-pays and deductibles. LouisianaVoice made requests for certain OGB records on Oct. 14 and those records have yet to be produced by DOA. We have no way of knowing if the records we requested are part of those documents which were ordered destroyed but if so, we plan to initiate legal action against the state promptly.

DOA has been habitually reluctant to produce public records at our request in a timely manner and this action could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. Without the support and backing of the state’s highest legal authority, we are powerless to force compliance other than through the courts.

But the question that should be uppermost in the minds of Louisiana’s citizens is this: If those records were important enough to fire an attorney over her refusal to sign off on their destruction or for that attorney to place her career in jeopardy over that same issue, we are more curious than ever to know the contents of those documents—and we have the right to know.

And even more significant in this entire affair, if Liz Murrill did in fact refuse to compromise herself and her reputation by refusing to sign off on an illegal act, then we can only say good for her! She has shown far more integrity than our attorney general.

 

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Rep. Jim Fannin may have inadvertently blown Jindal’s budget surplus claim in brief exchange at LRTA meeting

Posted in Auditor, Budget, DOA, Ethics, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators on October 28, 2014| 9 Comments »

State Rep. Jim Fannin (D/R-Jonesboro) may have inadvertently exposed the Jindal administration’s $178 million “surplus” for the fraud it is in a brief conversation with one of our readers from north Louisiana who knew the right questions to ask, LouisianaVoice has learned.

Fannin, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered a “State of the State” address at the Fall Meeting of the Louisiana Retired Teachers Association in Baton Rouge on Monday and afterwards was confronted by retired teacher Kay Riser Prince of Ruston.

Rubbing her forefinger and thumb together, Riser asked Fannin, “Is Jindal’s new-found money real—that is, can the light bill be paid with it, or is all on paper?”

“I don’t know,” answered Fannin initially before he finally said it is money that was assigned to various agencies but not spent.

“When I taught at (Louisiana) Tech,” Riser responded, “we were told that if we did not spend money that had been allocated by June 30, it went back to the state.”

Fannin then admitted to Prince that was where Jindal’s “discovery” of some $320 million originated.

Prince was able to obtain an answer to a question no one else has been able to get—probably because Fannin was sent a list of funds Jindal had supposedly “swept” from some 17 agencies to arrive at his bogus surplus and when asked point blank, he acknowledged that the surplus was, at best an illusion, an accounting sleight of hand.

So now it would appear that the surplus so proudly proclaimed by Jindal is not cash after all, but an accounting entry and any available cash at the time of the under-budget expenditures (reportedly dating all the way back to 1997) has long since reverted back into the General Fund and has been spent.

In fact, if the state kept books like a business, this shell game might well have affected the retained earnings of owners’ equity and may have even resulted in Enron-like indictments.

In standard business practice, such funds would have been included as a carry-forward asset but never as revenue leading to a subsequent accounting period budget surplus. You can ask Enron’s now defunct accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, about that.

But Gov. Bobby Jindal and Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols have each seen their shadows and have retreated back into the fantasy world in which they now reside—but not before Nichols fired off a broadside at State Treasurer John Kennedy for not knowing of the existence of a nonexistent bucket of cash lying around for all these years—and they’re not scheduled to emerge until the Legislative Auditor’s report sometime in late December.

By that time, of course, Jindal will be in Iowa or traipsing around in the snows of New Hampshire in search of caucus and primary votes he hopes will catapult him into semi-serious contention for the Republican presidential nomination—an exercise our crystal ball tells us will give him the distinction of having less a chance at the nomination—or even of being picked for VP— than Alf Landon had of beating FDR in 1936 or of Barry Goldwater upsetting LBJ in ’64. Meanwhile, the looming legislative session will be but a mere distraction, and Louisiana’s financial troubles will start to become a fading bad dream for him and a mess to be sorted out by his successor.

 

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October fundraiser enters final week; your contribution will help us write and publish book about Jindal administration

Posted in ATC, Budget, Civil Service, Commissions, Contract, Contracts, Corruption, Courts, DHH, DOA, Economy, Ethics, Governor's Office, Grant, Grants, Health Care, Higher Education, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, Public Records, Retirement, Revenue, State Agencies, State Fire Marshal, State Police, Teague, Transparency on October 26, 2014| 4 Comments »

Our October fund raiser enters its final five days and we still need assistance to help us offset the cost of pursuing legal action against an administration that prefers to conduct its business behind closed doors and out of sight of the people to whom they are supposed to answer.

We also are launching an ambitious project that will involve considerable time and expense. If Gov. Bobby Jindal does seek higher office as it becomes more and more apparent that he will, the people of America need to know the real story of what he has done to our state and its people. Voters in the other 49 states need to know not Jindal’s version of his accomplishments as governor, but the truth about:

  • What has occurred with CNSI and Bruce Greenstein;
  • How Jindal squandered the Office of Group Benefits $500 million reserve fund;
  • The lies the administration told us two years ago about how state employee benefits would not be affected by privatization;
  • The lies about how Buck Consultants advised the administration to cut health care premiums when the company’s July report said just the opposite;
  • How Jindal attempted unsuccessfully to gut state employee retirement benefits;
  • How Jindal attempted to sneak a significant retirement benefit into law for the Superintendent of State Police;
  • How Jindal appointees throughout state government have abused the power entrusted to them;
  • How Jindal has attempted a giveaway plan for state hospitals that has yet to be approved by the federal Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS);
  • How regulations have been skirted so that Jindal could reward supporters with favorable purchases and contracts;
  • How Jindal fired employees and demoted legislators for the simple transgression of disagreeing with him;
  • How Jindal has refused Medicaid expansion that has cost hundreds of thousands of Louisiana’s poor the opportunity to obtain medical care;
  • How Jindal has gutted appropriations to higher education in Louisiana, forcing tuition increases detrimental to students;
  • How Jindal has attempted to systematically destroy public education in Louisiana;
  • How Jindal has refused federal grants that could have gone far in developing internet services for rural areas and high speed rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans;
  • How Jindal has rewarded major contributors with appointments to key boards and commissions;
  • How Jindal attempted to use the court system to persecute an agency head who refused to knuckle under to illegal demands from the governor’s office;
  • How Jindal has manipulated the state budget each year he has been in office in a desperate effort to smooth over deficit after deficit;
  • And most of all, how Jindal literally abandoned the state while still governor so that he could pursue his quixotic dream of becoming president.

To this end, LouisianaVoice Editor Tom Aswell will be spending the next several months researching and writing a book chronicling the Jindal administration. Should Jindal become a presidential contender or even if he is selected as another candidate’s vice presidential running mate, such a book could have a national impact and even affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

This project is going to take time and involve considerable expense as we compile our research and prepare the book for publication in time for the 2016 election.

To accomplish this, we need your help.

If you are not seeing the “Donate” button, it may be because you are receiving our posts via email subscription. To contribute by credit card, please click on this link to go to our actual web page and look for the yellow Donate button: https://louisianavoice.com/

If you prefer not to conduct an internet transaction, you may mail a check to:

Capital News Service/LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727-0922

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Courts, Ethics, Judges, Lawsuits, Notable Quotables on October 26, 2014| 2 Comments »

“Judge Free’s actions have harmed the integrity of and respect for the judiciary.”

—Report of the Louisiana Judiciary Commission on 18th Judicial District Court Judge Robin Free, who accepted a free flight on the private jet of a plaintiff attorney who had just won a $1.2 million settlement of a personal injury case presided over by Free. The seriousness of Free’s breach of ethics notwithstanding, the judicial commission recommended only a 30-day suspension.

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