You just have to love Louisiana politics.
It’s kind of like having someone pee down your back while telling you it’s raining.
Or maybe trying to run a marathon with a rock in your shoe.
And to no one’s real surprise, it doesn’t seem to matter much which political party is in power.
Take Thomas Harris, the newly-appointed Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), for example.
On Feb. 19, not quite two weeks ago, Secretary Harris testified before the House Appropriations Committee about the agency’s fiscal year 2017 budget. In his testimony, Harris, who spent about a dozen years at the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) before his Jan. 26 appointment by Gov. John Bel Edwards, lamented the fact that his agency was so strapped for funding that up to 66 employees face layoffs come July 1.
While it may difficult for some to feel much compassion for DNR, given the historically cozy relationship between the oil and gas industry and the agency’s top brass. It was DNR and DEQ, after all, which conveniently looked the other way all these years as our coastal marshlands were raped by the industry that curtailed the so-called legacy lawsuits filed against oil companies that neglected to clean up after themselves. http://theadvocate.com/home/9183574-125/house-oks-legacy-lawsuit-legislation
Harris gave his testimony during the afternoon session of the Appropriations Committee that met during the recent special legislative session called to address major budget shortfalls.
To save you some time, open the link HERE and move to the 41-minute mark. That’s where Harris begins his address to committee members, most of whom were talking among themselves (as is the norm) and not really paying attention.
So just why are we making such a big deal of this? It’s no big secret, after all, that budgetary cuts are hitting just about every agency and employees are going to have to be laid off. It’s a fact of life for anyone working for the state these days.
Unless you happen to be named David Boulet or Ashlee McNeely
Harris hired Boulet as Assistant Secretary of DNR, effective March 10 (last Thursday), less than three weeks after his calamitous testimony about projected layoffs.
But get this: Ashlee McNeely, wife of our old friend Chance McNeely (we’ll get to him presently), worked in Bobby Jindal’s office from Feb. 3, 2014, until last Oct. 22 as a legislative analyst at $78,000. On Oct. 23, she was promoted to Director of Legislative Services at the same salary (someone please tell us why Jindal needed a director of legislative services when he had less than three months to go in his term—and with no legislative session on the immediate horizon). Of course, come Jan. 11, the date of John Bel Edwards’ inauguration, she was quietly terminated along with the rest of Jindal’s staff.
But wait. Harris decided he needed a “Confidential Assistant.” And just what is a “confidential assistant,” anyway? Well, we’re told that the term is loosely translated to “legislative liaison.” No matter. Harris did the only logical thing: he brought Ashlee McNeely on board on Feb. 10, just nine days before his cataclysmic budgetary predictions. What’s more, he bumped her salary up by eight thou a year, to $86,000.
But back to our friend Boulet: His salary is a cool $107,600—to fill a position that has been vacant for more than five years. So what was the urgency of filling a long-vacated slot that obviously is little more than window dressing for an agency unable to fill mission-critical classified positions?
Had Harris chosen instead to allocate the combined $193,000 the two are getting, he could have hired four classified employees at $46,750 each. Not the greatest salary, but certainly not bad if you’re out of work and trying to feed a family. And still higher than the state’s family median income
So, what, exactly are the qualifications of Boulet? Well, for openers, he’s the son-in-law of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco and that’s of no small consequence. In fact, that was probably enough.
In fact, it’s not the first time he has landed a cushy position that took on the appearances of having all the right connections. We take you back to 2001, when Blanco was Lieutenant Governor and Boulet was hired as the $120,000-a-year Director of Oil & Gas Cluster Development for the Louisiana Office of Economic Development, a move that did not sit well with the scribes at the Thibodaux Comet: http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20011108/NEWS/111080313?tc=ar
And then there’s our old friend Chance McNeely, another holdover from the Jindal disaster. McNeely, all of 27, has seen his star rise in meteoric fashion after obtaining a degree in agricultural business and working four years as a legislative assistant for the U.S House of Representatives. From there, he found his way into Jindal’s inner circle as an analyst at $68,000. He remained there less than a year (March 6, 2014, to Jan. 12, 2015) before moving over to DEQ where the special position of Assistant Secretary, Office of Environmental Compliance (in circumvention of Jindal’s hiring freeze in place at the time and despite having no qualifications for the position)—complete with a $37,000 raise to $102,000. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/01/13/if-you-think-chance-mcneelys-appointment-to-head-deq-compliance-was-an-insult-just-get-a-handle-on-his-salary/
He held onto that job recisely a year, exiting the same day as his wife got her pink slip, on Jan. 11 of this year. Unlike Ashlee, who remained unemployed for just over three months, Chance was out of work for exactly eight days before being named Assistant to the Secretary at the Department of Transportation and Development, albeit at a slight drop in salary, to $99,000.
But by combining his and his wife’s salaries, the $177,000 isn’t too shabby for a state with a median income of $42,406 per household, according to 2014 data. And how many 27-year-olds do you know who pull down $99,000 per year? http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Household-Incomes-by-State.php
So, Secretary Harris, as you struggle with balancing the high pay of your political appointees with cutbacks of the ones who do the real work, please know that we understand fully that we live in Louisiana where, no matter the rhetoric, things never change.
You will head an agency that will protect big oil from those of us with ruined pastureland and briny water. DNR will continue to shield big oil from those who would do whatever necessary to preserve our wetlands. And as those oil companies continue to fight back with whatever legal chicanery they can craft—including the buying of legislators.
And the merry-go-round of appointments to those with the right political connections will continue unabated—no matter what self-righteous rhetoric of freedom and justice for all is spewed by the pompous ass clowns we continue to elect.
Now ask me how I really feel.
Very Very interesting, will hold my thoughts until I see some substantive corrections in the Jindal disaster. It is always about the “Golden Rule” he who has the gold makes the rule ron Thompson
Mr./Ms. Legislator, don’t even think about a tax increase until you have ferreted out all of the “waste, fraud, and corruption” that Louisiana Voice has discovered and reported over the years and until this very day. If you are so foolish as to attempt to do so, Letters to Editors and Op Eds will flow like oil spills and fracking wastewater all over this state.
Businesses and the wealthy had huge tax cuts over the last eight years while the rest of us continued to pay about the same rates. State employees, including teachers, lost over 20% of the pay they should have had due to withheld performance increases and they lost more due to increased benefits costs. Most Louisiana citizens didn’t do much better because the gigantic income transfer from the poor and middle class to businesses and the wealthy resulted in very few new jobs. Restoring prior level of taxation for businesses and the wealthy is the most obvious and fair way to restore balance to the state’s budget. They have done little that would justify continuation of their low tax rates.
After jindal’s cuts, there is no significant waste left in state government other than his contracts with private companies that are more expensive and less efficient than the state workers they replaced.
I know the new DOTD secretary. I had better faith in him.
Well, I hope it becomes obvious why I don’t share even in the slightest degree other readers’ belief that a new era has arrived under Edwards. Once the revenue from all the tax increases begins rolling in, just watch the largess start to REALLY flow to the politically connected.
If you want a little nugget in the meantime, look into Edwards’ appointment to head boards and commissions, then run a search for contributions to Edwards’ campaign from her father-in-law. Then try to find her name, a phone number, or an email address at which to reach her if anyone has a beef with a board or commission.
Don’t look for much in the way of cleanup on problematic boards and commissions in Louisiana over the next four years. In fact, one source has told me Edwards’ impending appointments on one particular board is only going to make Jindal’s disastrous appointments look like angels.
Reappointment of Edmonson and now this. I guess it never will change.
Everything in this article is SPOT ON. Tom Harris and Beverly Hodges are suspect and are playing for the other team. They both blatantly lied about DNR stats and should be handled accordingly.
Very sad to hear this. Maybe there is only one side, and no one is on the side of the people of Louisiana.
This is very disappointing.. JBE has a rough row to hoe, particularly since he apparently sees no need to change many of the things that make most people believe the budget is a joke, including continuing to pay appointees who are not always the best qualified top dollar and then not holding them accountable for anything.
We have to all hope that, after 8 years of allowing Jindal to say one thing but do another on a consistent basis, Louisianians are finally beginning to wake up to the effects of such deceit. For some reason, Jindal was able to pull the wool over enough people’s eyes to make it out of office before the excrement hit the fan. It has now hit it and JBE needs to take a NoDoz as well.
The support Trump has in Louisiana indicates people here are at least as mad and fed up with the current system as they are elsewhere. JBE would do us all a favor by actually doing some of the things he promised to do. Trump is incapable of doing so, since his claims are outrageous at best. JBE could actually do some of the modest things he promised – if he just would.
Jindal was not the King for the last 8 years, he had a complicit legislature. Mr. Beledwards has the same guilty parties in place. Expecting a politician to fulfill his campaign promises is akin to “picking up a turd by the clean end.” Both parties are taking us down the same road.
This is disappointing, I keep reminding myself of the horrible mess we are in, and that it will take time to address the many wrongs. Boards like these are a start, people of many walks of life sharing concerns, awareness of problems we wouldn’t otherwise know about.
We have a revolving door, the same people, in and out, never far away, always ready for a new gig, slurping at the trough that most profess to hate…Government may not always work for many, but it darn sure works for them.
JBE, is going to have a difficult time getting this budget thingy fixed, he is meeting with lots of resistance, judging by the many stupid bills that were written for this session, its obvious what many legislators were doing during the special session, and it had nothing to do with the budget.
What we are seeing from the legislature is akin to what congressional republicans have done to President Obama – oppose any and everything because of blind hatred of who and what he is. At least one Louisiana legislator (wish I’d saved that news story to preserve the evidence) made the statement that republicans would block whatever our newly elected governor tries to do.
They are party over patriotism and they will willingly destroy our state and country to make sure a Democrat scores no political points. We are treading dangerous ground…..comments on national boards about trump’s prediction of riots if he does not get the party nomination are very disturbing. Progressives fear riots will happen and rightwngnutjobs are threatening to make them happen, even jubilantly predicting civil war. Where does that leave Louisiana, with the partisan divide keeping the poor under the yoke of the wealthy?
Legislators knew over year ago that the current budget crisis was looming, did nothing, and oppose most fixes now. This is right out of the Friedman Chicago School, conservative-fascist playbook: allege that government is the problem and is completely inefficient; defund government; government fails to provide adequate services and proves the allegation that it is inefficient, leading to privatization, AKA privateering.
Jindal, Snyder and Brownback used Louisiana, Michigan and Kansas as the laboratory for an American shock doctrine experiment, and it has empirically proven to work as planned. It’s just that the 99 percent don’t like the result.
The indisputable disaster of GOP governors: How Jindal, Brownback & Snyder have sold their constituents up the river
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/13/the_indisputable_disaster_of_gop_governors_how_jindal_brownback_snyder_have_sold_their_constituents_up_the_river/
Edwards must feel Jindal deployed the right team since he reappointed Edmonson, reappointed Butch Browning as State Fire Marshall (just check into the “bury the head in the sand” of favoritism toward Amite Fire Chief Cutrer compliments of Browning for the answer to that — not that Browning didn’t have many other flaws that make him unfit to hold that office), and now “Chance and Crew.” The only difference between Jindal and Edwards is that Edwards crammed massive taxes down people’s throats so the orgies of overpaid appointments can reach all-time highs and, trust me, they will!!
OMG, government may not be the entire problem but it darn sure is a major part of the problem and it is damn sure inefficient. And this is regardless of the party in charge. Earthmother response sounds like it is right out of Saul Alinsky’s playbook…
Some things never change… like politics in Louisiana!
You do a great job of exposing the culprits, Tom Aswell!
Madness House: I am no student of Saul Alinsky. But I’m amused by the fact that tea party types, while excoriating Alinsky and denigrating “progressives and libruls” as Alinsky disciples, have perhaps unwittingly co-opted his radical rules for organizing and his driving motivation. If you want to observe who has taken a page from the Alinsky playbook, it’s the tea party. Alinsky, of course, would be horrified that the “other side” – the “haves” – has adopted his philosophy in an attempt to keep the “have nots” down.
Alinsky’s great and simple rationale for community organizing: “I love this goddamn country, and we’re going to take it back.”