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Archive for April, 2016

Iraqiscam only part of the Billy Nungesser story; there is so very much more: what a man, what a legend, what a shame!

Posted in Auditor, Contract, Contracts, Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Finances, Lawsuits, Politicians, Public Records, Supriya Jinda Foundation on April 18, 2016| 9 Comments »

Iraqi oil scams, critical compliance audits, litigation over the misappropriation of public funds, questionable land deals, botched Wal Mart deal involving Bobby Jindal’s father-in-law.

They’re all just another day at the office for Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser.

When Baton Rouge Advocate reporters Rebekah Allen and Richard Thompson did some good old-fashioned journalistic digging last week to report that hysterical Iraqi oil scam perpetrated by Nungesser and political ally State Republican Party Chairman Roger Villere, it threw LouisianaVoice into a scramble mode. http://theadvocate.com/news/politics/15398751-125/lt-gov-billy-nungesser-gop-chairman-roger-villere-work-to-recruit-unlikely-iraq-to-louisiana-busin

In short order we found that Nungesser and Villere had fallen for a similar con run by the same company (Alexandros, a corporation registered in Delaware), but instead of the State of Louisiana and Nungesser and Villere, the targets were the governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands and former Baton Rouge Metro Council member Darrell Glasper. https://louisianavoice.com/2016/04/12/louisiana-has-a-new-clown-prince-but-its-egg-not-a-pie-all-over-lt-gov-nungessers-face-after-succession-of-blunders/

But by the time the light came on in Nungesser’s head, Krusty had already been cued. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzLHU6S4oic

By then, however, it was too late. He had fired off letters to Secretary of State John Kerry, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Stuart Jones and to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and even issued a press release to (thankfully) only one news outlet, The Washington Post which (again, thankfully) did not run with the story.

Oh, and he also passed himself off as the one man in state government responsible for economic development (quick: someone let Secretary of Economic Development Secretary Donald Pierson know) and he said he was acting on the directive of Gov. John Bel Edwards (he wasn’t).

Sources tell LouisianaVoice that when Edwards heard about the two-man theater of the absurd, he had two state troopers interrupt Nungesser during an address to a group of businessmen and escort him to the governor’s office where he had a little come-to-Jesus meeting with Edwards. We weren’t able to get a confirmation or denial of that story

Nungesser, of course, did the only logical thing: he first blamed his staff, saying the letters should never have reached his desk. He then tried to throw Villere under the bus by saying the state GOP chairman had requested the letters from him. Finally, in an appearance on the Jim Engster radio show, he said the letters were in the middle of a stack of thank-you notes and he didn’t actually read them.

Did he learn his lesson? Apparently not. Even after the Iraqi letter-writing frenzy blew up in his face, he then told another group that Edwards had put him in charge of coastal restoration.

Nice.

Trying to imagine Nungesser sitting at his desk feverishly signing all those thank-you notes, it’s difficult not to visualize Gov. William J. Lepetomane signing a succession of documents handed him by aide Hedley Lamarr in the movie Blazing Saddles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm1Jyusyoqk

Back during those heady days as Plaquemines Parish President, Nungesser decided he’d like to bring a brand spanking new Wal Mart to the lot at the corner of LA. 23 and LA. 406 in Belle Chasse.

The only problem was there was a moratorium on big box stores on the books that the parish council had passed and by the time it expired about a year later, the tide of opinion on the council had turned against Nungesser’s proposal.

The land in question was—and is—owned by several former employees of Freeport McMoRan, one of whom is Jatinder (Jay) Jolly.

Jolly is the father of Supriya Jindal, wife of former Gov. Bobby Jindal.

After the deal collapsed, only a small building owned by Freeport McMoRan sat on the property but now it has been torn down and only a concrete slab remains, leading to speculation that the Wal Mart proposal may be resurrected.

A 2010 compliance AUDIT conducted by the Legislative Auditor’s Office while Nungesser still served as parish president is especially telling.

A compliance audit is different from a routine annual audit in that a compliance audit is an audit for compliance of laws, regulations and other guidelines that a governmental entity is required to follow.

In short, the compliance audit found that:

  • The Parish may have violated the parish Charter and a local ordinance by entering into two contracts pertaining to recovery operations.
  • The Parish Administration may have violated the Local Government Budget Act by not including Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants within the Parish budget.
  • The Parish’s attorney may not be properly approved by the Council as required in the Parish Charter.
  • The Parish President (Nungesser) may have violated the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics through real estate transactions between his trust and the owners of two Parish vendors.

In that last finding, auditors said in January 2008, the owners of two companies doing business with the parish “were also involved in a private real estate transaction with a trust whose beneficiary is Parish President William Nungesser. These transactions may constitute a violation of the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics and therefore will be referred to the Board of Ethics for its consideration.”

Since Nungesser was a political ally of Jindal and the Board of Ethics members are appointed by Jindal, nothing came of that referral.

Nungesser, in typical fashion, saw no fault in his actions and fired off a defiant 12-page letter of response to the state auditor in which he painted himself as the savior of a parish devastated by hurricanes and the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He even managed to tell auditors what their job was in his response, saying they had “no authority” to second-guess his decision as to when a state of emergency was ended.

If he could find no fault, members of the Plaquemines Parish Council certainly could (with the exception of Council Chairman Kirk Lepine.)

On Oct. 15, just nine days before the Oct. 24 primary election last fall, the Plaquemines Parish Government filed suit against Nungesser in 25th Judicial District Court in Plaquemines Parish.

The lawsuit accuses Nungesser of causing “the misappropriation of public property and public services” by having Plaquemines Parish employees perform work on private property.

The suit says he ordered parish employees of the Heavy Equipment Department to transport limestone, sand aggregate and asphalt belonging to the parish to two private roads in the parish and to cut trees and dig out a drainage ditch prior to installing a drain pipe with an 8-by-20-foot culvert and then backfill on private property on LA. 23 in Belle Chasse.

Now Lepine has offered up a motion for the parish to drop the lawsuit.

Perhaps it’s only coincidence that Lepine’s stepdaughter works for Nungesser.

CLOWN IN CHIEF

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LouisianaVoice April fund drive in final week; please help

Posted in Uncategorized on April 18, 2016| 4 Comments »

Our April fund drive is entering its final week and we’re still quite a ways from what is needed to sustain and expand our operations.

Remember, we don’t accept advertising (with the exception of the free ad for Cavalier House Books) and we don’t charge a subscription. That’s because we don’t want to be obligated to any sponsor in case of a story that may conflict with the sponsor’s interests and because we want our posts to be available to everyone, including those who cannot afford a monthly subscription fee.

If the no subscription policy is to continue, we need your help. If only a fraction of our 3,000 subscribers contributed $10 or $20, that would be sufficient. Unfortunately, only a few contribute and they have done so repeatedly—and we so much appreciate their support.

So, please click on the yellow “DONATE” button at lower right and pay by credit care or mail your checks to:

Capital News Service/LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, LA. 70727

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How Louisiana funds the Catholic Church (an examination of one of the quirks of the LA. DOE’s flawed Voucher System)

Posted in Audit Reports, BESE, Boards, Budget, Education, Privatization, Public Records on April 17, 2016| 19 Comments »

Editor’s note: The following is a guest column written by James Finney, Ph.D., of Baton Rouge. This was first posted on his blog, Methodical, Musical Mathematician’s Musings, and we felt it was an important essay that addressed issues with the state’s flawed school voucher program. Rather than simply publishing a link to his post, Dr. Finney was gracious enough to allow us to re-post it in its entirety on LouisianaVoice. Dr. Finney is a math teacher with an interest in transparent and effective government.  He grew up in South Dakota but has lived in Baton Rouge for more than 20 years.

His observations should not be interpreted as a criticism of the Catholic Church but rather an objective look at how the state’s voucher program has been mismanaged and vouchers paid in disproportionate amounts to church-affiliated schools by the Louisiana Department of Education.

 

By James Finney, Ph.D.

Did the headline get your attention?  If so, that’s good. When I saw the details of voucher funding for 2014-15, I was startled at how much of the nearly $40 million in spending went to Catholic schools.

The total amount sent to the 131 voucher schools participating in the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence program in 2014-15 was $39,486,798.20. This figure is reported in a spreadsheet I received from the Department of Education in response to a public record request.  Of that, approximately two-thirds ($26,819,434.44) went to the 76 participating schools that are affiliated with the New Orleans Archdiocese and the Dioceses of Shreveport, Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Houma-Thibodaux, Lafayette, and Lake Charles.

A defender of the voucher program might suggest that most of the private schools in the state are Catholic, so it makes sense that most of the vouchers would be used in Catholic schools. The evidence says otherwise. There are 412 nonpublic schools listed in the state’s 2015-16 School Directory (which I received incidental to another public record request). Of those, 190 are identified by the state as being Catholic. So the Catholic schools are fewer than half the nonpublic schools, but they account for two-thirds of the vouchers. There is no easy way to compare total enrollment (Catholic vs. non-Catholic private schools) since the state does not appear to collect or report private-school enrollment data.

As mentioned earlier, 76 of the 131 voucher schools are Catholic. Of the remaining 55, nearly half (25) have a school name containing the word “Christian” and nine have a name containing “Lutheran”, “Living Word”, “Bishop”, “Baptist”, “Adventist” or “Bible”. And there’s Jewish Community Day School.  So that leaves roughly 20 of the voucher schools that might be secular.  So much for the separation of Church and State.

It’s interesting to rank the voucher schools by total amount paid in 2014-15:  The top six schools account for more than $10 million, and the next 14 for more than another $10 million:

  • St. Mary’s Academy (Girls) (C), Orleans (417): $2,606,160
  • Hosanna Christian Academy (AG), EBR (390): $2,265,944
  • Resurrection of Our Lord School (C), Orleans (466): $2,103,286
  • Our Lady of Prompt Succor (C), Jefferson (208): $1,045,417
  • St. Louis King of France School (C), EBR (182): $1,021,094
  • 506087 Leo the Great School (C), Orleans (191): $1,016,667

Five of the most expensive voucher schools, and 17 of the top 20, are Catholic.  The non-Catholic schools among the top 20 are Hosanna Christian Academy (No. 2 above), Evangel Christian Academy in Caddo Parish (No. 16) and Riverside Academy in St. John the Baptist Parish (No. 20).

One of the voucher schools appears to be a public school: Park Vista Elementary School in Opelousas (St. Landry Parish). It would be interesting to know the story on that school’s participation in the program, and where the students are coming from. The state sent the Parish an average of somewhere around $7,760 each for 19 students, contributing $150,000 to the local system’s bottom line.  Compare that to the $5,570 that the state sent to St. Landry Parish Schools in Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) funding for each student who actually lived in St. Landry Parish.

Two of the schools that received vouchers are not even on the state’s list of nonpublic schools:  Walford School of New Orleans received $17,717, and McKinney-Byrd Academy in Shreveport received $3,566. If they aren’t on the state’s list of nonpublic schools, why did they receive voucher payments? In 2015-16, the SIHAF K12 Learning Academy joined the ranks of voucher schools not on the list of nonpublic schools, and in 2016-17, Weatherford Academy in Westwego will be allowed to offer up to six vouchers and Children’s College in Slidell will be allowed to offer one or two vouchers. Go figure.

State Superintendent of Education John White would like us to believe that at an average of around $5,500 each the vouchers saves the state a lot of money. There’s a flaw in that argument. The average per child state share of the MFP in 2014-15 was only $5,185.  So there might be a savings to local school districts, if those local districts had to educate fewer students with the same amount of local tax revenue. Unfortunately, there’s a huge loophole in the voucher program that allows students who have never (and probably would never) have been enrolled in a public school to get their private educations funded by the state. Maybe that’s why I can’t get a meaningful response to my request to the Department of Education in which I seek the records of how many voucher students had actually “escaped” public schools.

As an example of the fallacy of the vouchers-as-a-bargain-for-the-state argument, consider East Baton Rouge Parish Schools. In 2014-15, the state share of MFP was $4,165 per student. Of the 20 voucher schools within the district’s boundaries, the only school with an average voucher amount below $4165 was St. Francis Xavier School at $4,103.  At least five voucher schools charged the state over $8,000 per student. For two schools, Most Blessed Sacrament and Country Day School of Baton Rouge, both the average tuition per student and the number of students each quarter were (illegally?) redacted from the records supplied by the state, so there’s no way to know how much each school charged the taxpayers per student.

The highest tuition rate ($9,000) was charged by Prevailing Faith Christian Academy in Ouachita Parish for its 31 voucher students. It appears that the schools get to set the rate the state pays for an education over which the state exercises no oversight, as long as there are at least a few families willing to pay that amount out of their own pockets. With no effective state oversight, there is no way to tell just how good (or more likely how bad) a bargain the state is getting by funding private education.

Meanwhile only 91 schools are accepting applications for new voucher students in 2016-17. Perhaps many of the private schools have realized that mixing public money and private education is a bad idea all around.

F 17 of February 20 (voucher school status for 2016-17, and Q1 enrollment for 2015-16)

11 of February 20 – 2014-15 SEE Enrollment and Funding (2014-15 voucher spending)

2014-15-circular-no-1156a—final-budget-letter—march-2015  (Look at “Table 3 Levels 1&2” tab, in columns AP and AT.)

 

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LouisianaVoice April fund drive continues; you help needed

Posted in Uncategorized on April 15, 2016| Leave a Comment »

If you like what LouisianaVoice is doing in stories like the one below, please help us during our semi-annual fund drive.

We just turned five years old and in those five years, we have received more and more requests to look into irregularities and outright corruption at the state, parish and municipal levels.

Today, we are inundated with leads to stories, good stories. Unfortunately, as a one-man operation, and as much as I would love to, I do not have the financial resources or the time to devote to every story out there.

With your help, that could change. I would love to recruit good investigative reporters to help cover these stories. But to ask them to contribute their time and resources, I would need to be able to offer some type of stipend.

If you like what LouisianaVoice has been doing over the past five years, think how effective we could be with five or six regular writers!

To accomplish that, your help is needed. There are legal filing fees for our lawsuits, copies of documents we are required to pay for (We have our own portable scanner, but clerks of court do not allow you to scan their documents; in fact they got their own special law passed to that effect a few years ago to protect their cash cow), and vehicle upkeep.

I know the timing is awful considering Monday is federal tax deadline day. But with some 3,000 regular subscribers, if only a few hundred gave $5 or $10, it could make a tremendous difference.

I have been advised that I should charge a subscription fee and perhaps I should. It would probably be more profitable in the long run. But I am determined that the content of LouisianaVoice shall be available to everyone, not just to those who can afford a monthly subscription fee.

Moreover, I don’t want to be beholden to any sponsor who might be offended by one or more of our posts. That is why I allow only one advertisement on my Web page: that of Cavalier House Books. That’s because the owner, John Cavalier, built this Web page for me and even then, I had to virtually twist his arm to get him to put his ad on our page.

So, you see, like Blanche DuBois of Streetcar Named Desire, I depend on the kindness of strangers.

Please make your contribution of whatever amount you are comfortable with by pressing the yellow “donate” button to the right of this post. Or you may send a check to:

Capital News Service/LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, LA. 70727

One more thing: My book about the disastrous eight years of misrule by Bobby Jindal entitled Bobby Jindal: His Destiny and Obsession is scheduled for release on Monday, April 18. (Is the irony lost on anyone that the book about the man who took the Grover Norquist no-tax pledge is coming out on Federal Tax Day?)

You can pre-order a copy personally signed by yours truly by clicking on the image of the book cover (also to the right of this post). You will be placing your order with Cavalier House Books which will mean you will also be supporting a local mom and pop business as opposed to some big box store or Amazon. John Cavalier will summon me to his store (about three blocks from my home) when he receives his shipment of books so that I may sign your copy before he mails it to you.

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State Troopers’ Association considering proposal to oust dissident members; time for Gov. Edwards to take action

Posted in Boards, Campaign Contributions, Commissions, Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Politicians, Public Records, Retirement, State Police, Teague on April 15, 2016| 14 Comments »

In North Korea, to the best of our knowledge about that closed society, political dissidents quietly disappear, rumored to receive a bullet to the back of the head.

In the old Soviet Union, dissidents were disposed of in similar fashion—with a bullet behind an ear. Today, Vladimir Putin apparently prefers the quieter—and cleaner—method of ricin-tipped umbrellas.

Thankfully, we are a bit more civilized.

But a purge is still a purge and things are about to get very nasty over at the Louisiana State Troopers’ Association, an organization that is growing increasingly more rogue with each new revelation.

Now the LSTA has under consideration a six-point proposal to change the organization’s by-laws to allow the expulsion of LSTA members without cause.

That’s right: The practice of Teaguing, perfected by Bobby Jindal, has wormed its way into the Louisiana State Troopers’ Association. The timing of the move couldn’t be more obvious.

The proposal apparently is aimed at a few retired troopers who dared question what may yet turn out to be illegal political activity and campaign contributions by LSTA and certain of its members.

The LSTA’s Web page says, “The Louisiana State Troopers Association is a fraternal organization representing the men and women of the Louisiana State Police. The LSTA represents approximately 97 percent of the commissioned officers as well as a substantial portion of the State Police Retirees.” https://latroopers.org/about

Suddenly, with the proposed changes on the table, it doesn’t seem so “fraternal” anymore.

First there was that endorsement of John Bel Edwards last November, the first ever by the association, which raised all manner of questions about the propriety of political endorsements by an organization, albeit a private one, on behalf of Louisiana state troopers who are forbidden by statute from political activity.

Then came the news of some $45,000 in political contributions (about $10,000 each to Edwards and Bobby Jindal) over the past several years. Even more questionable was the method by which those contributions were made: LSTA Executive Director wrote personal checks and made the contributions in his name but then was reimbursed by the association for “expenses,” prompting State Police Commission (the equivalent to the state Civil Service Commission) to observe the whole thing took on the shady characteristics of money laundering.

For what it’s worth, when LouisianaVoice broke the news about the unexplained circuitous route of the campaign funds from LSTA through Young, Edwards refunded the money he received. Jindal, ever the shining beacon of his highly touted gold standards of ethics, did not.

The LSTA board did balk when asked to write a letter to then Gov.-elect Edwards endorsing State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson for re-appointment. That request was not made directly by Edmonson, but there is little doubt that the idea originated with him.

When retired state troopers (members of LSTA, incidentally) tried to get answers about the decision-making process and the source of the campaign money they encountered instant resistance as the association dug in its heels. They’re a private organization, don’t you know, and it’s no one’s business—not even that of members. So naturally, you shoot the messenger.

So the retirees, led by Scott Perry and Bucky Millet, filed a formal complaint with the State Police Commission whose chairman, Franklin Kyle, took the position that the commission had no authority because LSTA was a private entity.

But its membership is not, Perry and Millet argued. The LSTA board is comprised of state troopers and if the board made those decisions, it was state troopers over whom the commission has oversight who may have violated terms of Article X, Sec. 47 of the Louisiana State Constitution: No member of the commission and no state police officer in the classified service shall participate or engage in political activity; be a candidate for nomination or election to public office except to seek election as the classified state police officer serving on the State Police Commission; or be a member of any national, state, or local committee of a political party or faction; make or solicit contributions for any political party, faction, or candidate; or take active part in the management of the affairs of a political party, faction, candidate, or any political campaign, except to exercise his right as a citizen to express his opinion privately, to serve as a commissioner or official watcher at the polls, and to cast his vote as he desires. (Emphasis added)

LouisianaVoice then discovered that three members of the commission charged with enforcing those laws had themselves been active in the political arena during the time they were sitting on the commission. Commission Chairman Kyle was among the three. The others were William Goldring and Freddie Pitcher.

Pitcher was the first to go, announcing his resignation soon after we revealed that he had made political campaigns himself. Then on Thursday, after a nine-page report by Natchitoches and former State Sen. Taylor Townsend recommended the removal of all three, Kyle and Goldring submitted their letters of resignation.

Obviously, the LSTA and Edmonson were highly offended over the unwelcome questioning by retirees. They were raining on the association’s parade and it wasn’t appreciated one bit. The forced ouster of three commission members who had also made tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions did nothing to assuage those feelings.

So now we have that six-point proposal that would allow the LSTA to rid itself of those noisy old has-beens who the association apparently thinks should just ride quietly off into the sunset.

But this over-the-hill gang still has a few battles left to fight in its effort to preserve the integrity of a once-noble organization that has descended into the depths of political deals and dirty tricks. Those retirees are the ones who built the LSTA and they are pissed that a bunch of politically motivated board members who were in diapers or yet unborn when LSTA was founded have chosen to pervert its intended purpose.

Here is the six-point by-laws change currently being proposed:

  • The affiliate troop (Troop A, Troop B, etc.) to which the member is attached shall move to remove the member via a vote of the members present at a duly called meeting of said affiliate.
  • The cited member shall receive formal written notification of the action pending against him and shall have an opportunity to respond to such action. Response may be either via written reply or in person at the next scheduled affiliate meeting.
  • The affiliate membership shall then take a vote on the motion to remove the member.
  • If the motion carries, the affiliate president shall report the action to the Board of Directors of the Association, who will then notify the cited member of the action and offer him an opportunity to appeal his removal.
  • After hearing any appeal of the action, the Board of Directors will vote to ratify or decline the member’s removal.
  • At any time that the Board of Directors of the Association feel that removal of a member is warranted, they may initiate such action via a motion from a Board member by following the procedure beginning in Step 4 above.

Apparently the proposed changes apply only to male members: Point 2 refers to “action pending against him” while Point 4 said the LSTA will “offer him” an opportunity to appeal. I don’t know about you, but that sounds a tad sexist to me.

But it is that last point, Point number Six, that is crucial and eerily reminiscent of the manner in which Edmonson attempted to swing an illegal $55,000-a-year increase in his retirement benefits. In 2014, an amendment was tacked onto a benign Senate bill during the closing hours of the legislative session which ignored an irrevocable action taken years before by Edmonson that froze his retirement benefits.

Generous retirement benefit boost slipped into bill for State Police Col. Mike Edmonson on last day of legislative session

The provision in Point 6 appears to allow the LSTA board to circumvent the individual troops, or affiliates, by initiating expulsion action on its own, a provision which would, in effect, negate any input from affiliate troops.

It’s obvious to even the most casual observer now that the LSTA is no longer a “fraternal” organization, but one that is highly politicized—and vindictive to the core. By rolling out this proposal, it is clear that dissention will not be tolerated: what the board wants trumps anything the membership desires.

Perhaps that is why LouisianaVoice is picking up rumblings that the association has lost membership from among the ranks of active troopers. Apparently even the active troopers who are subject to extreme pressure from above, i.e. Edmonson, want no part of what LSTA has become.

That may also be the reason we’re also hearing that private donations to LSTA have slipped over the past several months. Benevolence is one thing; political activism by an organization that passes itself off as a “fraternal organization” is something else altogether.

LouisianaVoice sent the following email to David Young earlier today:

From: Tom Aswell
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2016 10:52 AM
To: David Young
Subject: QUESTIONS

Mr. Young, please respond to the following questions:

  • What is the purpose of this proposed by-laws change?
  • Who proposed it?
  • Was the board’s vote unanimous?
  • Is it aimed at any retired troopers in particular?
  • How many troops (affiliates?) have already recorded votes for and against this proposal?
  • Has the LSTA lost membership in recent months?
  • Has the LSTA experienced a drop in private donations in recent months?

I eagerly await your response.

I am still waiting.

Meanwhile, the time has long passed when Gov. Edwards should intervene and rein in the LSTA board members. Allowed to continue their off-the-reservation activity, they will only bring further embarrassment to the administration which has already come under considerable criticism for the re-appointment of both Edmonson and Department of Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc.

Certainly, Governor, your  plate is full with a massive budget deficit but when you were elected, you were elected as the CEO over all departments in the state.

You cannot afford to ignore festering problems in any department, especially one as high-profile and as saddled with morale issues as the Department of Public Safety and the Louisiana State Police.

 

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