Baton Rouge attorney Jimmy Napper, originally from my old stomping grounds up in Lincoln Parish, has written an open letter to members of the Louisiana Legislature. His letter, in italics, is followed by some financial figures I obtained through public records requests.
Please, please, Legislators!
Quit changing the rules. Stop moving the goal line and keep your promises!
You are ruining the State, and we should not tolerate it anymore!
The State took less revenue for many years, intentionally, to build a new, much-needed industry in Louisiana, the film and television industry, and established a complete infrastructure made up of tens of thousands of our citizens to service it and make it flourish—to the great consternation of Los Angeles and others who have dominated and monopolized it in the past.
Now, in your wisdom, you have decided to change the rules and renege on your promises—probably the clearest and most decisive way to kill this formerly thriving business in our state. Investment—intense businesses, like the film and TV industry (and Wall Street too)—abhor and are deadly allergic to uncertainty. And you have been and are creating blinding uncertainty with your actions. The resulting declines are already evident.
Can’t you keep your promises? especially to people who want to invest millions of dollars in this State? especially when they are the driver for a nationally successful new industry?
And then there is TOPS, one of the most important and successful things ever done in a State which has suffered terrible educational outcomes for decades.
You blindly followed Bobby Jindal and caused the cost of TOPS to sky-rocket the last eight years by slashing State appropriations to higher and education and then endorsing the raising of tuitions. The unavoidable and readily discernable result was increasing the cost of TOPS. Now you now scratch your collective heads and try to feign surprise, declaring that “we just can’t afford it anymore.” Oh, really?
Then, you whine and tell how hard it is for you to do your job, as you tell us the only solution is to change the rules and break promises to the best and brightest young people in this State, thereby placing an unbearable financial strain on their parents. You now tell us: No matter what was said before and what you relied upon, we have to move the goal lines and adversely affect your education and lives. We’re sorry, but you just cannot imagine how hard it is for us to do this to you.
Can’t you abide by and keep the rules, keep your promises, and do your job? especially for the best and brightest that are already in Louisiana colleges and who now face a loss of what they were promised (by you) they would get if they worked hard and earned it?
Please, please, Legislators, stand up and figure out how to be adults and to keep your promises!
After reading Napper’s letter, I thought it might be interesting to see just how diligent the House and Senate are in practicing pecuniary responsibility in light of all the budgetary cutbacks imposed on the rest of the state, higher education and health care at the forefront.
Traditionally, the legislature flies well beneath the fiscal radar year after year with no one in the media bothering to hold lawmakers accountable for their own spending habits.
Here’s what we found:
The Legislature is comprised of 39 senators and 105 representatives—144 lawmakers in all.
- Between them, the House and Senate have 252 employees—1.75 employees per legislator.
- The breakdown is 136 for the House and 115 for Senate (the number of Senate employees is 84.5 percent of that of the lower chamber even though its membership is only 37 percent of that of the House).
- The combined payroll for those 252 employees is $18.9 million—$9.6 for the House and $9.3 million for the Senate. Together, the two chambers’ per-employee average salary is $71,175 per year, far higher than the average state civil service employee makes. (Of course that average is bloated with top-heavy salaries earned by administrative personnel and attorneys who comprise nearly half the total number of employees.)
- The two chambers have 52 members (25 for the House and 27 for the Senate) who earn more than $100,000 per year—19 of whom (11 in the House and eight in the Senate) earn more than the governor’s $130,000 per year salary.
Has the legislature agreed to share the pain of other agencies who have been forced to endure deep budget cuts, resulting in layoffs? You can check that box “No.” Through the eight Jindal years and now into the Edwards administration, neither the Senate nor the House has once offered to cut their respective budgets.
Of course $18.9 million doesn’t represent much in the overall scheme of things but it would be a nice symbolic gesture if the legislature would at least offer to tighten its own belt.
Looking down the roster of employees, a few things jump out:
- The House has an Assistant to the Speaker ($68,600), a Special Assistant to the Speaker ($93,250), an Aide to the Speaker/Inmate Coordinator ($56,800), and an Executive Counsel to the Speaker ($181,200).
- There is a Director of Human Resources ($157,000), a Human Resources Manager ($83,000), two Human Resources Analysts ($75,000 and $72,000), and an Executive Assistant to Human Resources ($62,800).
- Deputy Fiscal Directors? The House has two of them ($136,800 and $101,700).
- No fewer than 12 Legislative Analysts ($141,700, $134,700, $130,800, $121,400, $114,900, $114,000, $110,000, $91,250, $88,300, $65,600, $44,200, and $35,800).
- Five Division Directors ($162,200, $137,500, $117,000, $113,600, and $103,000).
- Six Budget Analysts ($94,145, $86,700, $51,100, two at $46,800 each, and $45,000).
- Six Caucus Administrators ($121,500, $102,800, $82,150, $78,100, $56,650, and $42,100).
- And an Executive Director ($185,100).
- Clerk of the House ($220,000), a Secretary to the Clerk, two Assistant Clerks ($84,800 and $72,800), and several assistant clerks.
- Seventeen attorneys and a gaggle of Sergeants at Arms to go with communications specialists (2), a Television Audio Engineer, a Communications Director and a Deputy Communications Director, and a Communications Office Administrative Assistant.
While we’re not at all certain what those five Division Directors do, you’d think with two Deputy Fiscal Directors, 12 Legislative Analysts, six Budget Analysts, those Aides to the Speaker, and all those attorneys, the House would have a little better grasp of the state’s fiscal affairs.
The Senate likewise has:
- Six budget analysts ($140,340, $137,000, $111,500, $104,600, $100,000, and $72,500) and a plain vanilla budget analyst ($61,700).
- Two Senate Counsels ($134,300 and $104,300) and 12 Senior Attorneys (from $121,500 to $79,200).
- Five Directors ($188,900, $170,900, $148,400, $128,200, and $120,500).
- Special Counsel to the President ($118,600), Senate Counsel ($96,200), a Chief of Staff ($223,100), a Deputy Chief of Staff ($185,600), First Assistant Secretary of the Senate ($168,600).
- A Chief Legislative Researcher ($112,000) and a researcher ($53,000).
- A Chief Legislative Counsel ($130,800).
And all those researchers, lawyers, analysts and fiscal directors don’t even include offices, telephones, copiers, expense allowances, legislative salaries, per diem, and staff members for legislators in their home districts—all courtesy of state taxpayers.
With all that support staff, you’d think that members of the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee would have requested a little background on Mike Edmonson before it held Wednesday’s confirmation hearing on his nomination for another term as Superintendent of State Police. But if you watched the proceedings, it was evident that they simply did not want any critical discussion of Edmonson’s professional record.
After hearing reports of senators and representatives assigning legislative staff to do research, homework and to even write school papers for legislators’ children in the past, perhaps staffers were just too busy performing those personal tasks for lawmakers to waste time on such petty matters as professional qualifications to lead the state’s law enforcement agency.
Louisiana Voice 
If the members of the lege come up with an excuse of “we’re uninformed on those issues” it can only be because they are purposefully sticking their heads in the sand.
Tom, this one hit home. Until 3 1/2 years ago, I was one of those five House division directors. Let me digest this post before I comment further.
Take your time. I have friends who are legislative staff members and this was by no means targeting them. Instead, I was attempting to point out the hypocrisy of the Legislature in (a) having all these resources available to them and yet pleading ignorance on budgetary matters and (b) in not volunteering to cut some of its own top-heavy expenses.
And while I didn’t mention this, I suspect there are a lot of legislative family members on those lists, particularly in cases where a relative of Legislator “A” is hired as a staff member by Legislator “B” and vice-versa, thereby technically skirting the rules against nepotism.
Thanks, Tom. About nine years ago, House staff welcomed about 69 new members. That 69 was the first group of legislators elected after the advent of term limits. In the first two years of that first term we began to notice a common theme among the members. We realized that they did not trust us. No matter how hard we tried to get it across to them that we were THEIR staff, the distrust remained. Though I have left the House, I believe the distrust is still there.
It has been argued that with term limits there comes a war of who will wield the greatest influence over the new members. There are those that argue that the executive branch (a.k.a. governor’s office) will exert more influence. Still others argue that legislative staff or lobbyists (special interests) will have a greater influence.
What we realized was that the new members were not going to trust us because we (staff) were part of the problem. Those new members believed that those entrenched legislators they replaced were the problem and, as their staff, we were also part of the problem. What we began to see, however, was that the special interests groups began to exert more influence upon the new members. There were times when I would approach a legislator and point out the issues and problems with an item of legislation I was drafting for him/her. The member would often tell me to talk to the lobbyist or person pushing the bill, get their opinion. All the while in the back of my mind I am thinking this is your bill, your name is at the top, I work for you. What I am trying to say is that the staff is there to help and provide counsel, assistance, and pertinent information. They just do not utilize staff in the right way. The staffers are not policymakers. They can only do so much.
Excuse the length of this post.
Excellent points and these legislators who think they know all the answers and that they are infallible should take your words into account. Your post underscores Mr. Napper’s point when he said there is no excuse for legislators to say they were blindsided, or didn’t know how serious the budget crisis was. There were plenty of capable analysts and other staffers to tell them if they’d only listen.
But I still maintain that both chambers were hypocritical in not imposing cuts to their own budgets while everyone else was forced to suffer in an effort to stop the bleeding. And that reflects badly on the legislative leadership—not the staffers.
Sometimes legislators seem to collectively possess the mental stability of a sack of rats in a burning meth lab (apologies to Two-and-a-Half Men). Accordingly, we witness the democratic discourse descend to the depths of seeing legislators squabble over the age and weight of strippers.
This is why we sent you to Baton Rouge? Seriously?
I didn’t want my post to be too long, either (so easy to make them that way and lose people’s attention), but I was inclined to add something strongly implied in Clifford’s comment – It doesn’t matter how good the staff or the research they do is, sheer politics (including bending to the will of special interests) will always rule – It’s just a matter of degree. That is the hardest thing to accept when working in any branch of government unless one is apathetic. I dealt with very few apathetic legislative staff members, but most of them were more pragmatic than I was capable of being.
The House HR Director was formerly the director of State Civil Service, if I am not mistaken. Interesting that providing those services for 250 employees is so much more valuable than it was for providing that service for 60,000 or so rank and file employees. I don’t really know how many employees there are now since they got rid of the hospitals. Even if it is half of that, it is still 250 vs. 30,000.
Something everybody should think about, after reading this post, is the simple fact the legislature has the complete power of appropriation – arguably the greatest power in government. It is solely responsible for appropriations to itself and to the judicial branch of government and ultimately responsible for what gets appropriated to everything else, no matter what the governor recommends.
Legislators routinely complain about the power of the governor, but much of that power is traditional and not vested in the law. In some states the legislature essentially tosses the governor’s executive budget in the trash and comes up with its own budget and appropriations. The Louisiana legislature could do the same. Sure, the governor has veto power, including line-item veto power over the general appropriations bill (but not the legislative or judicial appropriations bills) and the capital outlay bill, but the legislature has the power to override his veto and, as we often forget, they, by law, are MANDATED to come into veto sessions, unless they vote not to – which, they routinely do.
The legislature has essentially abrogated its power of appropriation to the governor in the case of the capital outlay appropriations bill – and he does derive and exercise power as a result, but that’s another story and not something the legislature couldn’t fix by simply matching appropriations to funds available..
Sorry this is long and it could be longer, but Tom’s piece emphasizes the enormous power of the legislature and the fact the public should not let legislators scapegoat anything or anybody, including the governor, for not fulfilling its own responsibilities in all matters.
I don’t know the purpose of many of those positions, but I do know what Human Resources does. 5 positions for 252 employees? I don’t think another state agency even comes close to that ratio. And since they are tremendously overstaffed in that area, it stands to reason the legislators would overstaff every other area!
As for the human resources director, I don’t know what she was earning as director of civil service and I am not justifying her salary here. However, she is the human resources director for the House only, the 136 House staffers. However, it is still more than 252. At a minimum it’s 346. There are the 136 House staffers who work at the capitol, 105 house members, and another 105 legislative assistants, who work in the legislators’ district office. So that’s five positions for 346 employees and legislators.
Rumor has it that the Legislative staffers received raises this past December. Maybe you could confirm that? It would just add to the level of hypocrisy if it turns out to be true. All the while, legislators are stomping their feet and beating their chests about the few executive branch agencies who got raises as the Jindal administration was leaving. It would also be interesting to know how many years during the past 8 that staff received raises when many civil service employees did not.
Our legislators appear to busy themselves with trivial matters such as wearing pink for fashionable hunting to recruit more female hunters yet cannot seem to pass a bill as important as the fair wage bill. And adding insult to injury is the legislator, Havard and his crass amendment for strippers weight and age attached to a bill attempting to target a reduction in sex trafficking. The comradeship shown by some legislators during his offensive performance was an atrocity and one cannot help but wonder if we would be better off without them. LABI is running the show for bills that seriously affect our state financially anyway.
Great points, Lee.
Some of these things are intentional diversions to draw attention away from failure to deal with important issues – like Cameron Henry’s committee moving the AG into a separate bill and attempting to eliminate the Inspector General. Those actions successfully diverted attention from his committee’s failure to come up with a realistic version of the general appropriations bill. Other unintentional controversies distract us – take the local press and national attention Kenny Havard’s unfortunate joke amendment, for example. Still others, as you point out, are trivial in comparison to the budget crisis. .
The legislature’s own appropriation bill reflects its hypocrisy and it got very little attention outside of Tom’s coverage herein. The MSM routinely reports the legislature’s actions on its budget in back-of-section, bottom-of-page stories and the public gives a collective yawn, much to the legislature’s glee, no doubt.
It is beyond time we all held ALL our elected officials accountable. But, we have to pay attention to what they are NOT doing rather than allowing the diversions thrown up on a daily basis to draw our attention away from what is really important.
I threw up reading about those high salaries and how they relate to inaction and inefficiency in the Legislature. If you see a $100 bill on the floor of the Rotunda, please send it to me.
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“…about those high salaries and how they relate to inaction and inefficiency in the Legislature…” Mr. Darensbourg the salaries have nothing to do with the “inaction and inefficiency” of the legislature. First, let me make you aware of the role the legislative staff plays in the legislative process in Louisiana. Basically, the staff performs all of the research and drafting AS REQUESTED by the members. The drafting aspect includes the drafting of all bills, amendments, digests, conferences committee reports, and summary of amendments. In reality, any and all legislative documents. In addition to the research and drafting, certain staff members are required to staff one of the 16 standing committees(House). Committee staff duties include much more than just drafting bills and amendments. Staff will assist the chairman with the scheduling of bills, prepare meeting notices, meeting agendas, and committee reports. Legislative staff members are also available to advise and counsel members on various issues and subject matters. Legislative staff, AT THE REQUEST OF MEMBERS, may also advise constituents on a myriad of issues and problems they may encounter. Budget and fiscal staff, though they may not have to perform as many as those duties listed above, they do have to provide the members with accurate fiscal information and budget analysis for ALL OF STATE GOVERNMENT. Research, advice, and counsel involve gathering information for members relative to a bill request or an issue or problem they or a constituent have encountered.
Mr. Darensbourg out of all of that listed above, can you find an instance where staff is in control of what issues to research, what bills are drafted, to which committee bills are referred, which and when bills are scheduled for hearing, which bills will make it out of committee, which and when bills will move off the floor to the other chamber, which amendments will be drafted and which will get adopted, which amendments of the other chamber will be concurred in or rejected, or whether a conference committee report is adopted? ANSWER: NONE The legislature, in other words, the members and the rules of each chamber, control the process.
By the way, this post comes from a former House staffer, however, it’s not any different on the Senate side. Also, I am not justifying any of the so-called high salaries you claim.
Sorry, for the long post.