On August 13, Eliska Lynch and husband Bill lost their Denham Springs home to devastating floods that cause billions of dollars in damages in Southeast Louisiana.
On August 31, she was notified—by mail—that she had lost her job as a bookkeeper for the Parochial Employees’ Retirement System (PERS). http://www.persla.org/
PERS is a public defined benefit pension plan which provides retirement benefits pursuant to Act 205 of 1952.
The system provides for two separate retirement plans—one designed for employers not participating in Social Security and one for those who remained in Social Security, according to the RERS Web page. http://www.persla.org/history.htm
The system provides benefits to all Louisiana parishes except Orleans, East Baton Rouge and Lafourche. Additionally, agencies who are wholly or partially funded with parish funds may participate in PERS.
Apparently, according to the two-page notifying her of her termination, Lynch did not perform sufficiently at her new position of bookkeeper, a position into which she had been moved when the former bookkeeper retired.
According to Lynch, however, she was fired because she wanted to return to her former position of benefits analyst but that job had been filled by Cari Hill, the daughter of PERS Assistant Director Becky Fontenot.
Lynch said when she complained of nepotism, she subsequently received the letter from PERS Administrative Director Dainna Tully informing her of her termination.
In her letter—and in an interview with LouisianaVoice, Tully indicated that Lynch had voluntarily accepted the bookkeeping position. In her letter to Lynch—provided to LouisianaVoice by Lynch—Tully said Sullivan trained Lynch for three weeks before conducting her first interview for a benefits analyst to fill Lynch’s former position. In all, she said, Sullivan worked six weeks with her. She also said the PERS audit team worked with Lynch for three days in an unsuccessful effort to provide “additional training tutelage” for her new position.
Lynch, however, said she never encountered any criticism of her job performance until she broached the nepotism issue of Hill’s being supervised by her mother, which Lynch says constitutes nepotism. http://employeeissues.com/nepotism.htm
Not so, said Tully. “She (Hill) answers directly to me. All employees answer to me.”
That may well be. Many agency heads are micro-managers. That, theoretically, at least would make all employees equal in the agency head’s eyes. But in the words of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, some are more equal than others.
And in most agency organizational charts, Hill would certainly be under the direct supervision of Fontenot, her mother, a clear violation of Louisiana’s ethics laws governing nepotism.
- 1119. Nepotism
- No member of the immediate family of an agency head shall be employed in his agency.
B.(1) No member of the immediate family of a member of a governing authority or the chief executive of a governmental entity shall be employed by the governmental entity.
Who may be held liable for a violation of §1119?:
In addition to the agency head and the agency head’s immediate family member(s) hired in violation of §1119, the following persons may also be held liable for a willful violation of the nepotism restrictions:
Member of the governing authority (Hill);
Public employee having the authority to hire and fire the employee (Tully);
Immediate supervisor of the employee (Fontenot).
After leave time was applied, Tully said in her letter, Lynch’s official date of termination was Sept. 14—one month and a day after floodwater swept through her home and reducing her household belongings and two vehicles to a mound of worthless debris at the edge of the street.
Louisiana Voice 
No big deal! It’s just another law. And as you know, laws in Louisiana are meaningless because we have no enforcement mechanism. Sorry Mrs. Lynch but you’ve been Teagued.
Has the Civil Service Commission weighed in on this as well at the Ethics Board? I think Ms. Lynch needs to write a letter to the editor.
I feel very sorry for the lady who lost home, job, etc. Tell her to pray for strength to fight the evil that surrounds her and place this in God’s hands. Hope she gets a a good lawyer who is dedicated to fighting for justice.
The Ethics Board won’t do anything unless there is there is an official complaint.
Tom, is her husband the former IG?
No. A different Bill Lynch. Both the IG Bill Lynch and wife Donna are deceased.
If PERS is indeed a public entity governed by LA ethics laws Mrs. Lynch should immediately file a formal ethics complaint. Hiring a child or other kin is absolutely against ethics laws. Family exceptions apply when both family members already work at the same agency.
Predictably Jindal, who pretend he wanted to strengthen ethics laws and deliberately gutted them while hand-picking new board minions who refused to enforce the laws where he was concerned, never feared. Neither do most legislators who are responsible for foisting these “new and improved” ethics laws of a gullible public.
Part of the BS of new ethics statutes is that ALL public servants must take and pass an ethics exam each year. The statute requires even public school teachers to do so, laughable if it weren’t so disingenuous. Meanwhile the stooges who wrote the laws continue to break them with impunity.
One should be able to get a copy of the ethics rules by linking to the LA Ethics Board website where one can also read with limited transparency just who controls lawmakers by contributing large sums to campaign finances.
Perhaps readers will remember the whistle blowers who were prosecuted a few years back when they publicly stated they’d filed a complaint. They were punished rather than the ethics violators.
Sounds like someone’s bitter about being fired!
Sounds like you do not know the person involved. She is an intelligent, God-fearing woman, who has spent her entire life giving of herself to help others.
Another recent article I commented on.