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Archive for the ‘BESE’ Category

Bored but can’t sleep? Try counting Louisiana boards

Posted in BESE, Boards, Business, Campaign Contributions, Commissions, Education, Governor's Office, Retirement, Revenue, Transparency on January 24, 2011| 2 Comments »

When attempting to ferret out the hidden costs of state government, one can quickly become board, as in more than 500 boards and commissions—complete with more than 6,000 members.

Alabama, which has 250,000 more people than Louisiana, according to the 2010 Census, has only 25 boards and commissions. Texas, with five times Louisiana’s population, makes do with 110 though it, too, has a glut of education boards with 11.

But back to Louisiana where individual board and commission membership ranges from as few as two to as many as 164.

Sheer logistics makes compiling even a rough cost estimate for office space, utilities, member per diem and mileage payments, or staff salaries virtually impossible. There is, however, sufficient evidence of overlap and duplication to warrant scrutiny, especially in the face of budgetary shortfalls predicted to be as much as $1.6 billion for the coming fiscal year.

There are the usual suspects: the education and retirement boards.

Louisiana somehow has always seen fit to have several education boards:

The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), the LSU Board of Supervisors; the Board of Regents for Higher Education; the University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors; the Southern University Board of Supervisors, and more recently, the Community and Technical Colleges Board of Supervisors.

So, why do LSU and Southern warrant their own separate boards? Why is there a need for both a University of Louisiana board (formerly the Board of Trustees for State Colleges and Universities) and a Board of Regents? No one has ever answered that question but each has its very own office space, board members, and staff.

But wait. While much has said about those boards, Louisiana also has the Academic Advisory Council; the Adult Learning Task Force; the Education Estimating Conference (how does one estimate education?); the Louisiana High School Redesign Commission; the Local Education Governance and Administration Task Force, and the Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) Advisory Board.

Or, how about the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System Board of Trustees; the Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System Board of Trustees; the School Employees’ Retirement System Board of Trustees; the Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System Board of Trustees; the State Police Retirement Fund, and the Public Retirement Systems’ Actuarial Committee? And just what is the difference between the Louisiana Retirement Development Commission and the Commission on Public Retirement?

The legalization of gambling in Louisiana produced another whole line of boards. We have the Louisiana Gaming Control Board; the Louisiana State Lottery Corporation Board of Directors; the Louisiana State Racing Commission; the Bossier Parish Pari-Mutuel Live Racing Facility Economic Redevelopment and Gaming Control Board; the Calcasieu Parish Pari-Mutuel Live Racing Facility Economic Redevelopment and Gaming Control Board, and the St. Landry Parish Pari-Mutuel Live Racing Facility Economic Redevelopment and Gaming Control Board.

Then we have the Louisiana Children’s Cabinet; the Children’s Cabinet Advisory Board; the Children’s Cabinet Research Council; The Louisiana Children’s Trust Fund; the Child Care and Development Block Grant Advisory Council; the Louisiana Advisory Committee on Licensing of Child Care Facilities and Child Placing Agencies; the Child Death Review Panel; the Commission on Peri-natal Care and Prevention of Infant Mortality; the Governor’s Advisory Council on Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities, and the Select Committee on Women and Children.

Under the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, there are a multitude of boards and commissions. These include:

The Agriculture Finance Authority; the Agricultural Commodities Commission; the State Market Commission; the Louisiana Feed Commission; the Louisiana Fertilizer Commission; the Louisiana Forestry Commission; the Livestock Sanitary Board; the Livestock Brand Commission; The Dairy Industry Promotion Board; the Dairy Stabilization Board; the Aquaculture Coordinating Council; the Aquatic Chelonian (turtle) Research and Promotion Board; Oyster Task Force; the Oyster Lease Damage Evaluation Board; the Fur and Alligator Advisory Council; the Identity Task Force of Seafood Standards; the Catfish Promotion Board; the Louisiana Pork Promotion Board; the Sweet Potato Advertising and Development Commission; the Louisiana Egg Commission; the Rice Promotion Board, and, of course, the Rice Research Board.

And how could we ever forget the Boll Weevil Eradication Commission?

In sheer numbers, however, none can top the various levee, port, and sundry water boards and commissions. How could we ever function without them?

Check ’em out:

The Bayou DeSiard Lake Restoration Commission; the Bayou Lafourche Fresh Water District; the Lafourche Basin Levee District Board of Commissioners; the Capital Area Groundwater Conservation District Board of Commissioners; the Cane Waterway Commission; the Ground Water Resources Commission; the Ground Water Management Conservation District Board of Directors; the Groundwater Management Advisory Task Force; the Morehouse Parish Lake Commission; the Poverty Point Reservoir District Board of Commissioners; the West Ouachita Parish Reservoir Commission; the Allen Parish Reservoir District Board of Commissioners; the Washington Parish Reservoir Commission; the White Lake Property Advisory Board; the Bayou D’arbonne Watershed District Commission; the Sparta Groundwater Conservation District; the Amite River Basin Drainage and Water Conservation District Board of Commissioners; the Waterways Infrastructure Bank Board of Directors; the Southern Louisiana Drinking Water Study Commission; the Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District Board of Commissioners; the Morgan City Harbor and Terminal District Board of Commissioners; the Millennium Port Authority; the South Tangipahoa Parish Port Commission; the Greater Ouachita Port Commission; the Krotz Springs Port Commission; the Port of Greater Baton Rouge; the Port of New Orleans Board of Commissioners; the Red River Port Commission; the Red River Compact Commission; the Red River Development Council; the Red River Waterway Commission; the Red River; Atchafalaya and Bayou Boeuf Levee District Board of Commissioners; the Red River Levee Drainage District Board of Commissioners; the Sabine River Authority Board of Commissioners; the Sabine River Compact Administration; the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East; the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority West; the Morgan City; Berwick Port Pilot Commissioners and Examiners; the River Port Review and Oversight Board; the River Port Pilot Commissioners and Examiners for Port Fouchon Board; the River Port Pilot Commissioners and Examiners Board (Calcasieu); the River Port Pilots for the Calcasieu Bar; Pass; and Main Ship Channel to Lake Charles Orange; Texas Board; the River Port Pilot Commissioners for the Port of New Orleans Board; the River Port Pilots for the Intracoastal Canal; the New Orleans and Baton Rouge Steamship Pilots Association; the New Orleans-Baton Rouge Steamship Pilots Examiners for the Mississippi River Board; the Lafourche Basin Levee District Board of Commissioners; the North Lafourche Conservation Levee and Drainage District; the South Lafourche Levee District Board of Commissioners; the Lafitte Area Independent Levee District; the Lake Borgne Basin Levee District Board of Commissioners; the Bossier Levee District Board of Commissioners; the North Bossier Levee District Board the Caddo Levee District Board of Commissioners; the East Jefferson Levee District Board of Commissioners; the Fifth Louisiana Levee District Board of Commissioners; the Pontchartrain Levee Board; the Board of Levee Commissioners of the Orleans Levee District; the Nineteenth Louisiana Levee District Board of Commissioners; the St. Mary Levee District Board of Commissioners; the Natchitoches Levee and Drainage District Board of Commissioners; and the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District Board of Commissioners.

Thank goodness the state took steps to merge redundant levee boards after Hurricane Katrina.

But just for good measure, we have the:

• Aviation and Military Museum of Louisiana Board of Directors;
• Military Hall of Fame and Museum Governing Board of Directors;
• Military Museum Governing Board;
• Kenner Naval Museum Commission;
• Governor’s Military Advisory Board;
• Military Advisory Commission;
• Military Family Assistance Board;
• Veterans Affairs Commission;
• Louisiana Diabetes Advisory Council;
• Louisiana Diabetes Initiative Council;
• Joint Legislative Juvenile Justice Commission;
• Governor’s Advisory Board of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention;
• Juvenile Justice Reform Act Implementation Commission;
• Florida Parishes Juvenile Justice Commission;
• Task Force on Legal Representation in Child Protection Cases;
• Integrated Criminal Justice Information System Policy Board;
• Life Safety and Property Protection Advisory Board;
• Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Criminal Justice;
• Law Enforcement Executive Management Institute Board;
• Louisiana State Police Commission;
• Louisiana Sentencing Commission
• Pardon Board;
• Parole Board;
• Louisiana Commission on Uniform State Laws;
• Forensic Strategic Task Force;
• Domestic Violence Law Enforcement Training Task Force;
• Governor’s Task Force on DWI-Vehicular Homicide;
• Homeland Security Advisory Council;
• State Council for Interstate Adult Offender Supervision;
• Louisiana Law Institute;
• National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics;
• Council on Peace Officer Standards and Training;
• Interagency Council on Prevention of Sex Offenses;
• Sexual Assault Task Force;
• Eastern New Orleans Interstate Oversight Commission;
• Greater New Orleans Expressway Commission;
• Senate Select Committee for Oversight of Greater New Orleans Expressway Commission;
• Louisiana Byways Commission;
• Manchac Parkway Commission;
• Mississippi River Parkway Commission;
• Mississippi River Road Commission;
• Mississippi River Bridge Authority;
• Crescent City Connection Oversight Commission;
• Highway 1 Task Force;
• I-49 North Extension Feasibility and Funding Task Force;
• I-49 South Project Task Force;
• Ouachita Expressway Authority;
• River Parishes Transit Authority;
• Southern Rapid Rail Transit Commission;
• Incentives for New Ventures and Economic Stimulation (INVEST) Commission;
• Louisiana Investment in Infrastructure for Economic Prosperity Commission;
• Louisiana Economic Development Corporation;
• Economic Estimating Conference;
• North Louisiana Economic Development Board;
• Louisiana Prosper Commission;
• Small Business Entrepreneurship Commission;
• Louisiana Workforce Commission;
• Louisiana Workforce Investment Council;
• Occupational Forecasting Conference;
• Greater New Orleans Biosciences Economic Development District Board of Commissioners;
• Legislative Budget Control Council
• Revenue Estimating Conference;
• Small Business Task Force;
• Small Business Compliance Advisory Panel;
• Solution to Poverty Network Council;
• Southern Growth Policies Board;
• Workforce Competitiveness Task Force;
• Louisiana Commission on Marriage and Family;
• Life Management and Marriage and Relationship Skills Course Study Task Force;
• Marriage/Family Therapy Advisory Committee

All this has given me a migraine so if you will excuse me, I think I’ll go lie down now. There’s probably a board or commission or a study task force for that.

Got a news lead for Louisiana Voice to investigate? Have a suggestion for a story? Your identity will never be revealed. Just send an email to louisianavoice@cox.net

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State audit critical of Recovery School District

Posted in Auditor, BESE, Education, RSD, Transparency on January 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

A state audit of The Recovery School District (RSD) has revealed a fourth consecutive year of sloppy record keeping for more than $2 million in assets and more than $188,000 in movable property either missing or stolen in Fiscal Year 2010.

RSD is a special school district created by legislation in 2003 and administered by the Louisiana Department of Education. The district’s mission is to provide support and intervention as necessary to help academically struggling schools by putting them on a path toward success.

The audit report indicates RSD failed to enter 13,247 items within the required 60 days of receipt and that 1,262 items valued at $2,141,347 could not be located.

Moreover, RSD reported 35 incidents involving 380 movable property items with an approximate value of $188,600 as missing or stolen.

The audit report also indicated that for the fourth consecutive year, RSD identified overpayments to employees, did not verify that employee termination dates were accurate or timely, and lacked adequate documentation to support certain payroll charges. Payroll overpayments of $18,206 were identified by RSD during FY 2010. “Failure to support payroll charges with adequate documentation increases the risk that employees will be paid improperly and may result in federal disallowed cost(s),” the report said.

Other findings of the audit, conducted by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010, included:

 There were 1,097 assets that had incorrect tag numbers, duplicate serial numbers, incorrect vehicle identification numbers, and/or no manufacturer’s serial number entered in the asset management system;

 Seventy-eight tagged assets were found but were not listed in the asset management system and no paperwork was available to determine the acquisition cost;

 A physical search of property determined nine trailers with an acquisition cost of $24,750 each and 10 other assets with an apparent value of $1,000 or more each were not tagged or entered in the asset management system;

 Daily vehicle logs were not properly completed or audited for completeness by the approving supervisor. In addition, RSD failed to provide proof of maintenance and failed to use the preventive maintenance log;

 Two of 24 employees did not have a time sheet for the requested pay period;

 Two of 11 employees did not have approved leave slips on file;

 For 11 of 24 employees, RSD could not provide supporting documentation to confirm the employees’ approved rates of pay.

One other identified problem, one not controlled by RSD or the Department of Education, was that RSD does not have a capital structure which allows it to receive advance funding of reimbursement programs. That in turn prevents RSD from paying vendors in a timely manner, the report said, adding, “RSD was created by the Louisiana Legislature as a state agency without the benefit of a capital structure that is found in most school districts.”

The reported recommended that the legislature consider legislation to provide advance funding to allow RSD to make timely vendor payments.

RSD Superintendent Paul Vallas, in his written response to the audit findings, took an overall defensive posture while acknowledging shortcomings pointed out in the audit report.

While saying that many of the deficient conditions found in the audit had since been corrected, he also pointed out that RSD “is the only school district in the state which has to tag and input into a system items of $1,000 and above. All other school systems in the state are only required to do this for items of $5,000 and above. If RSD would be treated under such guidelines, none of the (audit) items indicated would be relevant….”

He said RSD has in the State Reporting System 204 assets with a value of more than $1.6 million that have individual asset values of $5,000 or greater.

In referring to the non-existent capital structure to allow timely vendor payments, Vallas fairly bristled. “As you did not note in your finding, the Recovery School District disclosed this situation in our Annual Financial Report.” He added that RSD has applied for legislative remedy for the cash flow restrictions. “To date, these efforts have not been successful,” he said.

Vallas was equally testy when addressing the employee overpayments. “What seems to get lost in your recant of history is that the Recovery School District has an effective internal control system over payroll,” he said. “The numbers quoted in your finding are the result of the Recovery School District’s identification and recovery of overpayments in past years, not new overpayments.”

He did concede, however, that missing time sheets and leave sheets for employees was “not acceptable,” adding that maintaining such documentation in paper form “is not the best solution to the storage issues resulting from our time keeping paper requirements.” He said a more foolproof method of document archiving would be implemented.

Vallas, along with Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek, came under sharp attack last year when it was discovered that Vallas, with the apparent blessings of Pastorek, took some three dozen trips to visit family in Chicago in a state vehicle. The trips weren’t discovered until Vallas was involved in an accident in the state vehicle.

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Give us a contract and we’ll tell you where your education dollars go

Posted in BESE, Campaign Contributions, Contract, Contracts, Education, Governor's Office, Transparency on January 11, 2011| 3 Comments »

When Buddy Roemer was elected governor in 1987, one message that he seemingly never tired of repeating was that if elected, he would board up the top three floors of the Louisiana Department of Education.

Had he made good on that one promise, he might still be governor.

The Department of Education has long been criticized by lawmakers as being far too top-heavy in administrative personnel while short-changing students in the classroom. And while the number of administrators and bureaucrats in the department may indeed be high, when it comes to creative ways in which to spend taxpayer dollars—federal or state—there doesn’t appear to be any agency in state government that can match Education in pure gooneybabble spending.

In Fiscal Year 2008-2009, the last year for which figures were made available, the department handed out 1,009 contracts totaling nearly $130.1 million. The previous year was even worse. In the year ending June 30, 2008, it issued 1,395 contracts totaling $162.2 million. That comes to more than 2.400 contracts worth over $292 million in just two years.

The contracts, issued to individuals, state and federal agencies, non-profit groups, churches, and corporations, ranged from as little as $500 to more than $8 million.

Granted, much of the money was federal dollars and some of the contracts were inter-agency pacts, meaning money was simply transferred from one state entity to another.

But a $94,000 contract to Sports 4 Kids that ran from Aug. 18, 2008 to June 15, 2009 that calls for the contractor to provide a program to help students learn “valuable social skills through organized play on their recess and lunch periods” has to raise a few eyebrows. How did we ever learn to play without Sports 4 Kids?

Or how about the back-to-back contracts issued to Joy Corporation of Zachary? One nine-month contract from Jan. 1 through Aug. 31, 2007, for $220,000 and paid with 100 percent federal funds called on Joy to provide students in grades K-12 with “high quality youth development services that support student learning, including tutoring and recreation.”

The next year Joy, founded by Ron Jackson, a former state employee who was recently fired as interim Superintendent of Schools for the City of Baker after only 17 days on the job, did even better, receiving a 10-month contract running from Oct. 1, 2007 through Aug. 31, 2008, that was for the same services but the amount was increased to $263,295.

Some of the contracts were with individuals. One such 11-month contract for $48,800, called for the contractor to provide consulting services to the New Orleans Recovery School District Central Office “to assist with the creation of sustainable relationships with professional unions.”

The $341,465.48 contract to Peter A. Mayer Advertising was simply for a six-month public relations campaign “to establish a positive image of high school redesign.”

CN Resource, LLC, received a contract for $850,000 that ran from May 1, 2006 through April 30, 2007 “to assist the state in ensuring program integrity and assessing compliance of specified participating agencies with USDA Child Nutrition Program.” That, however, apparently was not sufficient because a contract for $32,900 was then awarded an individual from Oct. 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008, “to review program records and (to) conduct nutrient analysis of one week of menus to report on compliance with state and federal dietary program.”

Nine contracts of $76,000 each ($684,000 total) were awarded to three separate non-profit organizations. Seven of those were to various chapters of Families Helping Families. The other two were awarded to Bayou Land Families and Northshore Families and each of the nine contract descriptions called for providing resources, direct support, materials, and training to families, educators and service providers of students with disabilities.

Sixty-eight contracts of $11,644 each ($791,792 total) were awarded to various churches in locations that were virtually impossible to determine to operate community-based tutorial programs from September 2008 through June 2009.

Others were simply eye-popping in their size and the description of services:

• $3.2 million to Catapult Learning, LLC to “provide high quality research-based professional development opportunities, materials, and services” that support schools, families, and students;

• $$558,000 to an architect for an environmental assessment for demolition of multiple schools in the New Orleans Recovery School District (RSD);

• $1 million for architectural services for construction of new schools and repair of existing schools;

• $1.5 million for demolition of an elementary school;

• $2.18 million for an architect to design bid documents for demolition of a school;

• $2.1 million for architectural services for school construction;

• $2.33 million for architectural services for school construction;

• $2.5 million for architectural services for school construction;

• $4.1 million for architectural services for school construction;

• $8.1 million for architectural services for construction of modular school sites for New Orleans RSD.

There were others, of course–hundreds and hundreds. Whether it is for workshops, presentations, keynote addresses, leadership training, meeting planners, redesign, enhancements, mentoring, if it can be imagined and justified, it would appear to be a candidate for funding of some description. With all the rhetoric about deficits and cutbacks to higher education and public health, the money still seems to flow freely through the labyrinth that is the Louisiana Department of Education.

And no one appears to be minding the store.

When the Louisiana Legislature convenes on April, lawmakers may wish to ask State School Superintendent Paul Pastorek some uncomfortable questions that go beyond the mere approval of RSD Superintendent Paul Vallas’s use of a state vehicle for a few dozen personal trips to Chicago.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, meanwhile, may wish to reprise Roemer’s plans for the Department of Education way back in ’87. Those plans, after all, were never implemented.

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Bobby Jindal: Indian Giver (subtitled: Where’s the leadership?)

Posted in BESE, Education, Golf Courses, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Revenue, Transparency, Water Reservoirs, tagged on November 14, 2010| 2 Comments »

At the risk of sounding racist, Gov. Bobby Jindal has to be considered as a true Indian giver. More accurately, an Indian giver with no leadership qualities.

There. I’ve said it. Someone had to.

Gov. “I’m not taking and federal stimulus money” Jindal back in September finally acquiesced and made formal application for $147 million in education funding. That was the amount for which Louisiana was deemed eligible from the $26 billion federal stimulus bill that was passed by Congress in August.

State Superintendent of Education Paul—“I didn’t know it was improper to use a state vehicle for dozens of personal trips to Chicago”—Pastorek said the state was making the application for the money because there were “no policy strings attached.”

“No strings” notwithstanding, federal guidelines required that the money go directly to the local school districts and that the money be used to pay salaries and benefits for teachers, school administrators and other staff.

The local school district officials were ecstatic. In some parishes it had already been determined that the local districts could no longer afford to pay substitute teachers when regular teachers were out sick and that the regular teachers would have to pay them out of their own salaries. Suddenly it seemed there was relief for the local officials who worked the infusion of cash into their operating budgets.

Then, just as suddenly, Jindal last week pulled the rug from under the local districts. More precisely, he pulled the money.

He created his own strings, it seems, choosing to commandeer the money to plug the $106 million hole in the administration’s budget and to offset cuts to higher education, an area he has already gutted with earlier cuts. In fact, one might suspect that the political backlash against his higher ed cuts were such that in grasping for an answer, he fell upon the brilliant idea of jerking the $147 from public education. Problem solved or leadership void?

Jindal’s latest misstep lays bare the sad fact that he really has no plan for pulling Louisiana out of the current fiscal morass. He is every bit as lost in facing this crisis as Gov. Kathleen Blanco was in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But give Gov. Blanco her due: her crisis was not self-inflicted, but was a natural disaster with which nearly anyone would have been ill-equipped to deal.

Jindal, on the other hand, had to see this coming. We were warned that the legislature should not be spending one-time money from the hurricane recovery funds in the manner it was. No one listened; not the legislature and certainly not the governor who was loath to use the line item veto at his disposal.

And now, in the middle of a fiscal crisis and with an even bigger one looming next year, what does Jindal do? He scoots off to dozens of states to campaign on behalf of Republican candidates for governor, Congress, and the U.S. Senate, leaving home-schooled subordinates to grapple with the budget deficit. For those not especially good at history, Richard Nixon did the same thing in preparation for his successful 1968 run at the president’s office, except he did it as a private citizen. He lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960 and then somehow managed to lose the California governor’s election to Pat Brown, prompting his famous line, “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any longer.”

Instead, Nixon, not as a sitting governor ignoring responsibilities to his state, began working on behalf of Republican candidates, amassing in the process, a hatful of chits that he was able to redeem in 1968. That’s exactly what Jindal seems to be doing. He was absent so often during the state’s worsening financial crisis, that the president of the LSU student body fired off a letter to a New Hampshire newspaper asking the governor to return home.

Jindal insists he has the job he wants. If that’s true, he should stay home and do that job. Instead of staying home once the November elections were over, however, he now embarks to a tour to tout his book, Leadership and Crisis. That begs the question, “what leadership?” Jindal “presided over Louisiana’s healthcare system at age 24, headed the University of Louisiana system at 27, became a U.S. congressman at 33, and was elected governor of Louisiana at 36,” according to the Amazon.com promotion of his book. Do we see a trend here? The two systems that he headed under former Gov. Mike Foster, higher education and health care, are the two agencies that he appears determined to dismantle.

Again, the question: “what leadership?”

Jindal had his chance. He blew it. He could have slashed away at the Capital Outlay Bill in the session that ended last summer, but he didn’t. He could easily have cut nearly half-a-billion in wasteful spending from the bill, but he didn’t. He could bring himself to cut only $9.4 million. And now he has backed himself into a corner.

Where was the leadership, Gov. Jindal?

Instead of spending millions of dollars purchasing golf courses, the governor could have said no. But he didn’t.

Where was the leadership?

In ordering deeper cuts recently, Jindal told department heads the state needed more leadership and less whining. Immediately after making that brash statement, the state’s leader in abstensia left for Pittsburgh, PA, to campaign for yet another Republican candidate.

Where was the leadership?

Just in case you may have missed it, Governor, here again is a partial list of inappropriate appropriations that, had they been vetoed on one of the days that you were in the state, the financial mess in which we now find ourselves might have been averted.

That would be real leadership.

So, please read these during your next flight to some other state to promote your leadership book:

• $800,000 for land acquisition for the proposed Allen Parish Reservoir;
• $1.4 million for the proposed Bayou Dechene Reservoir in Caldwell Parish;
• $2.6 million for the Washington Parish Reservoir Commission Feasibility study;
• $17.2 million for Bayou Segnette Festival Park land acquisition and sports complex improvements;
• $28 million for modifications to the Performing Arts Center in Jefferson Parish;
• $2 million for construction of a playground Basketball Gym in Orleans Parish;
• $1.8 million for construction of the Little Theatre of Shreveport;
• $2.6 million for a new Westbank YMCA in Algiers;
• $2 million for the New Orleans Music Hall of Fame;
• $6 million for construction of a new courthouse in Baton Rouge;
• $2.8 million for the Dryades YMCA in New Orleans;
• $5.4 million for the Red River Waterway Commission;
• $7.7 million for the renovation of the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette;
• $2.5 million for improvements to the Coteau Water System in St. Martin and Iberia parishes;
• $2.4 million for the Union Parish Law Enforcement District;
• $1.8 million for construction for the Robinson Film Center in Caddo Parish;
• $12 million for construction of a convention center complex in Shreveport;
• $3.8 million for a new tennis center in Orleans Parish;
• $4.7 million for construction of the Louisiana Artist Guild Arts Incubator in New Orleans;
• $26.5 million for expansion and construction of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

Millions more were spent on construction projects that included recreational facilities, councils on aging, courthouses, sheriffs’ offices, jails, drainage projects, work on parish and municipal road and street construction projects, community centers, and water systems.

As if that were not enough, when legislators found extra money lying around, as they always seem to do during each legislative session, the House quickly pushed HB 76 through, appropriating an additional $33 million in local pork projects. Some of those expenditures:

• $150,000 for the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame in Winnfield;
• $500,000 for the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities;
• $500,000 to “organizations which assist small towns and rural areas with their water and wastewater systems;”
• $250,000 for construction of an animal shelter in St. Charles Parish;
• $1 million to the Lafayette Parish Consolidated Government for infrastructure construction.

Where was the leadership?

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A quick overview of official arrogance

Posted in Auditor, BESE, Education, Governor's Office, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Prison, Recovery School District, RSD, Vitter, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 28, 2010| 1 Comment »

Louisiana’s Superintendent of Education doesn’t seem to be very smart. But don’t worry, he appears to have plenty company.

Paul Pastorek, originally appointed by Gov. Kathleen Blanco and retained by Bobby Jindal, is quick to blame the teachers of any school or school system that is shown to be failing.

But when test scores improve, guess who takes full credit? Okay, that was too easy.

But to repeat, he doesn’t seem to be very smart, especially for a lawyer, the occupational genus from which he was plucked to save Louisiana public education.

Taking the typical legal approach, Pastorek, without ever admitting actual culpability, earlier this month said he would repay the state $4,185 for dozens of private trips taken in a state vehicle by Paul Vallas, head the department’s Recovery School District. Both Pastorek and Vallas have insisted they were unaware that it was improper to take the Dodge Durango out of state on personal business, including several trips to visit family in Chicago. It was on one of the Chicago trips that Vallas wrecked the state car, the incident that led to the discovery of its out-of-state use.

What part of “improper use” don’t they understand?

In June, Higher Education Commissioner Sally Clausen resigned after it became public that she had furtively retired in August of 2009 without informing the Board of Regents, her bosses, only to be rehired after missing exactly one day of work. While entirely legal, the resulting flak caused her to become, in her own words, a “constant distraction.” The retire-rehire move netted her a $90,000 payout for unused sick leave and vacation time and entitled her to an annual pension of $146,400 on top of her regular salary.

It is still not certain as to who was responsible for “re-hiring” her. The Board of Regents is the hiring authority for the commissioner’s position and no member of the board has ever acknowledged knowing of her move in advance or indeed, for a full nine months after the fact. And she couldn’t very well re-hire herself, given the fact that she had resigned her position.

For questionable actions that may not necessarily be illegal but which have raised eyebrows for their apparent indiscretion, one need only pick a year. Take 2005, for example. In March of that year, Commissioner of Insurance Robert Wooley apparently felt his department needed a $40,000 special Harley-Davidson edition Ford truck, complete with heated seats, a camper package, diesel engine, red flames painted on the side, and a CD changer.

Wooley said he saw the vehicle on a car lot and wanted it so he traded in a year-old Eddie Bauer-designer edition Ford Expedition with only 30,000 miles on it. “I ain’t going to jail,” Wooley sniffed. “I sleep well every night.”

Edwin Edwards went to jail. So did former Commissioner of Elections Jerry Fowler and Commissioners of Insurance Sherman Bernard and Doug Green. Likewise Agriculture Commissioner Gil Dozier, three consecutive sheriffs in St. Helena Parish, and several judges in Orleans and Jefferson parishes. Former Congressman William Jefferson appears headed for jail for corruption and Federal Judge Thomas Porteous just underwent a rigorous impeachment trial with the U.S. Senate expected to render its verdict by Thanksgiving. Insurance Commissioner Jim Brown also went to jail but on the flimsiest of charges, that of lying to the FBI in an informal interview.

Senator David Vitter and former Congressman Bob Livingston both became involved in extra-marital affairs. Vitter’s was with a prostitute and Livingston’s affair was revealed at the same time he was calling for Bill Clinton’s resignation over the president’s Monica Lewinsky scandal. Livingston subsequently resigned from Congress only to emerge as a major player among the K Street lobbyists in Washington.

Vitter was considered vulnerable until Chet Traylor, a former Louisiana Supreme Court justice, decided to run against him and in so doing ended up making Vitter look good by comparison. Not only did Traylor have an affair with a Winnsboro legislator’s wife, but after they married and she later died, he began an affair with his stepson’s ex-wife. Traylor, who initially was considered a viable candidate, ended up with about 7 percent of the vote in the Republican primary.

In August, a federal jury in Shreveport convicted former State Senator Charles Jones of Monroe of tax evasion.

Just last week New Orleans Deputy Mayor Greg St. Etienne resigned. Hired by Mayor Mitch Landrieu to supervise the city’s chief financial office, he is accused of misuse of $500,000 in federal loans at a nonprofit organization he once ran.

Then there is Eddie Jordan, the man who put Edwin Edwards away.

Jordan, who succeeded Harry Connick as Orleans Parish district attorney, became embroiled in controversy almost from the day he took office. He summarily fired all his white assistant district attorneys who promptly filed suit. A jury found in favor of the fired workers and awarded them $3.7 million.

Jordan also came under heavy criticism for releasing suspects in high profile murder cases and in one instance, a suspect sought by police fled to Jordan’s home. In 2007, he released a suspect in the murders of five teenagers, saying that his office was unable to locate a key witness in the case. The New Orleans Police Department promptly produced the witness, who was in their custody all along. Later that same year, Jordan resigned.

But those are the high-profile cases. It’s those lawmakers and agency heads who try to fly just below the radar who sometimes are exposed as guilty of at least questionable behavior.

Whether it’s a legislator voting in favor of a bill that would benefit him financially or a pair of legislators swapping out Tulane scholarships in order to circumvent the prohibition against awarding the scholarships to family members, there are numerous conflicts of interest that often go unreported. Many public officials simply ignored that stipulation and put entire families through Tulane with the scholarships. (The families of former Crowley Judge Edmund Reggie and former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu come to mind.)

But what could any more of a conflict than a legislator’s making it a common practice to sue the state? It would be akin to a member of the board of Wal-Mart, IBM, or Exxon suing their companies on behalf of clients who walk in off the street.

It’s assumed that legislators take an oath to protect the state fisc, or treasury, but that almost seems mythical these days. But don’t try to tell State Sen. Rob Marionneaux (D-Livonia) that. Not only does he sue the state on a regular basis, but he recently found himself in hot water when he attempted to negotiate a settlement between LSU and his client, Bernhard Mechanical. The State Board of Ethics said Marionneaux told LSU representatives that Bernard would accept $7.1 million from LSU and that he would secure a legislative appropriation of an additional $5.5 million.

The board further said that Marionneaux violated the law by not notifying the board that he was representing Bernard Mechanical. Marionneaux countered by saying he was not required to do so. He elaborated by saying the reporting requirement does not apply to lawyers who are legislators.

In June, however, even as the ethics board was investigating him, Marionneaux attempted to slip language into a bill that would eliminate requirements that he disclose his representation of Bernard to the board. The bill failed.

Perhaps then, it should be no surprise that Pastorek, who said he gave permission to Vallas to use the vehicle on the trips, said of the repayment, “I don’t think legally, technically, I have to, but my feeling is we need to get this behind us and move forward.”

A legislative auditor’s report said Vallas, who doesn’t fly, used the state-owned SUV for dozens of visits to family in Illinois and along the Gulf Coast from the time he was hired in July 2007 through April 2009. Vallas admitted to auditors that 31 of his 41 trips out of Louisiana were not work-related.

Vallas no longer has a state vehicle. Instead, he has been given a $2,200 per month car allowance in addition to his $252,689 yearly salary.

Considering the number of trips taken and time away from the office for Vallas, plus repairs to the Durango, Pastorek may have gotten off light with paying $4,185 (gasoline alone should have exceeded that amount).

If that’s not sufficiently magnanimous of Pastorek, a week later he graciously declined a pay raise after receiving a favorable review of his job performance by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education but not before making it clear that he had earned the increase had he opted to take it.

It may have come as a surprise that he was even eligible for a pay increase when state classified workers were denied raises by the governor earlier this year. Pastorek, as a political appointee, is unclassified or non-civil service. His salary is $287,907, plus a housing allowance of $57,240 and a car allowance of $31,800. A 6 percent raise would have meant an additional $22,616 in annual compensation for Pastorek.

All things considered, it’s probably no surprise that a writer for the Chicago Tribune rated Louisiana worse than Illinois in public corruption.

Maybe new Southern University President Ronald Mason Jr. knew what he was doing when he brought his own lawyer onto the Southern payroll even as the university was laying off 50 employees.

Mason came to Southern from Jackson State University in Mississippi and brought both his Chief of Staff Evola Bates ($150,000 per year) and Executive Counsel Byron Williams ($120,000).

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