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Piyush: the clock has run out, the train has left the station; but at least you’re still able to say you have the job you want

Posted in BESE, Broadband, Internet, Budget, Campaign Contributions, Charters, Civil Service, Commissions, Economy, Education, Ethics, Exemptions, Incentives, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, House, Senate, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Politicians, Prison, Privatization, Regents, Retirement, Revenue, State Agencies, Taxes, Transparency, Vouchers, Water Sales on August 13, 2012| 13 Comments »

The clock has run out on Gov. Bobby Jindal and like the Honey Badger, he’s now yesterday’s news insofar as any aspirations either one may have had for bigger and better things.

Realistically, time had run out on Louisiana’s wunderkind some time ago even though like a loyal trooper, he keeps soldiering on—perhaps hoping for a prestigious cabinet position like Secretary of Health and Human Services, something he denies aspiring to.

“I would not consider a cabinet post,” he sniffed like the spoiled little boy that he is after being passed over for the vice presidential nomination by Mitt Romney. “I consider being the governor of Louisiana to be more important and the best job there is.” Well, it is the only job he has for the moment and if he doesn’t challenge Mary Landrieu in 2014, we’re stuck with him through 2015.

Break out the champagne.

We can only surmise that Secretary of Education is out of the question since both Romney and Paul Ryan advocate that department’s abolishment in favor of state and local control (read: vouchers), although Romney has tempered his position somewhat.

But Jindal’s real quandary is not that he was passed over for vice president, but that he needs desperately to advance his career quickly—before all his “reforms” as governor come crashing down around him, doing even more damage to his reputation than that disastrous response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address in 2009.

That image as the crusading reformer who gets things done against all odds is already beginning to wear thin in Louisiana and it’s only a matter of time before the national media begin to take a critical look at his administration. The Washington Post and New York Times already have.

Beginning with his repeal of the Stelly Plan only a few months into his first term—the move is costing the state about $300 million a year while benefiting only couples earning more than $150,000 per year or individuals making $90,000 per year—through this year’s veto of a car rental tax renewal for New Orleans, Jindal his consistently found ways to cut taxes while doling out tax breaks to corporate entities.

In 2011, the legislature could not muster the votes to override a Jindal veto of a cigarette tax renewal and the renewal had to go before voters in the form of a constitutional amendment—which easily passed.

While he defiantly categorizes tax renewals as “new taxes,” to which he is adamantly opposed, he has no compunctions about cutbacks to higher education that force colleges and universities to increase tuition. He considers the tuition hikes as “fees,” not taxes.

While turning up his nose at federal grants for early childhood development ($60 million), broadband internet installation in rural parishes ($80.6 million) and for a high-speed rail system between Baton Rouge and New Orleans ($300 million), Jindal, upon slashing funding for parish libraries throughout the state, apparently saw no inconsistency in suggesting that the libraries apply for federal monies in lieu of state funding.

The grumblings began ever-so-slowly but they have been growing steadily. The legislature, albeit the right-wing Tea Party splinter clique of the Republican Party, finally stood up to Jindal toward the end of this year’s legislative session and refused to give in on the governor’s efforts to use one-time revenue to close a gaping hole in the state budget.

Other developments that did not bode well for the governor include:

• A state budget that lay in shambles, resulting in mid-year budget cuts of $500 million because of reductions in revenue—due largely to the roughly $5 billion per year in corporate tax breaks;

• Unexpected cuts to the state’s Medicaid program by the federal government which cost the state $859 million, including $329 million the first year to hospitals and clinics run by Louisiana State University—about a quarter of the health system’s annual budget. Those cuts will mean the loss of medical benefits for about 300,000 indigent citizens in Louisiana;

• Failed efforts to privatize state prisons, even though he did manage to close two prison facilities and a state hospital without bothering to notify legislators in the areas affected—a huge bone of contention for lawmakers who, besides having their own feathers ruffled, had to try and explain the sudden turn of events to constituents;

• Revelation that he had refused to return some $55,000 in laundered campaign funds from a St. Tammany bank president;

• Failed efforts to revamp the state employee retirement system for civil service employees. State police were exempted—perhaps because they form his security detail. And despite questions about the tax or Social Security implications, Jindal plans to plunge ahead with implementation of the part of the plan that did pass without the benefit of a ruling by the IRS—a ruling that could ultimately come back to bite him;

• A failed effort by the Sabine River Authority to sell water to a corporation headed up by two major Jindal campaign contributors—Donald “Boysie” Bollinger of Lockport and Aubrey Temple of DeRidder;

• A school voucher system that is nothing less than a train wreck, a political nightmare. State Education Superintendent John White, after Jindal rushed the voucher program through the legislature, rushed the vetting process for the awarding of vouchers through the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, abetted by members Penny Dastugue, Jay Guillot and Chas Roemer—quickly turning the entire process into a pathetic farce;

• A school in New Orleans run by a man calling himself an “Apostle,” a school in Ruston with no facilities—classrooms, desks, books or teachers—for the 165 vouchers for which the school was approved, tentative approval of vouchers for a school in DeRidder that could not even spell “scholarship” on its sign and for a school in Westlake that teaches that the “Trail of Tears” led many Native Americans to Christianity, that dragons were real, that dinosaurs and humans co-existed at the beginning of time (6,000 years ago, the approximate age of earth, according to its textbooks), that slave owners in America were kind, benevolent masters who treated slaves well, and that the Ku Klux Klan was a helpful reform-minded organization with malice toward none (Don’t laugh, folks; this is what many of these fundamentalist schools who qualified for vouchers are teaching.);

• Then there’s that charter school in Delhi that held girls to a slightly higher standard than boys. Any girl who became pregnant was expelled and any girl even suspected of being pregnant may be ordered to undergo an examination by a doctor of the school’s choice. The boy who gets her pregnant? Nothing. No punishment, no responsibility. Only after being subjected to public exposure, ridicule and criticism did the school alter its policy;

• A state legislator who said she approved of vouchers for Christian schools but not for an Islamic school in New Orleans because this country was founded on the Christian principles of the founding fathers, neglecting for the moment that the founding fathers were for the most part, Deists;

• And to top it all off, White smiles condescendingly and tells us that the criteria applied for approval of vouchers for these schools is part of the “deliberative process,” a catch-all exemption employed by the administration when it doesn’t wish to provide what are clearly public records—an administration, by the way, that touts its so-called “transparency.” Fortunately for the public, the Monroe News-Star is taking White’s pompous behind to court over that decision. (Confidentially, it is the humble opinion of LouisianaVoice that White never had any criteria and that he is creating policy and criteria on the fly because he simply is in way over his inexperienced, unqualified head as the leader of the agency charged with the education of our children. And that perhaps is the most shameful aspect of the entire voucher system and the single biggest act of betrayal on the part of a governor equally overwhelmed by the responsibilities of public office—especially an absentee governor.)

So as the Jindal Express rumbles down the track like a bad motorcycle going 90 miles per hour down a dead-end street (with apologies to Hank Snow) and things begin to unravel on the home front, just where is this absentee governor?

Well, it seems that rather than remain in the state and address the problems that are piling up and growing more complex with each passing day, he seems to prefer to spend his time stumping for Romney—or auditioning for a cabinet position he says he won’t accept—after seeing his chances for the vice presidency fall by the wayside.

A mature governor, a caring governor, a capable governor—one who is truly concerned about the welfare of his state—would defer from flitting all over the country spouting rhetoric on behalf of his presidential candidate in favor of remaining at home and addressing problems that are very real and very important to the people who elected him. Romney, after all, never once voted for Jindal.

There could be only one motive for turning his back on nearly 600,000 voters who first elected him in 2007 and the 673,000 who re-elected him last fall: he doesn’t really care about Louisiana and its people; he cares only about Bobby Jindal and those who can help him in the advancement of his political career.

If Gov. Jindal was truly concerned about the welfare of Louisiana, he certainly would have provided us with an encore of his hurricane and BP spill disaster performances: he would have headed straight to Assumption Parish to grab some TV face time at the Bayou Corne sinkhole and then flown away in a helicopter even as a ghost writer busied himself penning a book sequel: Failed Leadership and Fiscal Crisis: the Crash Landing.

That’s the very least he could do.

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State budget restrictions, layoffs, cutbacks, salary freezes notwithstanding, LOSFA $3,500 strategy session goes on

Posted in Budget, Civil Service, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Transparency, Waste on August 8, 2012| 5 Comments »

Times are hard, the state budget is in the dumpster with devastating cutbacks to Medicaid, state hospitals and higher education, and layoffs of state employees abound, thanks to the untimely combination of privatization and revenue shortages.

But not to worry: the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA), which recently advertised to fill a $76,000-a-year position—restricted to agency employees only, thank you very much—on the heels of the layoff of 58 employees, is going forward with its annual off-site annual Strategic Planning Session for upper management at a cost of $3,500 to the agency.

LOSFA Executive Director Melanie Amrhein did say that in years past both days of the session have been held off-site (at $6,000 cost for each of the past three years, according to records provided LouisianaVoice subject to its public records request). Those costs include a $1,000 set-up cost and $2,500 per day for the session at the conference facilities of SSA Consultants, Inc. of Baton Rouge, complete with the obligatory “facilitator.”

The session will be held Aug. 30-31.

Amrhein said this year only one day of the session will be held at SSA with the other day of the event to be on-site. “It will be for one day instead of two,” she said of the SSA session, “and the cost will be one-half.”

Actually, assuming SSA will still charge the usual $1,000 set-up fee, the fee would be $3,500, or 70 percent of the usual cost, for about a dozen people expected to attend, she said.

Amrhein said it was considered “important to be away from our building with the facilitator” during the session in order to avoid distractions that would likely occur if held in the LOSFA offices.

During former Gov. Mike Foster’s administration, eight new state office buildings were constructed–each containing meeting rooms of all sizes designed to accommodate meetings, seminars and conferences. State agencies are not charged for use of the state facilities.

LOSFA is located in the Galvez Building at the corner of North and Fifth Streets in downtown Baton Rouge, within two blocks–easy walking distance–of three of those buildings.

Asked why the LOFSA Strategic Planning Session was not scheduled for one of the other seven buildings, Amrhein said, “It’s always been held off-site, or at least since I arrived here in 1999.”

“We need a five-year plan by July 1, 2013. That’s why this session is important,” she said.

“It’s not going to be restricted only to executive staff,” she said. “All directors in the office will be attending. Every division or agency in the state is encouraged to do this.”

She said the cost of the event will not come from state general funds, but from fees collected by the agency.

LouisianaVoice had requested a copy of this year’s contract along with those provided by LOSFA but it was not provided with the rest because, Amrhein said, “It has not been finalized yet.”

The 58 employees were laid off last month when LOFSA ceased guaranteeing student loans after the office’s loan program was ordered outsourced by Gov. Piyush Jindal.

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Piyush Friday night massacre: BCBS gets OGB contract for PPO per game plan; SE LA. Hospital closing; 477 jobs gone

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Budget, Contract, Contracts, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, LSU, Privatization, Transparency on July 20, 2012| 35 Comments »

True to form, Gov. Piyush Jindal waited until a Friday, considered one of the slower news days of the week, to make the long-anticipated announcement that Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS) had been selected to administer the Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) for the Office of Group Benefits, a move that will eliminate 177 positions in the office.

Jindal was considerate enough to release the announcement through his favorite publication, the Baton Rouge Business Report, which ran the story on its web page. The OGB web page also carried the announcement.

The administration likewise waited until Friday to make the announcement that the 348-bed Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville will begin closing down operations, effective, Oct. 1, costing another 300 employees their jobs.

St. Tammany Parish has the highest suicide rate in the state and the move leaves up to a quarter-million people with no facility for treatment of depression or suicide prevention.

The move with Southeast Louisiana Hospital came as a major surprise considering some of Jindal’s strongest support has historically come from legislators in St. Tammany.

Both events might be considered as part of what Capitol Bureau reporter Marsha Shuler described in Friday’s Baton Rouge Advocate as Jindal’s health care “train wreck.”

The administration on Friday sent separate letters to BCBS, Humana and United Healthcare. The letters to Humana and United Healthcare informed them that their proposals were not accepted while the one to BCBS announced it had won the contract to be OGB’s third party administrator (TPA) for both the state’s HBO and PPO, which the administration said will save the state $20 million per year.

BCBS has already been serving as the TPA for the HMO and effective Jan. 1, will be assuming administration of both.

The privatization of OGB’s PPO has been controversial since first being proposed by Jindal more than a year ago. The root of that controversy lies in the fact that the OGB employees paid claims with a turnaround time of less than three days, much to the satisfaction of the 62,000 state employees, retirees and their dependents.

Moreover, the PPO had gone from a $60 million deficit to a $500 million surplus in the five years during which it was run by former director Tommy Teague. Teague was fired on April 15, 2011, when he didn’t sign on to the privatization plan quickly enough to please Jindal.

His successor, Scott Kipper, lasted only six weeks after testifying before a legislative committee that were it left up to him to decide, he would not lay off any of the OGB employees. That remark, made in response to a direct question from a committee member, appeared to irritate his boss, Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater who, only moments before, had indicated a need to downsize the agency by 149 positions.

The quick turnaround of claim payments combined with the agency’s $500 million surplus seems to be in stark contrast to Rainwater’s statement on Friday: “The selection of a third-party administrator is an important step toward providing quality care and service to plan members in the most cost-effective way.”

Former State Sen. D.A. “Butch” Gautreaux (D-Morgan City), who served as chairman of the Senate Retirement Committee and as a member of the OGB board of directors before being term-limited last year, fought the governor’s privatization efforts every step of the way.

Contacted Friday, Gautreaux was typically critical of the move. “Sometimes it just isn’t satisfying to be right,” he said.

“It was told to me confidentially well over a year ago and re-stated by in a Senate Retirement Committee hearing that the PPO was going to Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

“I hope Bobby Jindal leaves soon but I feel sorry for his successor. The cost of employee and retiree health insurance will be rising once we get over the one-year hump.” He was referring to a one-year moratorium on premium increases promised by the administration. Gautreaux said the information about premium increases was shared with him by the same source.

Because the state paid no taxes on premium income and because there is no requirement for a profit as long as the PPO was administered by the state, skeptics fear the need for profit and the requirement to pay taxes on profits will necessitate a rate hike by a TPA.

“It really is a shame that we, the taxpayers of Louisiana, will have to face the real cost of Bobby’s ambition for a very long time,” he said.

St. Tammany has had 124 suicides since 2009 and many more reported attempted suicides during that same period.

“The department (Department of Health and Hospitals) is very aware and concerned about the suicide rate,” said DHH press secretary and director of the Bureau of Media and Communications. “Our commitment and ability to respond to patients who will need beds and treatment remains the same,” he said.

State Sen. Jack Donahue (R-Mandeville) said the announcement caught him off guard. “It was not discussed during this legislative session to my knowledge. I was told 15 minutes before the announcement was made.

Rep. Scott Simon (R-Abita Springs), chairman of the House Committee on Health and Welfare, was equally unaware and expressed his “shock” that Jindal would take such action.

To abruptly close down one of the largest employers in St. Tammany in a parish where Jindal has enjoyed some of this strongest support is bad enough. But to do so without even extending the courtesy of giving his legislative allies a heads-up to prepare them only compounds his insensitivity and boorish contempt for the citizens of St. Tammany in particular and citizens of the state in general.

While Jindal and GOP presumed presidential nominee have been accusing Pres. Barrack Obama of being “out of touch,” Shuler was quick to point out the governor’s own inconsistencies and what might appear to some as his deliberate moves to dismantle the state charity hospital system.

The Advocate reporter said Jindal, who is rarely in the state anymore, choosing instead to stump for Romney while auditioning for the vice presidential nomination, seems almost aloof to the financial straits Louisiana’s Medicaid health care program suddenly finds itself in.

A new federal law gutted more than $859 million from the state’s Medicaid funding but Jindal, Rainwater and DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein say the state can overcome the cut by sacrificing services offered by the LSU hospital system’s care for the uninsured and physician training programs. Further cuts would come through reducing payments for uninsured care by rural hospitals.

As recently as late May, Greenstein and Jindal were united in predicting a doomsday scenario if a proposed $51 million cut was imposed on the LSU Med School. They predicted that some of LSU’s 10 public hospitals, which provide healthcare to the state’s indigent and which also train physicians, might have to shut down.

Now, however, since Jindal has rebuked Obama’s health care plan, the $859.2 million cut to the state’s Medicaid program is “doable,” they say, again in unison. Greenstein even called the cuts “an opportunity to reform and modernize.”

Greenstein and Rainwater, who foresaw widespread closures with a $51 million proposed cut, now say LSU can cut $300 million and still maintain health care for the poor and uninsured.

Now who’s out of touch?

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Budget crisis! Revenue shortfall! Drowning in Debt! Cut health care and education but fund construction projects

Posted in Budget, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Veto on May 28, 2012| 6 Comments »

The state’s 2012 Capital Outlay Bill (House Bill 2) contains more than $1.5 billion in priority 1 projects and another $1.2 billion in priorities 2 and 5 projects.

The bill, which was approved by the full House on May 17, was heard by the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee on Monday, May 28, and now goes to the full Senate for debate. If the Senate version finally passed is different from the House version, the bill will go to a conference committee to hammer out a compromise and still must be approved by both chambers.

After final passage by both chambers, the bill will go to Gov. Bobby Jindal who, by line item veto, may eliminate projects he deems wasteful or which may obtain funding elsewhere.

At a time when the state is grappling with revenue shortfalls and budget deficits, this year’s construction bill is packed with more than more than $180 million in priority 1 local spending projects such as festivals, ball parks, sports complexes, community centers, professional sports facilities, groundwater reservoirs and golf courses.

Some of those include:

• $17.5 million for professional sports facilities in Jefferson and Orleans parishes;

• $1.17 million for New Orleans Zephyrs baseball facilities repair;

• $21.5 million for the New Orleans Sports Arena improvements;

• $17.2 million for an economic development award program for infrastructure assistance;

• $7.74 million for wet-lab business incubators statewide;

• $20 million for aerospace manufacturing infrastructure in New Orleans;

• $10 million for mega-project site preparation statewide;

• $4.6 million for renovations to the River Center Arena and Theatre in Baton Rouge;

• $1.4 million for baseball stadium improvements in Baton Rouge;

• $2 million for construction of a community center in north Iberville Parish;

• $6.7 million for improvements to the Bayou Segnette sports complex in Jefferson Parish;

• $8.6 million for land acquisition and additional cabins for Bayou Segnette State Park;

• $13 million for Bayou Segnette Festival Park land acquisition and construction;

• $600,000 for construction in raw undeveloped area of Parc de Families in Jefferson parish;

• $8.5 million for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Natchitoches State Museum;

• $6.6 million for improvements to New Orleans City Park golf course;

• $2 million for improvements to amusement area at New Orleans City Park;

• $2.4 million for Bayou Dechene Reservoir in Caldwell Parish;

• $1.7 million for real estate acquisition and improvements to Poverty Point Reservoir;

• $2.6 million for Washington Parish Reservoir study, planning and construction;

• $950,000 for repair and renovation of the Strand Theatre in Shreveport;

• $400,000 for a multipurpose evacuation shelter and community center in Avoyelles Parish;

• $4.2 million for a golf course development in Calcasieu Parish;

• $635,000 for the Woodmere Community Center in Jefferson Parish;

• $2 million for a governmental complex and jail upgrade in Lafayette Parish;

• $2.3 million for a multipurpose community center in Bienville Parish;

• $1 million for a fire station and public service center in St. Mary Parish;

• $1.6 million for a cultural center for the arts in Jefferson Parish;

• $250,000 for a Maurice civic center-post hurricane shelter in Vermilion Parish;

• $400,000 for Rosenwald Community Center in Orleans Parish;

• $200,000 for renovations to the Dansereau Harris Playground in Orleans Parish;

• $1 million for improvements to park land in Jefferson Parish;

• $215,000 for a Winnsboro community center in Franklin Parish;

• $4 million for Phase 2 construction of the West Calcasieu Community Center;

• $2.85 million for a public safety complex for the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office in Ruston;

That comes to a little more than $182.4 million – and that’s just a small sampling of the $1.5 billion in projects included in the bill.

The bill passed the House by an 84-15 vote with 6 members absent.

Those voting against the bill were Reps. Richard Burford (R-Stonewall), Thomas Carmody (R-Shreveport), Simone Champagne (R-Erath), Brett Geymann (R-Lake Charles), Lance Harris (R-Alexandria), Bob Hensgens (R-Abbeville), Nancy Landry (R-Lafayette), Anthony Ligi (R-Metairie), Sherman Mack (R-Livingston), Jim Morris (R-Oil City), Steve Pylant (R-Winnsboro), John Schroder (R-Covington), Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport), Jeff Thompson (R-Bossier City) and Lenar Whitney (R-Houma).

Absent and not voting were Reps. Neil Abramson (D-New Orleans), Regina Barrow (D-Baton Rouge), Raymond Garofalo (R-Chalmette), Joe Harrison (R-Gray), Girod Jackson (D-Harvey) and Jerome Richard (I-Thibodaux).

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The administration’s answer to revenue shortfalls caused by corporate tax exemptions? Why, more exemptions, of course

Posted in Budget, Exemptions, Incentives, Governor's Office, Revenue on April 25, 2012| 7 Comments »

It’s long past the time when the people of Louisiana should get their collective heads out of the sand and take an objective, educated look at the state’s budgetary crisis.

The Revenue Estimating Conference Tuesday announced that the state must slash expenses by another $210 million because of drops in anticipated revenue.

The Revenue Estimating Conference, comprised of LSU economist Jim Richardson, House Speaker Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles), Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater and Senate President John Alario (R-Westwego), monitors state expenses and revenues on an ongoing basis.

On Tuesday, the four heard a presentation from Greg Albrecht, chief economist for the Legislative Fiscal Office. The news was bleak and the four officials dropped the revenue forecast for the coming year by $304 million.

But it’s not as if no one could see this train wreck coming.

Much like the tribulations currently being visited upon the New Orleans Saints, the state’s fiscal woes are 100 percent self-inflicted.

As the Ol’ Perfesser, former New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel, would say if he were still with us: “You can look it up.”

We did.

And while it come as a surprise to members of the House and Senate, the information from the Louisiana Department of Revenue is right there in a little known but readily available publication entitled Tax Exemption Budget 2011-2012.

The real puzzle is why no one else has bothered to ferret out this data. Why go to the expense and bother to publish it if no one in a decision-making position is even going to bother to read it?

But before we get into that report, let’s take a quick look back to May of 2008, four months after Gov. Bobby Jindal took office.

The state at that time was flush with money, thanks to federal funds dumped into the state to aid in the recovery from the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Never content to grapple with fiscal prudency, legislative leaders and Jindal conducted a series of backroom discussions—as usual, out of eyesight and earshot of the public. Jindal emerged, beaming, to announce the good news: the highly regarded Stelly Tax Plan was being scrapped.

The bill, Senate Bill 87 by Sen. B.L. “Buddy” Shaw (R-Shreveport), rolled state income tax rates back to 2002 levels in January of 2009.

Jindal trumpeted that the bill would save single filers as much as $500 a year and joint filers $1,000.

What the governor did not say—but Albrecht did—was that single filers would have to make as much as $90,000 per year to reap the $500 savings and joint filers would have to make more than $150,000 to save the maximum $1,000.

With a median household income of $43,733 in Louisiana in 2008, the Stelly repeal, while obviously a welcome break for the wealthy, was of no benefit whatever to middle- and low-income Louisianans.

Albrecht also said the total cost to the state treasury would be about $300 million per year, beginning in the 2009-2010 budget cycle.

Perhaps at this point it’s worth reiterating the most recent loss of revenue as projected by the Revenue Estimating Conference: $304 million.

Now to the Revenue Department’s Tax Exemption Budget.

The document is a mind-numbing 409 pages but one does not have to examine every page to see what has happened in Louisiana over the past few years.

In fact, pages 6 and 17 pretty much tell the story.

Page 17 provides a year-by-year summary of revenue losses from various tax exemptions granted by the state. The exemptions include corporate and individual income taxes, sales taxes and severance taxes, among others.

The combined four-year total for all tax exemptions shows that the state has lost a little more than $18 billion since the 2008-2009 fiscal year, which began on July 1, 2008, six months after Jindal took office.

Much has been made by the administration of the unfunded accrued liability (UAL) of the state’s four retirement plans.

That combined UAL? $18.3 billion.

The breakdown shows a four-year loss of $5.6 billion in corporate income tax exemptions and another $5.6 billion in sales tax exemptions. Individual income tax exemptions account for an additional $4.2 billion and severance tax exemptions were another $1.5 billion.

Page 6, however, was the most revealing in that it illustrates the disparity between the corporate income taxes paid and the sales and income taxes paid by individuals in Louisiana in Fiscal Year 2010-2011.

• Corporate income taxes—$198 million;

• Estimated corporate income tax exemptions—$1.46 billion;

• Total potential collections—$1.58 billion;

• Percentage of corporate income tax loss—88.1 percent.

The state was not nearly so generous with individuals.

• Total sales tax collections—$2.67 billion;

• Estimated sales tax exemptions—$1.39 billion;

• Total potential sales tax collections—$4.06 billion;

• Percentage of sales tax loss—34.3 percent.

Sales taxes, of course, are paid by everyone. Even the poorest of the poor pay the same sales tax rates as the most wealthy, making sales taxes one of the most unfair.

Individual income tax collections were no kinder.

• Total individual income tax collections—$2.39 billion;

• Total individual income tax exemptions—$1.13 billion;

• Total potential individual income tax collections—$3.52 billion;

• Percentage of individual income tax loss—32.1 percent.

To recap, the state collects only 11.9 percent of the potential corporate income taxes while exempting the remainder.

With sales and individual income tax, however, collections were 65.7 percent and 67.9 percent, respectively.

With this administration, the solution such an uneven playing field is obvious: more corporate tax breaks.

Jindal is pushing a package of bills that will award new tax breaks to businesses that are considering relocating or expanding into Louisiana.

And of course, the House overwhelming approved all three bills even though the Legislative Fiscal Office estimated the state could lose millions of dollars in tax income.

But Rep. Joel Robideaux (R-Lafayette) said the cuts would generate more tax dollars for Louisiana than the breaks will cost the state in lost revenue.

One bill, approved by a vote of 86-9 will give a payroll tax cut of between 6 percent and 15 percent for creating high-paying jobs with health care benefits. The question that was never asked was, where are the lower-paying jobs?

A 25 percent rebate over five years on relocation costs for companies moving corporate headquarters to Louisiana was approved by a vote of 81-13.

Finally, a bill calling for a different way to calculate state corporate income and franchise taxes, thereby lessening tax payments for participants, passed unanimously, 100-0.

So, while Jindal’s Deputy Chief of Staff Kristy Nichols testifies in favor of gutting retirement benefits for state employees, lamenting, “We’re drowning in debt,” her boss keeps on keeping on with lucrative tax breaks for his corporate friends, many of them campaign donors.

The rest of you?

May 15 is the deadline for paying your “fair share” in state income taxes.

Don’t be late. The state needs the revenue.

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