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Archive for the ‘Budget’ Category

Rhodes Scholar Governor absent on pothole day

Posted in Budget, Earl Long, Huey Long, Golf Courses, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, Legislature, Legislators, Prison, Privatization, Transparency on December 14, 2010| 3 Comments »

Earl Long is generally credited with the following quote:

“Don’t write anything you can phone. Don’t phone anything you can talk. Don’t talk anything you can whisper. Don’t whisper anything you can smile. Don’t smile anything you can nod. Don’t nod anything you can wink.”

And so it came to pass that one day just before the Christmas season in the year of our Lord 2010, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and his Chief of Staff Little Timmy Teepell were sitting across from one another at a table heavily laden with seasonal food winking at each other.

It was the governor who, breaking political protocol, interrupted the silence first.

BJ: I’m bored.

Little TT: Bored?

BJ: Yes, bored. I’ve been stuck here in the state for three whole days now.

Little TT: What do you suggest, Governor?

BJ: A road trip.

Little TT: But governor, all the elections are over. There’s no one to campaign for. And we’ve done the book tour thing.

BJ: Well, I’m bored. What can we do?

Little TT: Well, Governor, the natives are pretty restless. They think you should remain in the state a couple of weeks and work on the budget deficit.

BJ: TWO WEEKS!!!!?? Bor-ring!

Little TT: Seriously, Governor, we need to discuss ways to raise revenue for the state to offset an anticipated $1.6 billion budget deficit next year.

BJ: Isn’t there a hurricane or an oil spill or some other disaster that can give me face time on the TV cameras so I can act governorential?

Little TT: Governorential?

BJ: Yes. You know, where I go on TV and blame the federal government for everything.

Little TT: No there isn’t anything like that right now. Let’s talk about the budget.

BJ: I know! I can take the state helicopter to a little Baptist Church up in Shongaloo and give ‘em a stimulus check.

Little TT: We can do that on Sunday. Today’s Tuesday. Let’s talk about the budget until then.

BJ: All right. But it’s boring. There’re no TV cameras.

Little TT: That’s okay. You’ll get all the TV coverage you want if you solve the budget crisis.

BJ: Really? Oh, boy! What do we have to do?

Little TT: We need to take measures to raise cash to erase next year’s budget deficit.

BJ: That should be easy. I’m a Rhodes Scholar and (laughing) you’re a Roads Scholar. Isn’t that what you said in your interviews, you’re a Roads Scholar?

Little TT: That’s right, Governor, but remember, we were both absent on pothole day.

(Laughter.)

BJ: That’s funny. A Roads Scholar. Pothole day. I get it. What does that mean?

Little TT: Don’t worry about it. It was just a joke. Now to generate some revenue, we need to sell off some state assets.

BJ: Like what?

Little TT: Well, we can sell all those new state buildings that Governor Foster built and then lease the space back. That should gives us about a hundred million or so up front.

BJ: But didn’t I read somewhere once that selling any fixed asset on a sale-leaseback basis is an act of desperation triggered by cash flow problems?

Little TT: But that’s precisely where we are: We’re desperate because we have cash flow problems.

BJ: But it would place us, the seller, in the position as a long-term lessee. Isn’t that the same as a debtor or bond obligor? That seems like a quick fix to a long-term problem. It’s just deferring a permanent resolution to a problem and not fixing the underlying problem.

Little TT: Governor, you’ve been reading your old campaign literature again, haven’t you? You need to eighty-six that. Drop the rhetoric; you won the election.

BJ: Oops, I forgot.

Little TT: We can also sell a couple of state prisons—those in Winn and Allen parishes. That should bring in about $64 million or so.

BJ: Won’t the buyer just work the mortgage payments back into what he charges the state to house state prisoners?

Little TT: Governor, have you been talking to legislators and not telling me?

BJ: Sorry.

Little TT: Governor, you’ve got to stop that. Legislators aren’t your friends. Now focus. We can also draw against future lottery revenue to get another infusion of cash.

BJ: But what if somebody living in a trailer park wins the lottery? I don’t want him knocking on the front door of the governor’s mansion asking for his money.

Little TT: Don’t worry about that. Listen to me. These are all short-term solutions. It will give us one-time money to cover recurring expenditures but it doesn’t matter. By the time those people in north Louisiana who elected you figure it out, you’ll be well on your way to running for president.

BJ: And you’ll be my little Karl Rove. TT, I see where you’re going with this and I like it. Hell….I mean heck, we can sell the state police cars and put them on bicycles. That should work. When I was in Oxford doing my Rhodes Scholar bit, they had Bobbies on foot. We can call ‘em Bobbies on bicycles. Voters will love that.

Little TT: That would be pretty drastic. The state police would probably need cars….

BJ: How ’bout if I just sold my soul?

Little TT: You already did that to get elected.

BJ: How about selling some of the state golf courses?

Little TT: That’d probably look pretty bad. We just bought the Tournament Players Club in New Orleans and took over the Poverty Point club up in Delhi and we’re in the process of building a couple of others. How could we explain the sudden change? Those golf courses are viable investments. Even as we speak, we’re in the process of taking bids on the construction of a miniature golf course at City Park in New Orleans. What I’m saying, Governor, is we’re committed on these expenditures.

BJ: How about selling the Pentagon Barracks?

Little TT: Can’t do that, either. We have legislators living in them and the new owners might raise their rent from the $300 they’re paying now to a level comparable to other apartments. The legislature is already mad enough. We can’t risk that.

BJ: How about cutting higher education and health care benefits then?

Little TT: Now you’re thinking like the governor I know and respect. Let’s sing some nice Christmas carols:

Jindal Bells, Jindal Bells,
Jindal all the way;
Oh how sad
Is his wishy-washy way—HEY!

Jindal Bells, Jindal Bells,
On another flight
Oh how nice we all do feel
When he is out of si–ight.

Away at a fund raiser
No one does he dread;
Not running for president,
At least that’s what he said.

But from afar
We know what they say,
Move over Obama,
Jindal’s on his way.

Oh, little state of Louzian
How sorry is your plight;
With Bobby selling all our jails,
Citizens now feel pure fright.

While in our dark streets linger
A refracted gleam of light;
From guns and knives will lives
Be lost in thee tonight.

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State inmate housing a financial boon to local sheriffs

Posted in Budget, Contract, Contracts, Prison, Taxes, Transparency on December 13, 2010| 7 Comments »

The United States has the highest per capita rate of incarceration in the world. Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in America. Ergo, Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the world, according to a report by the U.S. Justice Department.

On the other hand, more than 17,000 of Louisiana’s 40,000 prison inmates are being held in parish prisons and the local sheriffs who receive $24.39 per prisoner per day love the arrangement. The total cost of local housing of adult offenders is a staggering $158.4 million with the state’s adult release program costing an additional $20.2 million, according to budget figures contained in HB-1 of this year’s legislative session.

The $158.4 million includes $152.6 million for actual housing, $3.7 million for inmate medical payments, $1.6 million for law enforcement district debt retirement in Morehouse and Natchitoches parishes, and $600,000 for additional payments of $3 per day per inmate for the Intensive Supervision Program.

The 17,000 state prisoners housed in parish jails in Louisiana is more than double the next two highest number—the 7,900 state prisoners held in county jails in Tennessee and 7,300 Kentucky prisoners held in county facilities.

Local sheriffs relish the opportunity to house state prison inmates because it infuses needed cash into the local coffers. One state official said the actual cost to sheriffs to house the state prisoners is only a fraction of the $24.39 daily income per prisoner. “It’s a big bonus for the sheriffs,” he said.

Nineteen parishes and four municipalities have contracts with the state to house state prisoners while others are paid under interagency agreements. Regardless, the pay to the local law enforcement agencies is the same and some sheriffs also operate work release facilities and pre-release/re-entry programs.

Work release reimbursement rates differ, depending on certain factors and rates range from $12.25 to $16.39 per prisoner per day and prisoners pay part of their salaries to the sheriffs to further offset the cost of the program.

Last July, a panel of judges, attorneys, and law enforcement officials convened to study why Louisiana sends more people to prison than any other state. They might have asked state legislators and saved themselves the trouble of a protracted study.

Each legislative session, dozens of bills are introduced by Louisiana lawmakers to either create new criminal statutes or to increase penalties for existing laws. Only rarely does a bill attempt to reduce penalties for crimes. In the 2010 regular session alone, for example, 68 of 93 bills addressing criminal procedure and crime, called for jail time for new crimes or longer sentences for existing laws. Those included crimes ranging from “unlawfully wearing clothing which exposes undergarments or certain body parts” to cyberbullying, and terrorist acts.

“Legislators wonder why the budget for the Department of Corrections is so large,” said one state employee who is familiar with the department. “As long as they keep trying to criminalize everything they find personally offensive in the name of law and order for the benefit of the folks back home, the budget is going to keep growing.”

Legislators last week criticized Gov. Bobby Jindal’s tentative proposal to sell prison facilities in Winn and Allen parishes to raise revenue to help cut a projected $1.6 billion budget shortfall next year.

The state currently pays Corrections Corp. of America of Nashville and GEO Group of Boca Raton, Florida, $18 million per year each to manage the Winn and Allen facilities, respectively. Department of Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc said selling the facilities could net the state about $64 million.

Some members of the Senate Finance Committee said they feared that new prison owners would include the mortgage costs in what they would charge the state to feed, clothe, and tend to the prisoners. Sen. John Alario (R-Westwego) said new owners would increase the operating costs charged the state in order to absorb the cost of purchasing the prisons, thereby resulting in the state’s paying for the prisons twice.

Current housing contracts with local parishes and municipalities and the contract amounts include:

• LaSalle Parish ($1,246,329);
• Morehouse Parish ($1,099,905.60)
• St. Charles Parish ($2,136,564);
• St. Mary Parish ($1,789,470);
• East Feliciana Parish ($335,343.75);
• Claiborne Parish ($1,424,376);
• Town of Jonesboro (Jackson Parish) ($1,780,470);
• Town of Richwood (Ouachita Parish) ($1,424,376);
• Town of Wisner (Franklin Parish) ($1,780,470);
• Village of Epps (West Carroll Parish) ($1,281938.40);
• West Feliciana Parish ($268,275);
• Bossier Parish ($1,958,517);
• Catahoula Parish ($1,246,329);
• Concordia Parish (two contracts: $1,780,470 and $500,000);
• Iberia Parish ($478,423.75);
• Madison Parish (two contracts: $1,139,500.80 and $4,780,561.95);
• Natchitoches Parish ($1,145,735);
• Rapides Parish (three contracts: $1,246,329; $603,618.75, and $491,837.50);
• Sabine Parish ($1,068,282);
• St. Tammany Parish ($389,637.50);
• Vernon Parish ($1,068,282);
• Webster Parish ($1,228,524.30);
• West Baton Rouge Parish ($827,181.25)
Parish contracts for work release, pre-release services, and offender re-entry services and contract amounts include:
• Lafourche Parish (inmate work release: $968,527.50);
• Caddo Parish (pre-release services: $550,000);
• Madison Parish (female offender re-entry: $431,550)
• Orleans Parish (re-entry services: $366,667).

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Jindal’s lies: making Goebbels proud

Posted in Budget, Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Governor's Office, Layoffs, Veto on November 15, 2010| 2 Comments »

It seems it’s come down to this: Gov. Bobby Jindal is either a pathological liar or he is completely disconnected with reality.

Or he’s blithely residing in a parallel universe where myth is truth and truth is only a concept, a suggestion, to be rolled out only when it plays better than the myth. And that ain’t often.

Jindal, in New York Monday to tout his book Leadership in Crisis, told the nation on Fox and Friends that his administration had “cut taxes, cut spending, and balanced the budget.”

Balanced the budget?

Whatever the governor in absentia has been smoking has apparently ensconced him snugly in his happy place. To say he sees the world through rose-colored glasses during his all-too-frequent appearances in some place other than Louisiana would be to belabor the obvious.

And, as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, therein lies the rub. The governor, you see, just isn’t in Louisiana that much these days. First there were the fellow Republican candidates in more than a dozen states who apparently needed his help to get elected to Congress, the Senate, or to various governors’ offices. Then, once the elections were over, it was off on a 10-day national tour to promote his book about some vague perception of leadership.

Following New York, where he was scheduled for the Today Show and Fox and Friends and several interviews, he is scheduled to fly to San Diego for the Republican Governors Association annual conference and on Friday he will attend a fundraiser in support of his gubernatorial reelection campaign in Los Angeles. And just why would anyone in Los Angeles be concerned about a governor’s race in Louisiana anyway? Did either of the California gubernatorial candidates hold any fundraisers in Louisiana this year? I think you can check that box NO.

Then, on Saturday he will speak at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara before traveling to Washington, D.C. later that day to hold media interviews for his book. He will return to Baton Rouge, theoretically, on Tuesday, November 23.

Meanwhile, home-schooled subordinate Timmy Teepel apparently will be solving the state’s financial woes back home in Jindal’s absence now that he is back from working on behalf of southern Republican gubernatorial candidates. Teepel apparently is being groomed as the next Karl Rove to Jindal’s Ronald Reagan. Both comparisons are, of course absurd to the point of cruel parody.

But I digress. Let’s return to the “balanced budget.”

As of this writing, the state budget deficit is $106 million, hardly a “balanced budget.”

Federal stimulus money, approved by Congress in August, earmarked $147 million to Louisiana’s parish school systems with the stipulation that the money go to salaries of teachers, administrators and support staff. No problem: Jindal simply pulled an identical amount from school funding to plug the deficit. Never mind the adverse effect it had on the local school districts who had already factored the stimulus money into their operating budgets.

But wait, there’s more. No sooner had Jindal “balanced the budget” than it was announced by Associated Press on Monday that the state budget underestimated the number of students attending public schools this year by 9,000, creating a $42 million shortfall in the state’s Minimum Foundation Program (MPF) which pays schools on a per-student basis.

So much for a “balanced budget.”

Not that State Treasurer John Kennedy hasn’t been trying to tell us this. Kennedy, sounding more and more like a potential challenger to Jindal from within his own party, has been critical all along of the legislature for bloating the state budget from $24.2 billion to $26 billion by using “one-time” money at the time when all signs pointed to lower tax revenues and a looming budget crisis.

Kennedy cited the legislature’s use of $198 million in “rainy day” funds, $242 million from delinquent taxpayers, $1.5 billion in one-time federal funds, $17 million from the settlement of a lawsuit against a drug company and money taken from the state emergency response fund as evidence of legislators’ recklessness and fiscal irresponsibility.

Jindal, in his interview with Fox and Friends, http://video.foxnews.com/, cited the need for the president to have the benefit of the line-item veto.

President Bill Clinton lobbied for and got the line-item veto but it was subsequently ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. It remains something of a mystery as to why Jindal would call for the presidential line-item veto; as governor, Jindal has the line-item veto but has used it so sparingly during his tenure as to render it all but useless. He has literally allowed the legislature to run amok with embarrassingly wasteful spending bills without so much as a whimper of protest. At least by not invoking the veto more often, he is conserving ink.

Kennedy also has called for the reduction of the number of state civil service employees by attrition, or simply not replacing workers when they quit or retire. Jindal, on the other hand, has opted for sweeping layoffs—the latest round scheduled two weeks after Christmas.

Kennedy may be a demagogue, but much of what he says makes sense.

Jindal, on the other hand, offers gooney-babble about leadership in crisis and his heroic feats of cutting taxes and spending and of balancing the budget. The lies are so ludicrous as to border on pathos—or to invoke outrage among those who know the truth in something other than abstract terms.

But there is one thing to be said about his arrogance, bravado, and outright distortions: he would make Joseph Goebbels proud.

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College mergers: the elephant in the room

Posted in Budget, Economy, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Regents on November 11, 2010| 2 Comments »

Perhaps, at long last, the time has come to talk about the elephant in the room.

Up to now, timid lawmakers have only dared whisper of the possibility of closing Louisiana’s two predominantly black universities and merging them with larger, mostly white schools. But now perhaps more serious, yes, even bolder consideration should be given not only to closing Grambling and Southern universities, but perhaps a few others four-year colleges in Louisiana as well.

Letter writers and bloggers have broached the subject more frequently as of late as the state’s economic plight worsens but as yet no member of the legislature, the Louisiana Board of Regents, nor the University of Louisiana System’s Board of Supervisors has summoned the political courage to address the issue.

Nor has Gov. Jindal or anyone else on the fourth floor of the State Capitol dared suggest what should be the obvious solution to erasing a substantial portion, if not all, of the state budget deficit.

The existence of three four-year public universities within 40-50 miles of each other, though a benign issue in better times, has suddenly become a topic that must finally be addressed in the interest of fiscal responsibility.

In north Louisiana, the University of Louisiana-Monroe (ULM), Louisiana Tech, and Grambling State universities are situated only about 40 miles apart on I-20.

In south Louisiana, Southeastern Louisiana University, LSU, and Southern University are in relative proximity to each other with Southern and LSU both in Baton Rouge and Southeastern only about 45 miles away in Hammond.

In the central part of the state, LSU-Eunice and LSU-Alexandria are a mere 50 miles apart. Granted, LSU-Eunice is a junior college, but does that justify the existence of two public institutions of higher learning so near each other serving essentially the same constituency?

For that matter, is there really a need for the University of New Orleans and Southern University-New Orleans to be located in the same city with Nicholls State less than 50 miles away in Thibodaux?

Three junior colleges, Bossier Community College, Southern University-Shreveport, and LSU-Shreveport sit within shouting distance from one another in the adjacent parishes of Caddo and Bossier.

That many junior colleges and four-year universities as close to each other as these schools do not represent the wisest investment of taxpayer dollars. When the state was flush with oil and gas money, it didn’t seem to matter. Political expediency was the order of the day and every part of the state wanted its own four-year school.

But that was before the existence of today’s $106 million state budget deficit. The combined budgets of ULM and Grambling were $126.3 million in 2009-2010 and the combined proposed budgets of the two schools for 2010-2011 approach $135 million. Add Northwestern to the mix and the numbers jump to $198.1 million and $210.3 million, respectively. Throw in the three junior colleges in the Shreveport area and, well, you get the picture. Strategic mergers in north Louisiana alone could wipe out the state’s budget deficit.

Merging two or more of the institutions would not produce an automatic savings equal to the combined budget of one or more of the schools being phased out because one school would have to absorb many of the displaced students, professors, and instructors.

But the elimination of athletic programs, (coaches’ salaries, athletic scholarships, and facility upkeep), administrative fees, including salaries for university presidents, the various vice presidents, deans, assistant deans, department heads, etc., by reducing the number of four-year institutions from the dozen we now have to only three or four would result in slashing expenditures by perhaps as much as several hundred million dollars.

Athletic programs and college administrations are not the only duplications that could be eliminated by a well-planned merger of universities. Curricula at many schools are nearly identical and replication could be eliminated in these areas as well. While some schools specialize in certain degree programs—the pharmacy program at ULM comes to mind—there is considerable overlap in curricula from school to school with many of those schools only a few miles from each other. The two existing law schools at LSU and Southern, for example, are located less than 10 miles from each other in Baton Rouge.

Why has this issue not been addressed by the powers that be? The answer is simple. Louisiana’s black political leaders and educators understandably want to protect their heritage at all cost and a big part of that heritage is represented by the two predominant black universities, Southern and Grambling and Southern’s Shreveport and New Orleans campuses. To close the black schools is to flirt with political disaster. The issue is an emotional powder keg that no one wants to ignite.

Even in cities like Lake Charles, Thibodaux, Alexandria, and Hammond, where the issue is not one of black heritage, the local political leaders, chambers of commerce, and legislators will do all in their power to retain their four-year institutions as part of their own identity. They would never agree to turning Nicholls, Northwestern, McNeese, UNO, LSU-A, or Southeastern into junior colleges. Most of those have already been there and they don’t want to go back.

Nor would they be likely to agree to merge Bossier Community College, Southern-Shreveport, and LSU-Shreveport even though virtually every economic consideration suggests it would be the fiscally prudent action to take.

That’s not to say it can’t be done. Gov. Dale Bumpers did it in Arkansas in 1971, when Arkansas A&M, a predominantly black school, was merged with the University of Arkansas and the planets and stars remained in alignment. Nationally, more than six dozen college and university mergers have taken place. One of the most notable was the merger of Marymount College and Loyola University in 1973 into what today is known as basketball powerhouse Loyola-Marymount.

But as one political observer said years ago, “They’ll close LSU before they close Grambling.”

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J. Ryan Hudson’s search for Piyush continues

Posted in Budget, Campaign Contributions, Governor's Office, Transparency on October 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Political ads normally don’t generate much excitement among voters because for the most part, they are disingenuous at best and packed with blatant lies and half-truths at worst.

But there was a series of ads in Kentucky that can be found by connecting to the links below. In the first two ads, Republican challenger Mitch McConnell attempts to “find” the missing incumbent Democrat U.S. Sen. Walter Huddleston whom McConnell paints as AWOL on several key votes. Huddleston, it seems, is too busy making speeches to tend to the more mundane matters of Senate votes.

A team of bloodhounds is employed in futile attempts to locate the missing Huddleston in such places as Los Angeles hotels and on the beaches of Puerto Rico, places where Huddleston allegedly received generous speaking fees. That was in 1984 and McConnell defeated Huddleston.

Now fast forward to 2008 and Democrat Bruce Lunsford reprises the bloodhound ads and uses them against McConnell in an unsuccessful bid to unseat the four-term Republican.

Here are the links:

Perhaps this same tactic could be employed to find our own AWOL governor.

LSU student body President J. Ryan Hudson, he of the timely letter to the missing Gov. Jindal, could lead a team of bloodhounds out of the front gates of the university as he calls out, “Piyush, Piyush, where are you? Please come home.”

As a determined Hudson trudges through swamps and across Louisiana’s prairies, he encounters military veterans with recently-awarded medals given them by Jindal, but no Jindal. “He came through here, pinned this medal on me, said something really fast, and disappeared,” the veterans say, shaking their heads and adding, “That boy sure talks fast. Couldn’t understand half of what he said.”

Hudson labors on, going from church to church in north Louisiana only to find over and over that, “Yes, the governor was here. He popped in during our services, passed out some checks, and left.”

The bloodhounds pick up the governor’s scent at helicopter pads located near the governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge, but now he’s off to Florida, New Hampshire, New York, Missouri, Georgia, California, Ohio, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Iowa where he delivers staccato endorsements of fellow Republicans while condemning the federal stimulation money that he accepted anyway and then heads off to another fundraiser in yet another state.

Hudson, realizing the dogs are exhausted and in grave peril of suffering the same fate as the bloodhound in the classic movie “Cool Hand Luke,” finally gives up in the realization that Jindal may have the job he wants, but without a Hurricane Gustav or a major oil spill, he becomes bored rather quickly and must seek other venues to get valuable face time with the television cameras.

Reluctantly, he takes the bloodhounds home and returns to LSU to witness, along with the combined student bodies, administrators, and professors at all of Louisiana’s universities, the dismantling of Louisiana higher education in the interest of transparency. Meanwhile, Piyush can be heard from somewhere far away, as if through the fog of a bad dream, telling us to stop whining.

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