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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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United Healthcare files formal protest over awarding of OGB contract to Blue Cross/Blue Shield by DOA: litigation next?

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Governor's Office, Health Care, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, Transparency on August 3, 2012| 10 Comments »

At least one of the three companies that submitted proposals to replace the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) as a third party administrator (TPA) for OGB’s preferred provider organization (PPO) has done what the Louisiana Civil Service Commission lacked the courage to do: ask tough questions about the selection process.

In fact, United Healthcare on Friday filed a formal protest over the awarding of the three-year, billion dollar contract to Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana (BCBS).

Reports received by LouisianaVoice indicate there was only a 20-point differential between BCBS and United in the scoring and that BCBS did not have the best score in certain important segments of the overall proposal, namely for the score on claims processing, an area in which one source said BCBS was actually the highest of the three companies.

The Civil Service Commission on Wednesday voted 3-2 in favor of approving the BCBS contract that will result in 121 OGB employees losing their jobs. The approval came after scant testimony supported by an eight-page Power Point presentation by the Division of Administration (DOA) and after allowing opponents less than 20 minutes in which to state their opposition.

Word leaked out immediately following the commission meeting that there had been heated discussion among commission members prior to their entering the aptly-named Louisiana Purchase Room for the meeting—in apparent violation of the state’s open meeting law.

It was also clear from the tone of commission members’ questions, mostly soft balls lobbed at DOA and OGB officials. Conversely, attorney J. Arthur Smith, representing about 100 OGB employees was allowed 15 minutes to present the opposition’s side as commission members appeared to pay scant attention and offer no follow up questions.

When Smith later attempted to correct what he said was incorrect information provided by DOA, commission Chairman David Duplantier rudely stopped him, saying, “This is not a public debate. This proposal was received by the commission in April and you submitted a three-inch thick set of documentation to us on Monday.”

Jindal has benefitted financially from BCBS and its parent company, Louisiana Health & Indemnity. The two combined to funnel $56,000 to Jindal’s political campaign and BCBS gave an additional $100,000 to the Supriya Jindal Foundation, a charity run by Jindal’s wife.

Jindal has been attempting to privatize OGB for more than a year now and is currently on his third agency director since initial efforts to privatize OGB.

Tommy Teague was fired on April 15, 2011, after failing to demonstrate sufficient enthusiasm for the privatization plan.

Teague had taken the agency from a deficit of about $60 million to a $500 million surplus in just over five years.

His successor, Scott Kipper, lasted only six weeks after testifying before a legislative committee that were it left for him to decide, he would not lay off any of the OGB employees. His remarks were made only minutes after his boss, Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater had insisted that OGB needed to be downsized by 149 positions.

Rainwater visibly winced at Kipper’s comment and his departure was announced soon thereafter.

It was not immediately clear if United Healthcare, if its protest is denied, would file a lawsuit over the selection of BCBS.

Humana was the other company that submitted a proposal for the PPO takeover.

Two years ago, when BCBS was selected as the TPA of the HMO program for state employees, Humana and United Healthcare filed suit and the court ordered the state to re-bid the proposal.

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Vitter balks, Landrieu walks on Disclose Act Senate vote; source of campaign funds remain a well-protected secret

Posted in Campaign Contributions, House, Senate, Public Records, Transparency, Vitter on August 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The best chance for Congress to at least partially mask the stench of Citizens United fell 11 votes short in the U.S. Senate last month, thanks in part to Louisiana’s two senators.

The vote for the Disclose Act, which would have forced independent groups to disclose the names of contributors who give more than $10,000 to them for use in political campaigns, died when it failed to receive the 60 votes needed for passage.

The vote was 51 to 44 in favor of passage.

As might be expected, Sen. David Vitter sided with the Republican opponents in voting against the measure that would have forced unlimited secret campaign spending out into the open.

What might not have been expected was that Sen. Mary Landrieu took a walk.

Just as puzzling was Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), who co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law in 2002, but voted against the Disclose Act.

Arkansas its votes between its two senators with Mark Pryor voting yes and John Boozman voting no but both Alabama senators, Jefferson Sessions and Richard Shelby, voted no. William Cochran of Mississippi voted against the measure.

Besides Landrieu, others who did not vote on the bill included Dean Heller of Nevada, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Roger Wicker of Mississippi. With the exception of Landrieu, all those not voting are Republicans. Kirk is out on extended medical leave after suffering a stroke last January.

Vitter could be expected to be protective of his source of campaign contributions, thus the motivation for his vote against the bill.

Since 1999, OpenSecrets.org reports that Vitter has received the following amounts from these sources:

• Health professionals: $1.67 million ($241,433 from political action committees);

• Attorneys and law firms: $1.1 million ($217,776 from PACs);

• Oil and gas: $1.03 million ($337,450 from PACs);

• Real estate: $853,886 ($90,000 from PACs);

• Securities and investment: $841,581 ($101,000 from PACs).

Individual contributions to Vitter since 1999, according to OpenSecrets.org, not surprisingly show that he shares three large contributors with Gov. Piyush Jindal:

• Edison Chouest: $230,654;

• Jones Walker Law Firm: $304,190;

• Adams and Reese Law Firm: $237,100.

Vitter also received individual contributions from:

• Koch Industries: $40,500;

• National Rifle Association: $237,100.

In all, Vitter received $24.54 million in campaign contributions since 1999. That included $17.9 million, about $12 million of which was in the form of large individual contributions. He also received $4.96 million in PAC contributions, records show.

Landrieu, it seems, is just as beholden to certain special interests.

The record of her campaign contributions go back a full decade further than Vitter because she has served longer. Since 1989, she has received $26.38 million. Some of her major contributors include:

Attorneys and law firms: $3.22 million ($448,420 from PACs);

• Oil and gas: $1 million ($479,205 from PACs);

• Real estate: $821,000 ($121,300 from PACs);

• Lobbyists: $865,656 ($43,108 from PACs);

• Leadership PACs: $669,000.

Landrieu also received individual contributions totaling:

• $288,854 from Entergy ($147,324 in PAC contributions);

• $80,699 from the Shaw Group (43,499 in PAC money);

• $88,598 from J.P. Morgan Chase ($39,498 in PAC contributions).

Like Vitter, Landrieu received the bulk of her contributions ($15.9 million) from individuals but again like Vitter, about 65 percent of those were large individual contributions, meaning that high rollers tend to pose more of an influence than the $50 individual donations. Almost $8 million of her funds came from PACs. That’s about 60 percent more than Vitter.

So it would appear that some elected officials, regardless of party affiliation, are a tad sensitive to letting voters know the sources of their campaign contributions.

As difficult as it is to admit, at least Vitter showed the courage of his convictions, however misplaced his values are, but voting against the Disclose Act.

Landrieu should be as forthright.

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Political science professors trash Jindal, OGB privatization, legislature in scathing reports; can Teagues be far behind?

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, Teague, Transparency on July 31, 2012| 7 Comments »

A Baton Rouge attorney has filed papers in opposition to the privatization of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) for Wednesday’s Civil Service hearing but in the process he could get two university professors teagued by Gov. Piyush Jindal.

Attorney J. Arthur Smith filed his lengthy objection on behalf of 177 OGB employees who stand to lose their jobs if the proposed takeover by Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS) goes through. He reminded the Civil Service Commission that the fundamental purpose of the Civil Service system “is to prevent permanent classified employees from being subjected to adverse personnel actions based on political influence.”

Political influence on the part of the Jindal administration is precisely what he is claiming—along with offering evidence that privatization has not proven to be the panacea claimed by governmental entities that have boldly gone where Piyush is attempting to go now.

BCBS was recently announced as the winner of the state contract to take over the OGB Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) which serves some 60,000 state employees, retirees and dependents.

But two political science professors at LSU and Southern University were sharply critical of the administration’s motives for privatizing OGB and challenged the administration’s fiscal arguments in written reports.

The State Civil Service Commission will hear presentations by the administration and by opponents of the privatization proposal on Wednesday at 9 a.m. in the appropriately named Louisiana Purchase Room of the Claiborne Building on North Third Street in Baton Rouge.

Smith cited a court case—New Orleans Civil Service Commission v. City of New Orleans—in which the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the mayor and city council “do not have the unfettered discretion to potentially decimate the civil service system by eliminating all civil service positions to privatization, and, therefore, we find that checks on that discretion are necessary and authorized by the Constitution.”

That ruling also said that the city must turn over all documents and other evidence which enable the Commission to determine (1) whether and civil service employees will be involuntarily displaced from the Civil Service; and, if so, (2) whether the contract was entered into for reasons of efficiency and economy and not for politically motivated reasons.”

The Jindal administration has been conspicuously reluctant in providing “all documents and other evidence,” to the legislature as well as the media. The reason for non-disclosure, which has become almost a cliché, is the often-cited “deliberative process,” an obscure provision behind which the governor consistently hides. He pushed through the deliberative process provision shortly after becoming governor and since has boasted non-stop to the nation that he has made state government more responsive, accountable and transparent.

Smith cited several examples in which privatization has run into problems, including cost overruns, little or no cost savings, inferior service, and a lack of accountability. In many of those cases, he said, governmental entities have on occasion been forced to bring outsourced services back in-house. That has already happened with OGB once before.

He also cited what he considered to be conflicts of interest regarding BCBS. He cited contributions to Jindal of $43,500 by BCBS; $12,500 by Louisiana Health & Indemnity (BCBS’s parent company), and at least $100,000 by BCBS to the Supriya Jindal Foundation. The foundation is run by Jindal’s wife, Supriya Jindal.

Moreover, Smith said the State of Louisiana “essentially donated in excess of $1 million to Louisiana Health & Indemnity to expand and upgrade its headquarters building.” That subsidy, which produced only 22 new jobs, was approved in 2009 as an Enterprise Zone project.

Smith also said the Jindal administration has failed to prove that the proposed OGB privatization would result in increased efficiency.

He cited former OGB Director Tommy Teague as saying in March of 2010 that if OGB is dismantled, the PPO provider network, most of the agency’s extensive expertise in claims, provider services, customer service and information technology would be lost. Also lost, he said, would be the capacity to reinstate the existing self-administered PPO plan structure. Teague pointed out that OGB, in addition to providing “excellent customer service,” also holds down costs by self-administering the PPO plan.

His arguments notwithstanding, Smith’s aces are two political scientists who have weighed in on the side of OGB employees with comprehensive reports that take issue with the administration stand that privatization would be best for OGB and the state.

Albert L. Samuel, chairman of the Political Science Department at Southern University, was critical of the fiscal irresponsibility of the administration and legislature in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita which he said led to the current fiscal crisis.

“Due to federal recovery dollars as a result of the 2005 hurricanes and historically high oil prices, the (Jindal) administration inherited a budget surplus of nearly $2 billion. During its first year in office, the administration and its legislative allies swiftly passed a series of large tax cuts and spent millions of dollars in one-time money on road projects, deferred maintenance at state colleges and universities, levee improvements, coastal restoration projects and upgrades to Pennington Biomedical Center,” he said. “Perhaps most notably, Gov. Jindal signed a repeal of the Stelly Tax Plan which provided a substantial tax savings for upper-income Louisianians.”

When the 2008 financial crisis struck, however, Samuel noted that rather than reconsidering the deep tax cuts that were enacted in previous years, Jindal “held steadfastly to (his) conservative ideals.” Jindal, he said, “adamantly opposed every attempt on the part of legislators to deal with the financial crisis through tax increases.”

“Consistent with that Naomi Klein calls ‘The Shock Doctrine,’ the governor capitalized on the financial crisis of the state to advance an agenda that called into the question the rationale for government to perform basic services on a wide range of issues.”

Samuel concluded his 21-page report by saying that political motivations “are driving the Jindal administration’s push to privatize the Office of Group Benefits.

“It locates Gov. Jindal squarely on the cutting edge of a national Republican party, determined to pursue this course without making a clear and convincing case that OGB, as currently constituted, has failed to provide quality service and coverage to its plan members at reasonable costs to taxpayers.

“The proposed privatization cuts to the heart of the fundamental rationales for having a civil service system in the first place—the idea of protecting state government workers from dismissal driven by politics.”

LSU political science professor Belinda Creel Davis cited from Shrinking the State: The Political Underpinnings of Privatization, a book by Harvey Feigenbaum, Jeffrey Henig and Chris Hamnett who said that privatization “is a political tool having the end goal of realigning institutions and decision-making in order to privilege the goals of one group over another.”

Davis cited the privatization of Louisiana’s Medicaid program as “an excellent example” of the difficulty in evaluating the effectiveness of privatization, specifically citing Jindal’s reluctance to approve legislative oversight of privatization programs.

“The Louisiana Legislature has passed bills in the 2011 and 2012 sessions that were designed to give legislators more information on the way the Jindal administration is implementing health care programs for the poor via private health care firms.

“For the second year in a row, Gov. Jindal has vetoed the bills, claiming they were unnecessary and duplicative since the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) issues extensive evaluations.

“It is interesting to note that his veto message does not claim that the report issued by DHH provides all or even most of the information sought by legislators. In the 2012 session, Senate Bill 569, seeking greater transparency on this matter passed unanimously in the House and Senate. Legislators seeking transparency regarding implementation must find the reports lacking if they have sought additional information, but they are unable to access the information they seek—resulting in a more difficult accountability process under privatization than you would see under government provision of the service.

“This is exactly the type of consequence systemic privatization predicts,” she said.

“In my opinion, as a scholar of public policy and government, privatization is an inherently political process. The evidence from both national and state studies supports this view. I believe the case before you is a clear case of politically motivated privatization.”

Those are the kinds of statements, bold and insightful as they may be, that seem to get people teagued these days.

Teagueing, after all, is the one activity in which this administration is abundantly transparent and open.

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Is it us, or does announcement of Southeast Louisiana State Hospital closure carry certain familiar smell of incredulity?

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Governor's Office, Health Care, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, Privatization, Transparency on July 22, 2012| 3 Comments »

State Sen. Jack Donahue’s expressions of shock and surprise notwithstanding, the handwriting was on the wall more than a year ago as to the fate of the 60-year-old Southeast Louisiana State Hospital in Mandeville—thanks in part to a bill he authored four years ago.

It was in May of 2011 that then-parish president Kevin Davis revealed that he was working with the state to have St. Tammany Parish purchase 1,442 acres adjacent to the hospital in an effort to prevent the low-lying land from being developed in the future.

That sale was consummated last month at a price of $6.45 million. The land was appraised for $14.7 million in February 2011, according to records of the Office of State Lands. Davis, however, said in 2011 he felt the correct value of the land was nearer $10 million. He added that the Division of Administration had verbally agreed to the $10 million figure.

There was no explanation as to why the ultimate selling price was more than 35 percent lower than the reported agreed upon price and less than half the original appraised value.

Six months after the negotiations for the land were announced, Davis, who was term-limited and not eligible to seek re-election as parish president, was appointed by Jindal as director of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) at a salary of $165,000 per year.

He contributed $3,000 to Jindal election campaigns in 2003 and 2008 and Donahue gave $1,500 to the governor’s campaign in 2007 and 2011.

Jindal in turn, contributed $2,500 to Donahue’s campaign last year.

Both Donahue (R-Covington) and Rep. Scott Simon (R-Abita Springs) claimed that the announcement of the closure caught them off guard. Simon is chairman of the House Committee on Health and Welfare, making the decision not to inform him even more curious.

It was revealed during last year’s negotiations between the state and St. Tammany that the parish had been given first refusal on purchase of the 1,442 acres in a 2008 bill authored by Donahue.

Donahue’s bill also stipulated that proceeds from the sale of the land adjacent to the hospital must go toward the restoration, renovation, construction or maintenance of the hospital.

Davis said he had initially persuaded the state to construct a new hospital on parish-owned land north of I012 but those negotiations cratered when Bruce Greenstein was appointed secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH).

He also said at that time that the state had decided not to close the hospital.

DHH issued an announcement late Friday, however, that the 348-bed hospital would be phased out of operation beginning in October despite those assurances of more than a year ago that it would remain open.

Patients at the facility will be transferred to East Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson with some possibly going to Central State Hospital in Pineville, placing a strain in terms of finances and logistics on families of patients who help care for the patients.

The move will also eliminate 300 positions at the hospital, one of the largest employers in St. Tammany Parish.

In addition to keeping the land free from development, Davis said he hoped to turn the property into a mitigation bank which would help pay the cost of acquiring the land.

St. Tammany is required to contribute matching funds for various state and federal road projects, Davis said. Some of the land used for those projects consists of wetlands and he said he wanted the parish’s financial contributions to go into the mitigation bank in exchange for credits that would allow wetlands construction.

The parish, he said, did not have available funds to purchase the land outright, so he had initiated negotiations with officials from the Trust for Public Land in and effort to get the trust to purchase the land on the parish’s behalf with the parish paying back the trust in a minimum of five years.

Now that the 1,442 acres adjacent to the hospital has been sold for less than half its appraised value and now that the official announcement of the hospital’s closure has been made, the question that remains is what now becomes of the remaining 500 acres and the hospital buildings?

Southeast Louisiana State Hospital, a psychiatric treatment facility, was established 60 years ago, in 1952, on 2,235 acres of land (later reduced to 1,900 acres). In 1959, it received international, if unwanted, attention as a brief stopping-off point for Gov. Earl K. Long in his odyssey across the southwestern U.S. during his celebrated mental breakdown.

Earl, still very much the state’s governor, fired state Hospital Board head Jesse H. Bankston and replaced him with Charles Rosenblum. Rosenblum subsequently persuaded the board to fire hospital head Dr. Charles Belcher and replace him with Dr. Jess McClendon. McClendon, a personal friend of Long, promptly ordered his release.

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