Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Campaign Contributions’ Category

Would Jindal outsource his mom’s job? Not a chance!

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Education, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Layoffs, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Privatization, Retirement, Transparency on March 29, 2011| 3 Comments »

If Gov. Bobby Jindal is serious about his suggestion that state employees “do more with less,” he has an excellent opportunity to lead by example: he could ask his mom to step down from her state job.

The governor has been up front with his plans to outsource state agencies, thereby forcing employees of those agencies to retire (if eligible), seek other employment, or hope to catch on with the private sector company taking over the state agency.

The lucky ones get to retire. But many—some of whom have 20 years or more with the state—are still too young to retire and thus must scramble for a new job in a depressed market where jobs are scarce and when filled at all, go to much younger applicants. Don’t believe for a nano-second that there is no age discrimination.

Those are the ones who are truly caught up in the classic Catch-22 scenario.

When F.A. Richard and Associates (FARA) took over the Office of Risk Management (ORM) last July, its contract stipulated that it take all ORM employees for at least one year. There is nothing in place to protect the state employees after that 12-month period. The privatization of ORM, by the way, was supposed to save the state $50 million over five years but FARA already is asking that its $68 million contract be amended by $7 million, to $75 million.

Jindal also is seeking to privatize state prisons and the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) but as yet has said nothing about outsourcing the Louisiana Workforce Commission (formerly the Louisiana Department of Labor).

Perhaps that is because that is where his mother is employed.

Perhaps not, but a $45,000 per year state employee being outsourced (read: laid off) has to smart just a tad when doing a cursory web page search (link), clicks on “Louisiana State Payroll” on the top menu bar, and then types in “Jindal” in the box “Search by Name,” only to find that Gov. Jindal is paid $130,000 per year to campaign for out-of-state candidates, attend fundraisers for himself, and to promote his book—all while ostensibly serving as the governor of Louisiana.

The resentment must really smolder when the name Raj G. Jindal appears beneath that of the governor. Raj G. Jindal is the governor’s mother and she pulls down a cool $117,915 per year as an Information Technology (IT) Director 3 in charge of workforce support and training. We assume she is a valuable, capable employee. But that’s not the point here. It’s the perception, stupid (with apologies to Bill Clinton).

One might think the governor, as a show of good faith, would ask his mom, an employee of 30-plus years and certainly eligible for retirement, to lead by example, and step down to benefit someone who really needed a job. Even if she were not eligible for retirement benefits, what a PR move it could be for the governor.

One might think so. After all, should she opt for retirement, her retirement income in excess of $90,000 would be more than double that of the average salary of state employees still working full time ($44,338).

But then Gov. Jindal has never been one to display an excessive amount of compassion for state employees. Quite the opposite would, in fact, seem to be the case. He just doesn’t care. He has shown that in his actions time and again, from privatization, to behind-the-scenes efforts a year ago to dismantle the state Department of Civil Service and the Civil Service Board.

He showed it when he gutted the state’s ethics laws, all the while spouting his oft-repeated mantra in campaign appearances in other states that his is the most transparent, most ethical administration in Louisiana history.

He showed his disdain for minorities in the manner in which he replaced a white member of the Board of Regents for Higher Education with an African-American, all the while claiming the move had nothing to do with a lawsuit brought by Southern University students challenging the makeup of the previously all-white board. Yeah, right.

At least that move was pretty transparent.

He has shown nothing but contempt for public school teachers in the way his administration is hell-bent on destroying public education in favor of charter (read for-profit) schools. He must be very proud of the Recovery School District.

No, it’s not very likely that Raj G. Jindal will be asked to lead by example by doing “more with less.”

It’s just not in our governor’s makeup.

Instead, the governor will in all likelihood fall back on another line he uttered just before departing for yet another out-of-state campaign appearance last fall: “Quit whining.”

Read Full Post »

Jindal trips, church fundraisers, and nailing Jell-O to a wall

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Governor's Office, Public Records, Transparency on March 24, 2011| 1 Comment »

Trying to obtain what are clearly public records from Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office is somewhat akin to trying to nail Jell-O to a wall but CNS has succeeded in obtaining some information from his deputy executive counsel, albeit somewhat confusing and perhaps incomplete data.

Deputy Executive Counsel Elizabeth Baker Murrill provided the records while implying that the governor’s staff was doing Capitol News Service a favor in being forthcoming with the information because, she said, there was no legal mandate to “manufacture and compile information in response to a request.”

The Louisiana Public Records Act, however, says precisely the opposite.

Murrill also said campaign-related records “are not public records.” Jindal, however, was fined $2,500 in 2008 for failing to report more than $100,000 in campaign expenditures on his behalf by the Louisiana Republican Party.

In responding to the specific request by CNS for an accounting of the number of days Jindal was out of state during 2010 on personal campaign fundraisers, campaigning for other Republican candidates, or promoting his book, Leadership and Crisis, Murrill provided 17 separate emails from press secretary Kyle Plotkin detailing the governor’s itinerary.

While Jindal has been admonished for his frequent out-of-state trips by critics who say he should be spending more time in-state attending to the impending $1.6 billion budget deficit, he also has been just as active—maybe even more so—in his recurrent Sunday morning trips to Protestant church services, particularly in north Louisiana.

Federal laws forbid political activity on the part of churches and also prohibit fundraising activities in churches by political candidates. Violations could result in the loss of a church’s tax-exempt status but Jindal apparently is not shy about skirting the ragged edges of the law.

A visit to one north Louisiana church reveals just how far he is willing to go in flirting with IRS sanctions against host churches kind enough to allow him to “witness” to their congregations about his Christian conversion.

The identities of the town and church are relatively unimportant to the facts of the story, so we will save them that embarrassment. But the story, as told by a member of the congregation bears repeating. We’ll call him Sam for the purposes of this story.

The pastor one Sunday told his flock that they would be visited by the governor the following Sunday. “I decided right then that I was not going to miss the next Sunday,” Sam said. “The next Sunday as I sat and listened to the malarkey of his life story, I sensed something going on at the pew to my left. I looked and saw that a clipboard with a sign-in sheet was being passed around.”

The sheet, he said, contained spaces for attendees’ names, mailing addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. “They weren’t one bit shy about it,” Sam said. “They were compiling information to key into a campaign data bank so they could call these people back later to solicit votes and campaign contributions.”

He said at the close of services, the pastor informed the congregation that Jindal would have a meet and greet session at the parish sheriff’s firing range. “I went to that, too, and that’s where the contributions were being solicited,” Sam said. “Big time. They were very open about asking for contributions.”

Sam admitted that he has never been a fan of Jindal. “I can’t stand him. But I have to give it to him: he’s slick.”

In-state travel notwithstanding, the emails provided CNS by Jindal’s office revealed 17 out-of-state trips totaling 30 days. The first trip was for three days, beginning on Feb. 19. On that date, he traveled to Washington, D.C. for the National Governors’ Association’s winter meetings and the Republican Governors’ Association meeting. He returned on Feb. 22.

He didn’t travel out-of-state again until Sept. 17, when he attended campaign rallies in Pensacola, Orlando, and Jacksonville for Rick Scott in his successful campaign for governor of that state. Jindal also attended fundraisers in Pensacola and St. Petersburg before returning to Baton Rouge that same day.

There were no trips reported by the governor’s office between Feb. 17-22 and Sept. 17. The April 20 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico occupied much of his on-camera face time during that period and the leak was finally stopped on Sept. 19 just in time for his jaunt to Cincinnati on Sept. 20-21 to attend the Republican Governors’ Association Policy Summit.

Other trips listed by Murrill included:

• Sept. 24—Fundraisers in Fresno and San Diego in support of unsuccessful California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman: 1 day;

• Oc. 4—Fundraiser for the Georgia Republican Party in Atlanta: 1 day;

• Oct. 8—Fundraiser for his own reelection campaign on Oct. 8; campaign stop for successful U.S. Senate election campaign of Roy Blunt; later that same day, Jindal and family attended his brother’s wedding in St. Louis: 3 days;

• Oct. 13—Campaign rally in Tampa, Fla., for Marco Rubio’s successful U.S. Senate campaign: 1 day;

• Oct. 14—Fundraiser in Portsmouth, N.H., on behalf of John Stephen’s unsuccessful campaign for governor of New Hampshire. Also attended fundraiser in support of his own reelection. On Oct. 15, Jindal traveled to New York City to attend meetings of the Republican Governors’ Association: 2 days;

• Oct. 18—Fundraiser in Milwaukee in support of Ron Johnson’s successful campaign for U.S. Senate. Also traveled to Madison, WI to attend fundraiser for Scott Walker’s successful campaign for governor: 1 day;

• Oct. 21—Houston fundraiser for Bill Flores’s successful campaign for Congress: 1 day;

• Oct. 22—Pittsburgh fundraiser for Tom Corbett’s successful campaign for governor of Pennsylvania: 1 day;

• Oct. 26—Fundraiser in Hobbs for Susana Martinez’s successful campaign for governor of New Mexico: 1 day;

• Oct. 27—Newton campaign rally for Terry Branstad’s successful campaign for governor of Iowa; Milwaukee, WI, for fundraiser for Scott Walker; Homer Glen campaign appearance on behalf of unsuccessful Illinois gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady: 1 day;

• Nov. 14-23—New York City appearances on the Today Show and Fox and Friends to promote book, Leadership and Crisis. Several interviews scheduled before departing on Nov. 16 for San Diego for the Republican Governors’ Association annual conference; reelection fundraiser on Nov. 19 in Los Angeles; Nov. 20 speech at Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara before flying to Washington, D.C. for media interviews for his book. Return to Baton Rouge on Nov. 23: 8 days;

• Dec. 10—Reelection fundraiser in New York City: 1 day;

• Dec. 15-16—Two reelection fundraisers in Dallas; on Dec. 16 reelection fundraisers in San Antonio and Houston: 2 days.

The cost of all this travel? Well, it depends on where you go for answers. The report provided by Murrill indicates that $65,898.85 was spent for something. The printout itemizes 34 separate payments between Jan. 8 and Dec. 23but only three dates of those payments appear to match up with travel dates provided by Murrill.

The Associated Press, however, puts the cost at $134,000 with more than $75,000 of that amount for his own reelection fundraising appearances.

AP provided a factor that was not provided by Murrill, the cost of paying for state police protection during his trips.

At a time when statewide budget cuts have forced state police to cease training courses for new troopers, state law requires the governor to have police protection at all times, even while traveling for political campaign appearances.

One administration spokesperson said that police protection costs should not be factored in because the governor must have state police protection whether he’s traveling or in Baton Rouge.

That may be but one still has to wonder where the governor’s real priorities are these days.

Read Full Post »

Public records? We don’t need no stinkin’ public records

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Ethics, Governor's Office, Public Records, Transparency on March 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

If one has a fetish for dizzying double-talk and head-spinning subterfuge, the office of the governor of Louisiana is the place to be. If that is impractical, as it is for most of us, then an attempt to communicate with Bobby Jindal’s office would probably rate a close second.

Capitol News Service (CNS) recently made such an attempt and the results would have been comical were it not for the fact that this is supposed to be the office of state leadership and inspiration. But if your idea of leadership and inspiration is Larry, Moe, and Curly, then you would probably find the results satisfying and fulfilling.

First of all, let’s be clear on two points right up front: one should never expect promptness in getting an answer and when you do get a response, don’t expect an intelligent answer.

We started in January with our attempts to obtain an accounting of the number of days that Gov. Jindal was absent from the state during 2010 for campaign appearances on behalf of other Republican candidates, for his own campaign fund raisers, and for promotions of his book, Leadership and Crisis.

That’s it. How many days was the governor out of the state during 2010? Period.

The request seemed simple enough for our purposes. Little did we know we needed to dumb it down for the governor’s office.

After four more official requests, we finally received a response but only after we found it necessary to give his staff a refresher course on the Louisiana Public Records Law. And even then, the response was mystifying.

A letter dated March 4 arrived by email from Deputy Executive Counsel Elizabeth Baker Murrill. In her letter, she demanded a check in the amount of $5. Okay, that’s not going to break us. We’ll pay that.

In her letter, she made a vague reference to “privilege, exception, exemption, or other limitations” and then alluded to financial records for campaign-related travel, which she said were not kept in the governor’s office.

Now, any paper shuffler in a position as high as deputy executive counsel to the governor should know that a simple accounting of the number of days the governor was gone from the state is in no way subject to “privilege, exception, exemption, or other limitations.”

Moreover, not once did CNS request financial records for campaign-related travel in any shape, form or fashion. Not once.

So, we dutifully remitted our $5 check along with a letter or our own. In our letter, we reminded Ms. Murrill that we were not seeking a financial accounting of the campaign trips—just the number of campaign trips on behalf of other candidates, book promotion trips, and personal campaign fundraising trips. That’s all.

We subsequently received a letter dated March 11 by traditional mail. In that letter she said, “On March 3, we notified you that the public records we could locate that were responsive to your requests were ready to be copied or reviewed.”

Well, first of all, it was March 4, not March 3, that I was first contacted by Ms. Murrill and secondly, the only records she said were available at that time was a list and cost of state-issued cell phones in use by the governor’s staff. That was in an earlier, separate request and the information had been previously provided. Maybe she was just having a bad day.

But then she reiterated, “We further advised that we do not have custody of campaign-related records, which are not public records.”

Besides her insistence on her office’s not having records for which we never asked, she is dead wrong in the last part of that sentence. Campaign expenses certainly are public record. In fact, politicians have been fined for failure to be forthcoming with complete campaign finance reports. Gov. Jindal himself was the subject of one of those fines. In 2008, he paid a $2,500 fine for his failure to report more than $100,000 spent on his behalf by the state Republican Party.

Let us know how that non-public campaign records theory works out for you, Ms. Murrill.

She then said, “Your requests seek a compilation of information, some of which is not contained in public record. Moreover, a legal mandate to manufacture and compile information in response to a request is not required pursuant to the public record laws. Nevertheless, in an effort to be cooperative, we searched for records that might be responsive to your request.”

Again, we beg to differ, Ms. Murrill. Nothing we requested would fall outside the definition of public record. And as far as a “legal mandate” to manufacture and compile information in response to a request “not being required pursuant to the public records laws,” we can only suggest that you take a remedial law course–or perhaps Civics 101– because again, you are dead wrong. You might start with a thorough reading of LA. R.S. 44:1-41. That should clear up any questions you might have about the public records law.

Then, along with what appears to us to be an incomplete accounting of the number of out-of-state trips the governor made during 2010, Ms. Murrill inexplicably included three pages that contained some type of financial accounting. There was no explanation, so there is no way of knowing what the payments, which totaled $65,898.85, were for.

With this kind of stellar legal advice, one would have to wonder what’s in store for the state as this administration continues to blunder its way through its bizarre policy decisions like selling off state assets in exchange for a quick but oh-so-temporary financial fix.

Just don’t bother the governor with pesky public records requests.

After all, when staffers questioned the legality of a proposed action by the Division of Administration last year, they were told, “Don’t be bound by the law.”

Read Full Post »

Money and politics: old song, different verse

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Governor's Office, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Public Records, Supriya Jinda Foundation, Transparency on March 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

He insists he has the job he wants.

He insists he does not plan to run for president in 2012, though he has not mentioned the vice presidency or even the U.S. Senate.

There is no Democratic opposition anywhere on the horizon to his re-election to the governor’s office next fall. Republican State Treasurer John Kennedy, though, is sounding more and more like a candidate with each passing day.

Part of the reason for the lack of opposition is the massive war chest Jindal has at his disposal. To date, he has $9 million and counting.

Running for governor of Louisiana is not cheap. In 2007, some $26 million was spent by three candidates with Jindal accounting for $11 million of that.

So perhaps that is the reason that Jindal has been traveling all over the country to attend fundraisers instead of staying in Baton Rouge and focusing his attention to the looming $1.6 billion deficit facing the state.

Campaign expenses, as any political observer knows, long ago removed government policy decisions from the best interests of the rank and file citizenry to the New York corporate boardrooms of oil and pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street bankers.

The office of the governor of Louisiana, sadly, is no exception. It’s for sale just like any other political office.

For proof of that, one need only look at the correlation between contributions to the Supriya Jindal Foundation for Louisiana’s Children and fat state contracts.

While the motives of Jindal’s wife may well be above reproach, any corporate CEO worth his bonus can readily see the advantage of making a generous contribution to the foundation. Take Northrop Grumman, for example. Northrop Grumman made a generous contribution of $10,000 to the foundation. Was it coincidence that Northrop Grumman soon received a three-year, $11.4 million contract with the Department of Social Services to provide support services for the statewide software network.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana got an even better return on its investment of $100,000. Blue Cross/Blue Shield subsequently was awarded a $400 million contract to provide health coverage for state employees and retirees in a bidding process that attracted the attention of a Baton Rouge judge.

Humana had held the contract and promptly filed suit, saying that the contract awarded Blue Cross/Blue Shield was not what was bid on. Mike Caldwell, a judge in the 19th Judicial District, agreed and ordered the state re-bid the contract.

AT&T also reaped benefits from its contribution, getting several contracts for providing cellular phone service for state-issued cell phones and for telecommunication services for the state’s land line system.

All these factors make campaigning for office a high-stakes game and leaves politicians beholden to their benefactors. And that runs up the costs of running for office. That, in turn, leaves small contributors out of the loop when it comes to policy making. It certainly gives credence to the old but bitter joke about having the best government money can buy.

Just last week, Jindal was out of state once more to attend yet more fundraisers.

Attempts by Louisiana Voice to obtain travel records for Jindal during 2010 were at first ignored for nearly two months. Emails to Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin went unanswered. Finally, earlier this month, the governor’s office responded that it did not keep records on campaign travel costs. Those records are kept by Jindal’s campaign, his office said.

The only problem with that response is financial records were never a part of the request–not that they won’t be at some point in the future. But this time, the only thing being sought was the number of days the governor spent on travel. Those records have yet to be made available.

So much for his claims of having the most-open, most-ethical administration in Louisiana history. So much for his claims of strengthening the state’s political ethics.

The latest fundraisers, in Dallas and Houston, are part of a continuing trend of out-of-state fundraising by the governor that has left some clearly dissatisfied with Jindal’s repeated absences from the state. It might even appear that some of the luster has faded from the Jindal image of boy wunderkind.

One person, responding to the latest soiree into another state to raise campaign funds, said, “I can’t wait to learn who is running against him so I know who I am voting for.”

Said another: “So nice that Texans care so much about Louisiana to donate.”

A third asked the rhetorical question, “Who knew Texans cared who is our governor? Here’s an idea: they can have him.”

Read Full Post »

Jindal administration in lock-step with national GOP privatization addiction

Posted in Boards, Campaign Contributions, Commissions, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Prison, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals, Taxes, Transparency on March 1, 2011| 3 Comments »

Could it be mere coincidence that the word privatize sounds a lot like privateer?

Remember the clamor to privatize Social Security? Advocates wanted Americans to be allowed to control their own retirement money by investing it in the stock market. To many, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed and all the privatization rhetoric quieted, its disappearance pretty much coinciding with the collapse of several Wall Street investment banking firms and the subsequent trillion-dollar congressional bailout. Millions of Americans saw their 401k funds evaporate. Suddenly, social security privatization didn’t seem like such a hot idea.

Despite that, Gov. Bobby Jindal espouses what he considers a panacea to the state’s fiscal woes: privatization. Even if state property must be sold and the fate of thousands of state workers, along with their retirement and health benefits, are thrown into jeopardy, privatize. In that regard, he is in lock-step with Republican governors all over the U.S.

The answer to every fiscal ill that beleaguers the state is privatization, according to Jindal. Sometimes privatization can even extend into the already private sector, especially if state help for private enterprise through Jindal’s economic development air program happens to benefit campaign contributors.

LaShip, owned by Gary Chouest, was the direct beneficiary of Jindal’s $10 million investment in state funds for expansions to the Port of Terrebonne in 2008. Chouest, his businesses, which also include Chouest Offshore and C-Logistics, and his family members made a minimum of 18 campaign contributions to Jindal totaling $85,000. The funds came from a $1.1 billion state surplus. Ironic, given that the state today is faced with a $1.6 billion deficit.

Then, of course, there is the infamous chicken plant in Union Parish.

When Pilgrim’s Pride decided to close its plant in Farmerville, Jindal scurried to find a buyer for Pilgrim founder Lonnie “Bo” Pilgrim. California-based Foster Farms eventually purchased the plant after the state put up $50 million. Lonnie Pilgrim and Foster Farms both contributed generously to Jindal’s campaign.

Anyone who has followed Jindal should not be surprised. More than 200 key Jindal appointees combined to contribute more than $784,000 to his campaign.

Coincidence, says Jindal Press Secretary Kyle Plotkin who added that those contributors supported Jindal’s plans for reforming Louisiana and for improving the state’s image.

Nor does Jindal consider his repeal of the Stelly Plan in 2008 to be detrimental to the state’s financial well-being even though experts said the action would create a $350 million revenue loss in the first year, 2009. The Stelly Plan was approved by a majority of Louisiana voters but Jindal repealed it, saying his action would save single income tax filers as much as $500 a year and joint filers $1,000. That sounded great until one peeled back the layers and found that the $500 savings would be realized only by single filers making as much as $90,000 a year and to save $1,000, joint filers would have to make more than $150,000 per year.

Louisiana’s median household income was $43,635 in 2010.

It was little more than a year ago, in January 2010, that then-Commissioner of Administration Angelé Davis released the highlights of the administration’s “streamlining measures implementation plan.” Among those highlights were a 10 percent reduction in the numbers of cars in the state’s automobile fleet, sale of unneeded state property, better contractor oversight, and the establishment of a “Privatization and Outsourcing Unit” within the Division of Administration (DOA) “to serve as a resource for all departments and agencies for identifying and implementing appropriate privatization and outsourcing initiatives.”

To that end, the report said a Request for Proposals (RFP) had already been issued by the Office of Risk Management (ORM) “to evaluate the potential cost savings and/or service improvements with outsourcing the claims management and loss prevention services for all lines of coverage to a private company.”

The privatization of ORM was, in fact, accomplished when Mandeville-based F.A. Richard and Associates (FARA) was awarded the contract to take over operations of the agency, beginning with its Workers Compensation unit. The phased-in takeover is scheduled to be complete in 2013 at a cost of $68 million under terms of FARA’s contract with the state.

Proposals were taken on the privatization of at least one other agency but none of the proposals were attractive enough to gain administration approval.

No matter. Even without waiting to see if the privatization of ORM proves to be a wise move, Jindal is plunging ahead in his efforts to privatize other agencies, including state prison facilities, the Office of Group Benefits (OGB), and, if you watch what’s been going on with charter schools, public education.

As was the case of ORM, the privatization of any state agency would require the concurrence of the State Legislature. With recent party switches by several legislatures, Jindal now enjoys a Republican majority in both the House and Senate.

Privatization has already been tried once with less than satisfactory results.

OGB, beginning on July 1, 2003 offered state employees the option of selecting a Managed Care Option (MCO) administered by FARA, the same firm that is in the process of taking over ORM. A state audit later revealed that FARA was paid $8.6 million more than its $20 million limit, a 43 percent cost overrun.

OGB has since terminated its contract with FARA.

State Sen. Butch Gautreaux (D-Morgan City) has gone on record as opposing the privatization of OGB.

“I am very concerned about the governor’s efforts to sell off OGB,” Gautreaux said in an email. “I sit on the (OGB) board and attend the meetings. We’ve developed a reserve of over $500 million and again the governor is looking at raiding those funds for short term and recurring expenses. This will be a catastrophic move,” he said.

The privatization of state prisons also is also a matter of concern.

DOA recently published a request for information on the privatization of state correctional facilities in Allen and Winn parishes. Both facilities, while state-owned, are presently managed by private firms from Nashville, TN., and Boca Raton, FL.

Figures obtained from DOA show that it presently costs the state about $17.5 million per year to pay the two firms to operate the facilities in Allen and Winn. Avoyelles Correctional Center, which was built from the same architectural plans as those in Winn and Allen and which is state-operated, presently costs about $26 million per year.

The obvious questions then become how can a private company in business to make a profit do so without charging a higher per diem and how can the private companies operate Winn and Allen at one-third less cost than the state spends to run Avoyelles?

Simply put, the private firms pay their employees much less than the state pays its corrections officers. That alone is a major cause for concern among employees of facilities run by the state that might be privatized sometime down the road.

Private firms also offer less in the way of rehabilitation and educational programs. Basically, they operate on the concept of lock and feed. Moreover, because the prisoners will still be the state’s responsibility, the state would continue to bear the cost of prisoners’ medical care. Tough-on-crime types might question the need of rehabilitation and educational programs, being of the “lock-‘em-up-and-throw-away-the-key mindset but medical care can’t be denied.

That might be good for the hard-liners but that philosophy wouldn’t seem to do much to discourage repeat offenders and that flies in the face of Jindal’s highly-touted press release a couple of weeks ago when he boasted that the state’s recidivism rate for first- and second-year prisoners dropped by 33 percent under his administration. It’s the moral equivalent of Jindal’s having his cake and eating it, too.
Privatization necessarily goes against the grain of his stated objective of assimilating prisoners back into society through education and occupational training. He can’t privatize and expect lower recidivism rates, too.

Projecting the current rate of $31.51 per-day per-prisoner now paid parish sheriffs to house state prisoners over the 20-year contract sought by the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, the state would pay a private firm upwards of $700 million. Jindal appears ready to trade that obligation for $66 million in up-front cash sought from the sale of the Allen and Winn facilities.

That $700 million is roughly the same amount the state would pay if it continued to pay the two private firms to operate the facilities. But at least the state would still own the facilities.

But there remains one other factor to toss into the equation that no one has talked about.

While the state is paying $31.51 per day to house its prisoners in the local jails, the federal government is paying upwards of $50 per day to house illegal immigrants.

Given the choice of earning an extra $18.49 per day, a 58.7 percent bump, a lot of sheriffs will opt for the economic consideration of tossing out the state prisoners in favor of dealing with the feds. Where would that leave the state if it has no facilities of its own?

There’s no reason to think that a private firm, once it purchases the state facilities, would not do the same thing when its contract with the state comes up for renewal and the state would have no choice but to acquiesce.

Jindal has also mentioned the possibility of selling several state buildings—buildings that, ironically, were constructed less than a decade ago in an effort to get state offices out of paying rent on privately-owned office space—and of drawing on future State Lottery proceeds.

That would put the state in the position of paying for the buildings twice—all for the sake of obtaining one-time revenue for recurring expenses, according to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro). “We would still have to pay off the mortgage on the buildings while we paid rent to the new owners,” he said.

Privatization has become Jindal’s addiction and he is acting like a desperate street junkie willing to do just about anything to get a quick fix.

And as with the case of all addicts, that can be a dead-end street.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »