Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Commissions’ Category

LouisianaVoice set to launch online newspaper ‘Louisiana Free Press’ to be devoted exclusively to state political news

Posted in Attorney General, Auditor, BESE, Boards, Civil Service, Commissions, Contract, Contracts, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, House, Senate, Jobs, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Politicians, Privatization, Public Records, Recovery School District, Regents, Retirement, Revenue, State Agencies, Taxes, Transparency, Veto, Vouchers, Waste on August 10, 2012| 19 Comments »

LouisianaVoice will soon have a sister publication in the form of an online state newspaper, according to publisher Tom Aswell.

The new feature, which will be published online in newspaper format, will be a weekly publication geared exclusively to Louisiana political news.

“This will be a free-subscription publication because we want everyone in Louisiana—and elsewhere—to have access to what elected and appointed officials are doing that affect the daily lives of Louisiana’s citizens,” Aswell said.

The name of the new publication will be Louisiana Free Press and will be accessible via the link http://www.louisianafreepress.com, Aswell said.

Louisiana Free Press will be supported 100 percent by advertising revenue and our coverage will be broadened from publishing a single story at a time. There will be multiple stories posted each Friday and the coverage will vary greatly.

Several writers will be contributing coverage of many more agencies than have historically been covered by LouisianaVoice.

These writers will be covering the Louisiana Supreme Court proceedings, Louisiana Attorney General opinions, audit reports of all state and local agencies as they are provided by the Legislative Auditor’s office. Moreover, coverage of agencies will be increased—agencies like the Department of Health and Hospitals, Department of Environmental Quality, Department of Natural Resources, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, and the Department of Education, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Board of Regents, University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors and the Public Service Commission, the governor’s office, the lieutenant governor, state treasurer and the legislature, as well as other more obscure state boards and commissions.

“We feel it is important that Louisiana’s citizenry remain informed about what their public officials are doing in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and elsewhere,” Aswell said.

“This is an ambitious endeavor but for too long, too many agencies, board and commissions have operated under the radar of the media,” Aswell said. “We anticipate that is about to change.

“That is not to say that everything we write will be of an investigative nature or that each story will be some major exposé. Most will be of a routine nature but will provide news otherwise not available to the public.”

LouisianaVoice will issue further updates as the schedule for launching Louisiana Free Press develops.

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 »

Bored but can’t sleep? Try counting Louisiana boards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Check ’em out:

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

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

But just for good measure, we have the:

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

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

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

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts