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Archive for the ‘Contract, Contracts’ Category

NGO appropriations only symptomatic of real problem: inexcusable indifference of elected officials, appointees

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Grant, Grants, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Transparency on August 1, 2013| 6 Comments »

When last we left State Treasurer John Kennedy, he was announcing that 36 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have until Aug. 31 to fulfill their reporting requirements under terms of more than $4.45 million in grants they received from the state or be turned over to the Office of Debt Recovery.

We wish him well in this endeavor. His efforts are certainly fiscally responsible.

LouisianaVoice took a little closer look at some of those 36 recipients and made several interesting discoveries:

  • Of the 36, only 15, or 41.7 percent were still listed as organizations in good standing with the Secretary of State’s office as required for qualification for the grants. Those 15 combined to receive $2,265,000, or 50.9 percent of the total amount received;
  • Nine ($1.1 million) were listed as no longer in good standing with the Secretary of State and nine others ($450,000) were listed as inactive.
  • Three ($645,000) were never listed with the Secretary of State as required.

Even more interesting was the discovery that five of the organizations with combined grants of $1,955,000 have seven active contracts with the state in amounts totaling more than twice that amount—nearly $4.4 million, according to figures provided by Louisiana Transparency and Accountability (LaTrac), a master online list of state contracts.

And while each of the contracts has a different starting date, each runs through April 4, 2049, according to LaTrac records. No reason was given for contracts of such long duration but LouisianaVoice has submitted a public records request for copies of the contracts and explanations of the scope of work to be performed under the contracts.

While no years were given for when any of the organizations received their respective state grants, the most interesting entity on that list was Rapides Primary Health Care Center in Alexandria which Kennedy has asked to provide an accounting for the $550,000 in NGO money it received from the state.

At the same time, Rapides Primary Health Care Center has two contracts with the state totaling $1,525,000.

The first, for $1,025,000 (issued on Jan. 19, 1996), calls for the construction of a health care center building and the second, for $500,000 (issued on March 2, 2007), is for emergency roof and equipment replacement and building repairs, planning and construction.

There are others.

  • The Colomb Foundation of Lafayette has a $369,875 contract that began in 2008 with the state for the completion of building and grounds improvements but is being asked to account for a $300,000 state grant.
  • The Treme Community Education Center in New Orleans has two contracts totaling $2,110,000 for program operations, planning and construction (1.45 million) and for planning and construction of Leverette Senior House ($660,000). Both contracts were issued in 2001. At the same time, Treme Community Education Center is being asked to account for the disposition of $325,000 in received from the state.
  • Serenity 67 of Baton Rouge has a $225,000 contract issued in 2003 for the acquisition, planning, construction and renovation of a multi-purpose center. The organization has been asked to explain how it used a $150,000 grant.
  • Community Awareness Revitalization and Enhancement of New Orleans is listed as one of the nine inactive organizations by the Secretary of State. The organization’s last report was filed with the Secretary of State on Nov. 12, 2010 and it has not accounted for the manner in which a $130,000 grant was used. Yet, it has an active contract with the state in the amount of $150,000 for the planning and construction of the Claiborne Avenue Walking and Bike Path.

Besides its current contracts, Rapides Primary Health Care Center also had seven other contracts with the state totaling $535,800 which expired between the years 2004 and 2009.

The largest of the seven, for $325,000, a contract issued on July 16, 2006 and ending on June 30, 2007, was for equipment and other items to provide primary and preventive health care services in the medically-underserved area of Rapides Parish.

Another contract for $90,000, which ran from April 1, 2004 to March 16, 2005, was issued to provide family planning services to individuals and families in Rapides and a third, for $82,000, ran from Oct. 1, 2004 to Sept. 30, 2007, called for the facility to provide Women, Infants and Children (WIC) food and nutrition services for Rapides Parish.

But there is a lot more to this story than 36 non-profit organizations crowding around the public trough. It’s about accountability and playing fast and loose with the public’s money. A lot of people have a lot of questions to answer and we’re willing to wager not a single member of the legislature—or any state agency head, for that matter—can tell us to what purpose these funds were used—or by whom.

The amount—$4.5 million—is rather miniscule in the overall scheme of things, in a state budget running into the billions where contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars are funneled to political allies and former employers with little thought of the cumulative costs to taxpayers. The lack of accountability is symptomatic of a much larger problem—a complete loss of public confidence in the ability—or willingness—of Baton Rouge to keep the interest of the citizenry uppermost in mind.

The state may get some of these funds back but in all likelihood won’t come close to recovering all of it. Even if it does recover every dime, there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of state contracts where there is little to no oversight. The public funds that are sucked up in these contracts dwarf any amount these 36 non-governmental organizations may have received in public largesse.https://louisianavoice.com/category/orm-office-of-risk-management/page/3/

https://louisianavoice.com/2011/05/20/rainwater-thompson-what-did-you-know-and-when-did-you-know-it/

https://louisianavoice.com/2011/12/12/doa-apparently-allowed-several-major-violations-of-contract-through-poor-oversight-management-of-orm-privatization/

No, the NGOs are not the real problem here.

The problem is the GOs.

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State Ethics Board vice chair resigns after conflict of interest over BESE member, TFA Director Kira Orange Jones exposed

Posted in BESE, Boards, Contract, Contracts, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Transparency on July 28, 2013| 10 Comments »

One of the primary functions of the State Ethics Board, on paper at least, is to guard against conflicts of interests on the part of state employees and appointive and elected officials.

So what happens when a member of the State Ethics Board has a conflict of interests?

If you are an appointee of Gov. Bobby Jindal, the answer is: apparently nothing.

Nothing, that is, until you are called out by a member of the media.

Then you quietly resign.

Scott Schneider, vice chairman of the Louisiana Board of Ethics, submitted his resignation just weeks after the Tribune, a newspaper serving the African-American community of New Orleans published a story in its May/June issue headlined “Kira, Kira on the Wall” which explained Schneider’s own conflict of interests in ruling on an Aug. 21, 2012, conflict of interest decision about Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) member Kira Orange Jones.

New Orleans attorney James Babst had sought the opinion on behalf of client Jones because of her position as executive director of Teach for America (TFA) which holds a lucrative contract with the Louisiana Department of Education.

Ethics Board staff attorneys informed the board that the state Code of Governmental Ethics would prohibit Kira Orange Jones, while she serves as a member (of BESE), from providing compensated services to Teach for America at a time when TFA has or is seeking a contractual, business or financial relationship with either the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) or the Recovery School District (RSD),” the Tribune said.

Enter Schneider to save the day for Kira Orange Jones, Superintendent of Education John White and Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Schneider argued against the staff recommendation, ultimately prevailing with the logic that Jones was merely head of the New Orleans office of TFA and not the entire organization.

In a three-page letter from staff attorney Tracy Barker, the Ethics Board noted that while TFA has contracts with DOE in amounts exceeding $50,000 and that while BESE is required to approve and sign the contracts, and that as a member of BESE, Jones voted on those contracts, somehow no conflict existed.

The legislation cited by the board said there is no conflict so long as the following criteria are met:

  • The employee must be a salaried or wage-earning employee;
  • The employee’s salary must remain substantially unaffected by the contractual relationship;
  • The public servant (BESE member Jones) must own less than a “controlling interest” in the company, and
  • The public Servant (Jones) must be neither an officer, director, trustee, nor partner in the company.

So just what part of “executive director” did the Board of Ethics not understand?

That, it turns out, might be the key. Babst, it seems, merely identified his client as an employee of TFA, being careful to note that she did not sit on the board of directors of the national TFA but apparently neglecting to identify her as executive director of the New Orleans office.

And it seems reasonable to assume that whether or not she continues to receive paychecks would hinge in great part on her success in placing TFA teachers in public and charter schools in the New Orleans area through those lucrative contracts with DOE. So much for her salary remaining “substantially unaffected” by the contractual relationship.

And what was Schneider’s motivation in coming to the defense of Jones even as Ethic Board staff attorneys were ready to point out the obvious conflict?

Well, it seems that The Tulane University Cowen Institute’s partnership with TFA last year boosted Tulane to fifth in the nation in the number of university graduating seniors applying to TFA.

Schneider serves as an associate general counsel for Tulane University but somehow never deemed that fact and Tulane’s association with TFA important enough to inform the Ethics Board staff or to recuse himself from the discussion.

Ethics Board—Schneider—Tulane—TFA—Kira Jones—BESE;

BESE—Kira Jones—TFA—Tulane—Schneider—Ethics Board.

Hmmm. Either way you look at it, it fails to pass the smell test.

Ironically, way back in September of 2008, when Jindal announced his appointment of Schneider, he did so with a strong statement about conflicts of interest.

Mary Dumestre had just resigned from the board, saying she wanted to avoid a potential conflict with her appointment and her private law firm work.

That prompted Jindal to stress how important it was “that ethics board members are completely free of any and all conflicts of interest.”

So, perhaps Gov. Jindal can explain how BESE President Chas Roemer continues to be able to take part in discussions and to vote on matters affecting charter schools while his sister, Caroline Roemer Shirley, serves as Executive Director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools.

Or how the President and CEO of Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana, which is taking over the LSU Medical Center in Shreveport and the LSU-run E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe, can simultaneously serve on the LSU Board of Supervisors which negotiated a blank contract with the Biomedical Research Foundation for that takeover.

The only reasonable explanation for all these things—and we have given this a lot of thought—is that Gov. Jindal simply holds the Louisiana electorate in contempt, in total disdain—inconvenient distractions, as it were, to be mollified only when politically expedient to do so.

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Faircloth says his state income is a ‘pittance,’ but his $1.1 million is 11th highest among state’s top 50 legal contracts

Posted in Attorney General, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency on July 24, 2013| 4 Comments »

The Faircloth Law Firm doesn’t even show as a blip on the Louisiana Office of Contractual Review’s (OCR) Top 50 list of legal contractors with the State of Louisiana for the Fiscal Year July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011.

Altogether, the top 50 contracts represent a combined total of $81.4 million, according to OCR’s list.

The list ranks state contracts from the largest—the Department of Justice (Louisiana Attorney General) at $18 million to number 50—the $276,000 contract of the New Orleans law firm of Vezina & Gattuso, but does not include Faircloth.

That’s because the Faircloth Law Firm received its payments in fiscal years 2012 and 2013 and did not show up on the FY-2011 list.

Most attorney contracts, with the exception of the Attorney General and public defender contracts, are awarded over a three-year period.

It should be noted that simply because a firm is awarded a contract of, say, $1.5 million, it does not necessarily reflect the actual amount paid the firm. Often, cases conclude long before the contracts are exhausted and in other cases, they extend beyond the financial terms of the dates of the contracts and must be amended or renewed.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Faircloth has received more than $1.1 million in contract work from various state agencies, which would put the firm about midway on the list of top 50 firms. Records provided by the Office of Risk Management (ORM) through the Division of Administration (DOA) show that the Faircloth firm was actually paid $931,000 in 2012 and 2013.

Most contracts awarded through ORM are done so at set hourly rates which are generally uniform from firm to firm, though there are exceptions where a firm will receive a contract with a higher per hour representation fee. And while LouisianaVoice was not provided with Faircloth’s hourly fee, it is assumed that it is higher than customary simply because he represented the governor’s office in several court cases, many of which he lost in the lower courts and in the appeals process.

More recently, the attorney general’s office has contracted Faircloth’s firm to represent the state in litigation against BP for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill and is also represented the state in litigation by CNSI which was fired from its $200 million Medicaid contract with the Department of Health and Hospitals.

Those two cases alone are expected to reap an additional $675,000 in addition to the $1.1 million already paid but Faircloth downplays that amount as insignificant in the overall scheme of things.

“I know what we do is a pittance compared to how much gets contracted,” he said.

Oh, really?

Let’s compare.

With the $675,000 from CNSI and BP cases added to the $1.1 million already received, that’s almost $1.8 million total.

Of the 50 biggest legal contracts listed by OCR, only 10 were for more than $1.8 million and half of those were for either the attorney general’s office or four contracts of $5.1 million for the legal services for the defense of persons pursuing post-conviction relief of a capital conviction; $4 million for legal services for the Louisiana Public Defender Board and contracts for $2.1 million and $2 million for legal representation for capital cases where an ethical conflict in the representation of indigents is needed.

Faircloth denies that he is getting the lucrative contracts because of his ties to the governor as first his executive counsel and most recently as a member of the University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors.

Sean Lansing, a spokesman for Jindal first said the governor’s office doesn’t direct agencies to hire specific attorneys but later revised his statement when told that agency directors indicated that Jindal’s office had suggested hiring Faircloth in the past. “We have recommended Jimmy in certain circumstances because he is a great lawyer but at the end of the day, it is up to agency heads to decide on whom to hire.

“I don’t deny that I have the benefit of knowing all those folks,” Faircloth said of his connections to the governor’s office. “I would like to think that in my working with (state agencies), they would say, ‘Jimmy’s a very good lawyer. Let’s hire him.’

“I like to think I get the call because we give pretty good service,” he said.

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Former Jindal Executive Counsel Faircloth has history of losing state legal cases but gets big fees: $930K in 2 years

Posted in Boards, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Judges, Politicians, Public Records, Transparency on July 23, 2013| 14 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—It would seem that Jimmy Faircloth isn’t doing very well when representing the gret stet of Looziana in the various courtrooms around the state—either as an advocate of an unwinnable case on behalf of the state or as a candidate for the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Faircloth’s name has surfaced more often than bubbles in little Flatulent Filmore’s bath water, but always, it seems, on the losing end of the score.

The first time we heard the Louisiana Tech graduate’s name was when he was named in January of 2008 as Gov. Elect Bobby Jindal’s choice as his executive counsel.

Jindal’s pick was controversial from the get-go. Faircloth was still sticky from his three-year hitch as legal counsel for the Coushatta Indians, whom he advised to sink $30 million in a formerly bankrupt Israeli technology firm called MainNet for whom his brother Brandon was subsequently employed as vice president of sales.

It was not the first bad decision by the Coushatta Tribe. Three years earlier, they attracted undesired national attention when it was revealed that they had paid lobbyist Jack Abramoff $32 million to help promote and protect their gambling interests and got little in return.

Those same Coushattas also paid another $400,000 to Aubrey Temple of DeRidder, whom Jindal would later name to the Coastal Protection and Restoration Financing Corp. Temple was never able to account for the $400,000. Temple also was a key player in an attempt by another Jindal ally, Donald T. “Boysie” Bollinger of Lockport, to purchase Toledo Bend water from the Sabine River Authority for possible resale in Texas.

Okay, this is getting way too convoluted. Let’s get back to Alexandria attorney Faircloth.

Faircloth resigned as executive counsel in 2009 to run for the Louisiana Supreme Court. It was a race he lost by 53-47 percent.

Two years later he was fined $1,000 by the Louisiana Board of Ethics for violating state ethics laws when he entered into a contract to represent the Louisiana Tax Commission only six months after he resigned as Jindal’s executive counsel. State law required him to wait a full year before representing any state agency. He returned the $7,000 he had received in legal fees from the Tax Commission.

In December of 2010, Jindal appointed Faircloth to the University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors. In January of this year, Faircloth resigned and was replaced by his wife, Kelly.

The latest episode with Faircloth is yet another legal setback—this time at the hands of the First Circuit Court of Appeal which upheld a lower court decision that the LSU Board of Stupevisors must make public the names of the candidates for LSU president.

The Stupevisors withheld the names of all the candidates except the ultimate selection, F. King Alexander of California State University Long Beach and the Baton Rouge Advocate and the New Orleans Times-Picayune each filed suit to force the board to reveal the names of the three dozen candidates who were considered.

Faircloth, true to form and like his mentor Jindal, refused to admit defeat graciously. He described the matter before the appeals court as “not an appeal” but merely a question of what LSU owed in damages and legal fees. He added that LSU would “get its chance to appeal.”

Normally, only the losing party of a civil court matter would be required to pay damages and legal fees, so it’s somewhat confusing to understand where, exactly, Faircloth is drawing the line between winning and losing or what is and what is not an appeal.

No matter.

Faircloth, if nothing else is a trooper and the matter lives on in the courts—and Faircloth’s meter keeps running.

Other cases in which Faircloth has gone down in flames include a federal case in Tangipahoa in which a U.S. District Court Judge in November of 2012 ordered a halt to implementation of Jindal’s new voucher and teacher hiring laws in Tangipahoa because the state laws conflict with court orders in decades-old desegregation cases in Tangipahoa and at least 30 other parishes.

“They (the plaintiffs) can’t even describe the standard or what programs are affected” by the desegregation order, Faircloth sniffed.

In March of this year, a Baton Rouge district court judge negated the teacher tenure and evaluations section of Gov. Jindal’s education reform.

Faircloth had no comments about that ruling but Jindal had plenty to say. “We expect to prevail in the state Supreme Court,” he said.

Two months later, in May, the Louisiana Supreme Court shot down the Jindal administration’s method of funding the statewide school voucher program, ruling that it diverted money from each student’s per-pupil allocation to cover the cost of private or parochial school tuition.

The very next month, the Supremes struck down a change to the state retirement system that had been pushed through the legislature by Jindal—because the measure had not been approved by the constitutionally-required two-thirds vote.

Ironically, State Rep. Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell), who sponsored the retirement changes in the 2012 legislature, was the same legislator who pushed for the constitutional amendment the previous year that required that any retirement plan which results in an actuarial cost to the state to be passed by a two-thirds vote.

So Faircloth must really feel bad about all those losses, right? After all, those TV lawyer ads say you pay nothing unless you win, right?

Nope and nope. Taking the second question first, those lawyer ads are for plaintiff attorneys who work on contingency. Defense attorneys like Faircloth get paid, win or lose.

That should take care of the first question; Faircloth gets paid, win or lose. And he certainly gets paid well.

LouisianaVoice made our customary public records request. On July 9, we asked the governor’s office, the Office of Risk Management (ORM) and the Division of Administration (DOA) for an accounting. The answer finally came on July 19, eight days late under the state’s public records laws.

There was a caveat with which we take issue: The response from DOA attorney Joshua Melder said, “Some information has been redacted pursuant to the Office of Risk Management’s pending claims privilege.”

The public records law, as we understand it, does protect matters of attorney-client privilege or details of ongoing litigation such as settlement negotiations. Attorney fees would not, as we interpret the law, be protected but we let it pass for now. After all, we don’t possess the knowledge of the great legal minds who protect the state’s interests so proficiently.

The figures for fiscal years 2012 and 2013, exclusive of the figures redacted pursuant to ORM’s pending claim privilege, show that the Faircloth Law Firm pulled down an eye-popping $931,000 in those losing causes–$843,300 of that in FY-2013.

Not a bad return on Faircloth’s $23,000 in campaign contributions to Jindal campaigns in 2003, 2006 and 2010.

Now if he would just win an occasional case, Jindal might be a little happier with his favorite attorney.

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Another Jindal Swindle in trouble: SELH, aka Northlake, loses Medicare eligibility nine months after privatization

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, Privatization, Public Records, Transparency, Uncategorized on July 11, 2013| 21 Comments »

It’s been all of nine months since Meridian Behavioral Health Systems took over operation of Southeast Louisiana Hospital (SELH) in Mandeville in what we like to call the Jindal Swindle and already the facility has been notified that it has been found to have deficiencies serious enough to threaten its eligibility to continue participation in Medicare.

Meridian, a Florida-based company chosen to run SELH after Gov. Bobby Jindal chose to close the hospital, has been running the 58-bed facility under the name of Northlake Behavioral Health System.

Jindal announced last year that he was closing the hospital, effective Oct. 1, a move that left mental patients in all of southeast Louisiana, including the New Orleans, Houma and Thibodaux metropolitan areas, with no access to any state mental treatment facility. The move threw more than 300 SELH employees out of work.

Formed as a company less than a year before taking over the Mandeville hospital, Meridian had never handled a facility the size of SELH and in fact, listed no facilities it had ever run on its application.

And it didn’t take long for that inexperience to surface.

Northlake Behavioral Health System CEO Richard Kramer was notified by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on June 3 that Northlake no longer qualified for participation in Medicare.

“After a careful review of the May 23, 2013, survey report, we have determined that Northlake Behavioral Health System no longer meets the requirements for participation in the Medicare program,” wrote Greg Soccio, manager of the CMS Non-Long Term Care Certification and Enforcement Branch.

“Although the deficiencies do not constitute an immediate threat to the health and safety of patients, the deficiencies have been determined to be of such a serious nature as to substantially limit your hospital’s capacity to render adequate care and prevent it from being in compliance with all the conditions of participation for hospitals,” Soccio’s letter said. “Consequently, we plan to terminate participation in the Medicare program if compliance is not achieved within the given timeframes specified.”

Soccio, in his letter, gave Sept. 1, exactly 11 months after Meridian took over the facility, as the date of its termination in Medicare. “CMS will monitor your progress in correcting the deficiencies cited,” he said. “You must submit by June 14 a plan of correction with acceptable time schedule.” His letter, while imposing a July 3 deadline for completion of corrective action, listed criteria Northlake must meet for recertification:

• The plan must address correcting the specific deficiency cited;

• The plan must address improving the processes that led to the deficiency cited;

• The plan must include procedures for implementing the acceptable plans of correction for each deficiency cited;

• A completion date for the implementation of the plans of correction for each deficiency cited;

• All plans of correction must take a QAPI (Quality Assurance/Performance Improvement) approach and address improvements in its systems in order to prevent the likelihood of the deficient practice reoccurring;

• The plan must include the monitoring and tracking procedures to ensure that the plan of correction is effective and that specific deficiency cited remains corrected and/or in compliance with the regulatory requirements;

• The plan must include the title of the person responsible for implementing the acceptable plan for correction.

Subsequent to Soccio’s letter, Kramer submitted a 43-page plan of correction to CMS on June 14, the deadline given by CMS.

As serious as the letter may have been to Northlake and as welcome as it may have been to those opposed to the privatization, it did leave one gigantic loophole for Jindal:

“The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) will conduct a focus Medicare survey of your facility to assess your hospital’s compliance with the conditions of participation that were found out of compliance and assess your corrective actions,” Soccio’s letter said.

“Compliance must be achieved at the time of this revisit if further action is to be avoided. If you remain out of compliance at the time of your revisit, you can expect to receive another letter advising you of the continuation of the termination process and your appeal rights.

“You will again be asked to submit an acceptable plan of correction to our office and we may conduct one final revisit before the termination date,” it said.

That July 3 deadline was more than a week ago and a CMS spokesperson in Dallas said on Wednesday that no new paperwork had been received on Northlake by his office.

But allowing DHH to make the determination of compliance? This is the same agency that, under former Secretary Bruce Greenstein, was allowed to manipulate specifications to allow Greenstein’s former employer, CNSI, to bid on and win a $280 million contract that is now the subject of a federal investigation.

Greenstein may be gone but his successor, like Greenstein, was appointed by Jindal and does anyone really doubt that the governor maintains an iron grip over DHH? And Jindal doesn’t like to admit he ever made a mistake.

Anyone care to take any bets on the outcome of that DHH focus Medicare survey of Northlake?

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