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Report on Edmonson Amendment recommends increased benefits not be paid; was bill ‘hijacked’ by author Morrell?

Posted in Attorney General, Boards, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, House, Lawsuits, Legislators, Legislature, Retirement, Senate, State Police on August 14, 2014| 7 Comments »

Thanks to the resourcefulness of C.B. Forgotston, LouisianaVoice has obtained a copy of the seven-page report on the Edmonson Amendment and it appears that State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson and trooper Louis Boquet of Houma are legally prohibited from taking advantage of a special amendment adopted on their behalf by the Louisiana Legislature.

Meanwhile, LouisianaVoice received an unconfirmed report concerning the origination of the amendment that if true, adds a new twist to the curious series of events leading up to passage of the amendment in the last hours of the recent legislative session.

The report, authored by Louisiana State Police Retirement System (LSPRS) board attorney Denise Akers and Florida attorney Robert Klausner, specifically says that Edmonson and Boquet are barred from accepting the retirement windfall because the amendment granting them the special exemption from the state’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) is unconstitutional on no fewer than three levels.

Klausner and Akers also expressed concern that the source of funding for the increased benefits would have been the Employee Experience Account “which is reserved as the source of future cost of living benefits (for state police retirees and their widows and children) and payments toward the unfunded accrued liability.”

Edmonson, under the amendment would have seen his retirement income increase by $55,000 a year. The amount of what Boque’s retirement increase would have been is unknown.

The report, however, stopped short of recommending that the board file legal action to have Senate Bill 294, signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal as Act 859, declared unconstitutional.

Instead, it recommended that the LSPRS “simply decline to pay any benefit under Act 859” and that the matter “would only need to be litigated if someone benefitting from the act (Edmonson or Boque) filed to enforce it.” The reported added that both men “have indicated they do not desire to enforce it. Thus, LSPRS may incur no litigation cost in this matter.”

The report said that should either man attempt to collect the increase retirement benefits by challenging the board’s refusal to pay the benefits, “it would fall to the attorney general to defend the law, rather than expending (LSPRS) resources to pursue a costly declaratory relief action.”

The report noted that the Louisiana Supreme Court, in a decision handed down only last year, “made it clear that a pension law adopted in violation of constitutional requirements is void and of no effect.” That was the ruling that struck down Jindal’s controversial state pension reform legislation.

“It is our view that pursuit of a declaratory relief or other legal action seeking to declare Act 859 invalid is unnecessary,” the report said. “By determining that it will not enforce the act, the board acts consistent with its fiduciary duty.”

The board still must vote to accept the recommendations of Klausner and Akers and with Jindal and Edmonson controlling the majority of the 11 seats on the LSPRS board, such a vote remains uncertain.

The board is scheduled to take up the matter at its next meeting, set for Sept. 4 but likely to be moved up now that the report is public.

The report also noted that the amendment was not proposed in either the House or the Senate, but added during conference committee.

SB 294 was authored by State Sen. Jean-Paul Morrell and dealt only with administrative procedures in cases in which law enforcement officers came under investigation. State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) inserted the amendment during conference committee discussion of the bill but recent reports have surfaced that place Morrell, who also was one of the three senators—along with three representatives—who served on the conference committee, squarely at the center of the controversy as well.

Morrell authored the bill at the request of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) but was said to have subsequently told the FOP lobbyist that he would have to “hijack” the bill to conference committee in order to accommodate state police and Edmonson.

FOP President Darrell Basco, a Pineville police officer, said he had no personal knowledge of such events and lobbyist Joe Mapes did not return a phone call from LouisianaVoice.

Jindal, meanwhile, has remained strangely silent on the issue of his signing the bill with no apparent vetting by his legal counsel.

The Klausner report said the act was unconstitutional on three specific counts:

  • The amendment “does not meet the constitutionally required ‘one object’ requirement” which says, “The legislature shall enact no law except by a bill introduced during that session…Every bill…shall be confined tone object. Every bill shall contain a brief title indicative of its object. Action on any matter intended to have the effect of law shall be taken only in open, public meeting.” Conference committee proceedings occur in closed sessions.
  • The amendment “does not meet the germaneness requirement” of the Louisiana Constitution, which says, “No bill shall be amended in either house to make a change not germane to the bill as introduced.”
  • “No notice was provided as required by the constitution for retirement related bills and the bill itself never indicated that proper notice was given, all in violation of the Louisiana Constitution,” which says, “No proposal to effect any change in existing laws or constitutional provisions relating to any retirement system for public employees shall be introduced in the legislature unless notice of intention to introduce the proposal has been published, without cost to the state, in the official state journal on two separate days. The last day of publication shall be 60 days before introduction of the bill. The notice shall state the substance of the contemplated law or proposal, and the bill shall contain a recital that the notice has been given.”

Here is the full Klausner report:

Klausner Report on SB 294

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State Treasurer Kennedy gets LouisianaVoice treatment; board denies request for Edmonson Amendment report

Posted in Boards, Civil Service, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, House, Lawsuits, Legislators, Legislature, Politicians, Public Records, Retirement, Senate, State Police on August 13, 2014| 14 Comments »

It’s the story that won’t die, no matter how the Runaway Governor (apologies to Julia Roberts) would like it to.

While Gov. Bobby Jindal may go running off to Iowa or New Hampshire or Washington, D.C., or wherever his latest odyssey takes him in his futile attempt at resuscitation of his moribund presidential aspirations while ducking his responsibilities at home, folks like political curmudgeon C.B. Forgotston and State Treasurer John Kennedy just won’t go away.

Instead, Kennedy is staying home and demanding answers to the nagging problem of the Edmonson Amendment that Jindal so obligingly signed into law as Act 859, giving State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson that $55,000 bump in retirement income.

Act 859, which began as a bland, nondescript bill by Sen. Jean-Paul Morrell (D-New Orleans) that addressed procedures in cases where law enforcement officers are under investigation, quietly turned into a retirement bonanza for Edmonson.

That happened when State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) inserted language into a Conference Committee amendment to the bill that allows Edmonson and one other state trooper in Houma to revoke their decisions of several years ago to enter into the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) which gave them higher take home pay but froze their retirements at their pay level at the time of their decision.

In Edmonson’s case, his payment was frozen at 100 percent of his $79,000 a year captain’s pay but Act 859 allows him a do-over and to act as though all that never happened so that he can retire at 100 percent of his $134,000 per year colonel’s pay instead.

Other state troopers, teachers and civil service employees who made similar decisions, meanwhile, are stuck with their decisions because….well, sorry, but this is special for Col. Mike Edmonson Esq. Swank. Riff raff need not apply.

The Louisiana State Police Retirement System (LSPRS) board is scheduled to receive a special report by Florida attorney Robert Klausner, an acknowledged authority on public retirement plans, and local attorney Denise Akers at its Sept. 4 meeting but Kennedy isn’t waiting that long.

As State Treasurer, Kennedy holds a seat on the LSPRS board and he has repeatedly voiced his concern over the amendment which he says could put enormous strain on LSPRS if other retired state police officers file suit to obtain similar consideration as Edmonson.

He has claimed the board has a fiduciary responsibility to file suit to overturn the new law that Jindal so hastily signed.

A group of retired state troopers also has signaled its willingness to enter into litigation to get the law overturned.

Both Kennedy and the retired troopers contend the law is unconstitutional because it was not properly advertised in advance of its passage.

“Talking points” originating in State Police headquarters by Capt. Jason Starnes and sent to Edmonson, his Chief of Staff Charles Dupuy, and—for whatever reason—Louisiana Gaming Control Board Chairman Ronnie Jones, said the bill was properly advertised but because the bill in its original form in no way addressed retirement issues, that claim appears rather weak, especially given the fact that state police should be more skilled in producing hard evidence to back their cases.

The additional fact that the amendment never made its appearance until the last day of the session even though it had been discussed weeks before adds to the cloud of suspicion and wholesale chicanery enveloping Jindal, Riser, Edmonson, and Dupuy.

And Kennedy, who already has fired off two previous letters to LSPRS Executive Director Irwin Felps demanding a full investigation of the rogue amendment, now has written a third.

That letter, dated today (Aug. 13), while much shorter than the others, loses no time in getting right to the point: Kennedy is demanding under the state’s public records statutes (La. R.S. 44:31, et seq.) that Felps provide him a copy of the report generated by Klausner and/or Akers.

“Please immediately email the document(s) requested to me,” he wrote. “If you cannot or will not email them, please immediately inform me, and I will send a representative to your office to pick them up right away.”

Here is the link to his letter: Treasurer Kennedy Public Records Request to Irwin Felps August 13 2014

His letter sets the stage for a probable showdown between Kennedy and the rest of the board given the fact that Felps has previously denied Kennedy’s informal request for the report.

Felps said following Kennedy’s initial request, he was advised by legal counsel (most probably Akers) to release the report to the board members but not to the general public. He added that he expected Kennedy will have the report Thursday morning.

“I don’t know why the big cloak and dagger that they won’t share with the board,” Kennedy told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/08/john_kennedy_demands_state_pol.html#incart_river

“I’m a board member and I’m entitled to it. They can’t tell me I can’t see it,” Kennedy said. “This is a very important issue and it’s not just limited to state police. We have thousands of employees in the retirement system (who) didn’t get this treatment.

“I just want to see a report that I asked for and the board asked for. It is a public document.”

Kennedy should know better. LouisianaVoice has already received its comeuppance from the House and Senate, both of which have refused to comply with our request for copies of emails and text messages between the six Conference Committee members who approved the amendment and Jindal, Edmonson or any of their staff members.

Even though such discussions would have fallen under the narrowest of definitions of public business, we were told the public has no business peeking over legislators’ shoulders to see what they’re doing and to please just butt out.

LSPRS board Chairman Frank Besson, president of the Louisiana State Troopers Association, told the Times-Picayune in a statement (prepared as talking points by Starnes, perhaps?) that he felt it would be “inappropriate and premature” for the board to take a position on Act 859 until it heard the attorneys’ report.

Uh, Trooper Besson, would that be more or less “inappropriate” than passing a secretive bill in the final hours of the session to benefit one person (well, two, since one other trooper fell within the strictly limited parameters of the bill’s language) while no one was looking?

Just as a reminder, it’s going to be difficult to get the board off dead center on this issue considering the board’s 11-person membership is comprised of four active troopers, Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols and one of Jindal’s legislative puppets, State Sen. Elbert Guillory (R/D/R-Opelousas), chairman of the Senate Retirement Committee (you can almost see Jindal’s lips move when he talks).

Just in case you lost count, that’s six members that Jindal and Edmonson control—and that’s a majority.

Folks, it’s looking more and more like that group of retired state troopers is going to have to make good on that threat to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the act.

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Retired state police weigh in on Edmonson Amendment with pair of scathing letters to LSPRS board, Louisiana taxpayers

Posted in Boards, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Lawsuits, Legislature, Legislators, Retirement, State Police on August 4, 2014| 7 Comments »

State Sen. Neil Riser wants it to go away. Boy, does he want it to go away!

Gov. Bobby Jindal and State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson just went away—to Texas, ostensibly to join the Texas National Guard to protect our borders from pre-teen Guatemalan children but perhaps in reality to get away. (But of course with Jindal, it’s difficult to tell; he’s always gone.)

But State Treasurer John Kennedy and blogger C.B. Forgotston won’t let the issue go away and now retired State Police have weighed in on the now infamous Senate Bill 294 amendment, aka the Edmonson Amendment that gave their boss a whopping $55,000 raise in retirement income.

Some observers feel the controversy is dying—as people like Riser and Jindal and Edmonson certainly wish it would—but as long as Forgotston, Kennedy, LouisianaVoice and now the retired state troopers have a voice, there’s no chance the issue will fade away.

It is particularly galling that our governor has left to defend the Texas border from children without ever once opening his mouth to address the bill. It was, after all, Jindal who signed the bill supposedly after his legal counsel Thomas Enright read it, understood the potential long-range impact on the Louisiana State Police Retirement System (LSPRS) and recommended it for signing.

Just as offensive is the continuing silence from members of the LSPRS board, Senate President John Alario (R-Westwego), and House Speaker Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles). Kleckley, Jindal’s personal puppet in the House, has already declined to investigate the matter on the premise that the amendment was inserted by a senator (Riser). Never mind that three of the six-member Conference Committee that approved the amendment were members of the House. Other than Executive Director Irwin Felps who said the board’s legal counsel is considering its options, not a single member of the board has uttered so much as a single word about the Edmonson Amendment.

Perhaps that’s because the board is dominated by Jindal appointees and Edmonson subordinates. That’s not a conflict of interests, that’s a slam dunk for Edmonson and no one, not one person, has challenged Riser’s integrity on this sleazy attempt at legislative chicanery.

And make no mistake about it; there is no other word for it but chicanery. Otherwise, why was the amendment attached to a bill completely unrelated to retirement (despite those state police talking points LouisianaVoice got through a public records request that claimed the amendment was “germane to the original bill.” We don’t know what parallel universe the author of those talking points resides in, but that claim is pure B.S.

Jindal and Edmonson are preparing to shove eight-year-old Guatemalan children back across the Rio Grande to protect us from the horde of refugees (and there is a distinction between illegal immigrants and refugees; these are refugees from child trafficking and Jindal and his pal Texas Gov. Rick Perry want to send them back to prostitution). Jindal whines the TEA Party mantra that they will overload our public school system.

First of all, when did Jindal suddenly give a damn about our public schools? It was he who told LABI that public school teachers have jobs only by virtue of their being able to breathe. Second, Louisiana currently has a little less than 1,100 of these refugees who have been taken in by Louisiana residents. That’s 17 per parish (approximately 1.5 per grade if they are all old enough to enter first grade). That’s overload? Perhaps only because Jindal has raped the public school systems’ budgets for his precious voucher schools like New Living Word in Ruston. No one complained of overload when the Vietnamese came here to escape war ravaged Vietnam. Nor did anyone protest when Cubans poured onto our shores to get away from Castro half-a-century ago. Indeed, we welcomed them with open arms as we should have.

But we digress.

The retired state troopers have fired off two letters. The first is to the LSPRS board and the second is to you, the citizens of Louisiana who, if you can pull yourselves away from Bachelor in Paradise and LSU preseason reports long enough, can put the kibosh on this irresponsible waste of your taxpayer dollars to benefit Edmonson and, by default, one other trooper. We will take the second letter first:

TO ALL LOUISIANA CITIZENS (Special Attention to Louisiana State Police Retirees)

            SB 294 was originally a bill dealing with Investigation Standards in Law Enforcement, more specifically guidelines for dealing with complaints on officers. It was sent to Conference Committee on the next to last day of the 2014 Legislative Session. The next day, when it came out of Conference Committee, a stealth amendment had been added that provided a large increase (reported from $30,000 to $55,000 additional per year) in the Retirement benefit of State Police Colonel Mike Edmonson. This was accomplished by allowing him to revoke his previously irrevocable decision to enter DROP. This permits him to retire at his current salary of $135,000.00 per year and reportedly collect three years of his current salary upon his retirement.

While the circumstances surrounding the submission and passage of the bill are concerning and somewhat a mystery, what is clear is that the bill is funded from the same funds that provide Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) to State Police Retirees, Surviving Spouses, and Children.

            State Treasurer John Kennedy, a member of the Retirement Board additionally has warned that this Legislation potentially jeopardizes the State’s Bond Rating. The amendment and subsequent law was passed in violation of The State Constitution, Article X, Section 29 which specifies Retirement Legislation has to be advertised before the session, which it wasn’t. The amendment dealing with another matter altogether subjects it to additional Constitutional challenge. Kennedy has called for an investigation and the Retirement Board has hired an outside attorney to review and make recommendations to the Board. The Board is preparing to meet on this, but indications are that they won’t take any action.

            Please let the Board Members know how you feel about this unconstitutional attack on the State Police Retirement System. Also, please call or share with your Legislators, those on your email lists and through Social Media such as Facebook so we may all let the Board Members know we won’t accept this. They need to hear not only from Retirees who will be adversely affected by this, but also by all citizens, who will bear the cost and suffer the negative effects from possible weakening of the Credit Rating of the State. It is important to encourage as many people as possible to contact them to let them know you are watching and expect them to defend the system and members. The State Police Retirees and the People of Louisiana deserve better.

If you’d like to correspond with us, we are at lsp_retirees@cox.net. If you prefer, your communications with us will remain anonymous. LSPRS BOARD OF TRUSTEES Irwin Felps: ifelps@lsprs.org Executive Director Frank Besson: frank.besson@dps.la.gov Chairman Kevin Marcel: kevin.marcel@dps.la.gov Vice Chairman Shirley Bourg: No email available Mike Edmonson: mike.edmonson@dps.la.gov Designee: Charlie Dupuy: charlie.dupuy@dps.la.gov Elbert Guillory: guillorye@legis.la.gov John Kennedy: jkennedy@treasury.state.la.us Designee: Amy Mathews: AMathews@treasury.state.la.us Stephen Lafargue: slafargue1214@gmail.com Kristy Nichols: kristy.nichols@la.gov Designee: Andrea Hubbard: andrea.hubbard@la.gov Thurman Miller: thurman.miller@.la.gov Kevin Pearson: pearsonk@legis.la.gov Bobby Smith: bobby.smith@dps.la.gov

Here is the letter the retired troopers wrote to the LSPRS board:

Open Letter to Louisiana State Police Retirement System Board Members

Re: Emergency Board Meeting to deal with SB 294

Soon, you will be meeting to decide what action is appropriate to deal with the negative impacts to the retirement system and the state bond ratings of SB 294. Although the meeting will be short, the effects of your decisions will be felt for a long time. SB294 was amended in Conference Committee on June 2, 2014, from a bill dealing with investigation standards in law enforcement complaints to a bill making changes to existing retirement law.

The State Constitution, Article X, Section 29 (C) states:

(C) Retirement Systems; Change; Notice. No proposal to effect any change in existing laws or constitutional provisions relating to any retirement system for public employees shall be introduced in the legislature unless notice of intention to introduce the proposal has been published, without cost to the state, in the official state journal on two separate days. The last day of publication shall be at least sixty days before introduction of the bill. The notice shall state the substance of the contemplated law or proposal, and the bill shall contain a recital that the notice has been given.

The final version signed into law had the effect of enabling Colonel Edmonson and one other Trooper to revoke what was heretofore an irrevocable decision for them and many other troopers who retired under those guidelines. Regardless of intent, this law was narrowly written to only apply to two individuals and does not address any others who had already retired within the same original guidelines. Signed by the Governor on June 2, 2014 it became Act 859 of the 2014 regular session.

We call your attention to some things that should guide you in your decision.

For commissioned officers, you took an oath as a Louisiana State Trooper to support the Louisiana Constitution, and to faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all duties according to the best of your ability and understanding.

For all trustees, your oath as trustees on the board binds you to fiduciary responsibility and the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics. Here is an excerpt from your handbook:

II. ETHICS

The Louisiana State Police Retirement System trustees shall conform to the standard of ethics as established under the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics (R.S. 42:1101 et seq), and perform all their duties and obligations in accordance with their fiduciary obligations as established under Louisiana law and the standard of conduct for business relations which each trustee shall sign upon taking office.

Be aware, the ethics laws are binding on you personally and your decisions and conduct must conform to these statutes and your fiduciary responsibility. Failure to adhere to these subjects you as an individual to possible civil and/or criminal penalties. We recommend each board member, if you haven’t already; familiarize yourself with these statutes, as they are your protection as long as you abide by them. And lastly, your decision should be based on what is best for the retirement system and those retirees and surviving spouses and children who depend on this board to protect their future. The funding for SB 294/ Act 859 comes from the account used for cost of living adjustments (COLAs) which has a direct negative impact on those retirees, widows/widowers, and children who most need and deserve these increases.

Administrations and people come and go. What we are left with is our Integrity and our Honor. No one can forcibly take those from you; you have to choose to give them up. How you handle this situation will define and follow you. Regardless of all the other issues related to this, your responsibility is to defend the Integrity of the Louisiana State Police Retirement System with fairness and impartiality.

The only course of action that protects the system, its participants, the state, and you as a trustee is to immediately initiate legal action. You must seek to enjoin this unconstitutional and damaging law and further pursue a permanent ruling by the courts to strike this law down on constitutional and dual object grounds.

We request this be provided to each Board Member at the meeting dealing with this issue and that the Board Members affirmatively add this into the regular record and minutes.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Ethics, Exemptions, Incentives, Finances, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, Retirement on July 16, 2014| 2 Comments »

“The amendment impedes an existing contract. Col. Edmonson entered into a binding contract when he entered DROP and that is irrevocable. We have had a constant parade of state employees who wanted out of DROP and every single one has been denied.”

—State official, commenting on the 11th hour amendment to SB 294 which would give State Police Commander Mike Edmonson a $30,000 per year increase.

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Alvarez & Marsal’s $5 million eyewash is released by Jindal administration only minutes before legislative adjournment

Posted in Contract, Contracts, DHH, DOA, Finances, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, ORM, Office of Risk Management, State Police on June 3, 2014| 18 Comments »

The $500 million savings report by Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) was finally released on Monday only minutes before adjournment of the 2014 legislative session—and, conveniently for the administration, too late for critical feedback from lawmakers.

http://doa.louisiana.gov/doa/PressReleases/LA_GEMS_FINAL_REPORT.pdf

So, what makes this one any different than the others, given the fact that the A&M report acknowledges that Louisiana “has a long history of performance reviews, dating back to one performed by the Treen administration in the early 1980s?” Well, for one, the punctuation, spelling and grammatical errors contained in the report indicate that it was thrown together rather hastily to satisfy a state-imposed deadline for completion.

Of course the report was cranked out by “experts,” and as an old friend so accurately reminded us, an expert is someone with a briefcase from out of town.

The 425-page report, produced under a $5 million contract, while projecting a savings of $2.7 billion over five years (an average of $540 million a year), the substance of the report was sufficiently ambiguous to render the document as just so much:

(a)    Useless trendy jargon and snappy catch phrases like synergy, stakeholders, and core analytics to give the report the appearance of a pseudo-academic tome;

(b)   Eyewash;

(c)    Window dressing;

(d)   Regurgitation of previous studies by previous administrations that are now gathering dust on a shelf somewhere;

(e)    All of the above.

Three things were immediately evident with only a cursory review of the report:

  • Two offices that have been privatized by the administration as a means of savings and efficiency—the Office of Risk Management and the Office of Group Benefits—were subjected to rather close scrutiny by A&M which identified a host of ideas to make both offices more cost efficient. And we thought all along the administration had assured us of great cost savings and efficiency as its reasons for privatization in the first place. Yet A&M, in its report, claims its recommendations can save OGB another $1.05 billion while ORM can save an additional $128 million through implementation of recommendations contained in the report.
  • While A&M met extensively with and took suggestions from state employees who were tasked by the administration with coming up with savings ideas as far back as last September, not one word of acknowledgement is given to those employees in the report, prompting one employee to wonder, “Why the hell can these New Yorkers take my ideas and work and resell them to the state?” Of course the report did give a tip of the hat to Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols for her assistance in overseeing “all aspects of the state’s participation.” We suppose that will have to suffice.
  • Though virtually every office operating under the auspices of the Division of Administration came under the watchful eye of the A&M suits, not a single recommendation for increased efficiency and/or cost savings was offered up for the Governor’s Office itself. The closest A&M got to the governor’s office was the Office of General Counsel, the legal office of the Division of Administration. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from that is that the Governor’s Office is already operating at peak efficiency and minimum waste.

Most of the projected cost savings were based on assumptions for which A&M offered little or no supporting data other than arbitrary estimates and suppositions that could have been produced at a fraction of the report’s $11,760 per-page cost.

The report acknowledged that Louisiana already has the highest Medicaid recovery rate in the nation with $124 million in improper payments recovered but nevertheless listed as one of its recommendations that the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) “reduce improper payment in the Medicaid program.”

Seriously? Who would’ve thought that might be a way to save money?

Other suggestions included in the study by agency and projected savings (in parentheses):

DHH ($234.1 million)

  • Establish more cost-effective pediatric day health care programs and services;
  • Maximize intermediate care facility (ICF) bed occupancy rates;
  • Shift the administrative management of uninsured population from state management organization to local governing entities (Municipal and parish governments better take a long, hard look at that recommendation);
  • Improve the process and rate of transition of individuals with age-related and developmental disabilities from nursing facilities and hospitals. (So just where are those age-related and those with developmental disabled individuals being transitioned to? Are they to be removed from state facilities as a cost-saving move? And they accused Obama of creating death panels with the Affordable Care Act?)

Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) ($99 million)

  • Expand advertising revenue for roads, bridges and rest stops;
  • Reduce the construction equipment fleet;
  • Convert some of vehicle fleet to natural gas (for this we needed a consultant?)
  • Reduce cost overruns with quality assurance/quality control engineering firm (another consulting contract);
  • Utilize one-inch thin asphalt overlay (and after reducing the construction equipment fleet we can change the names of our state routes from highways to obstacle courses).

Department of Corrections: ($105.3 million)

  • Expand certified treatment and rehabilitation program;
  • Expand re-entry program;
  • Increase use of self-reporting.

Department of Revenue and Taxation ($333.4 million)

  • Re-build audit staff positions depleted because of retirements and hiring freezes;
  • Increase compliance efficiency and reduce backlog of litigated cases

Department of Public Safety ($45.4 million)

  • Centralize state police patrol communications
  • Consolidate state police patrol command position;
  • Optimize state police patrol shifts
  • Expand Department of Public Safety span of control.

Office of Juvenile Justice ($44.2 million)

  • Increase probation and parole officers’ caseloads (Seriously? Do these clowns have even a remote idea of what these officers’ job is like? The caseloads have increased steadily and there have been no pay raises for what, five years now? For even suggesting that, those A&M suits should be horse whipped with a horse.);
  • Relocate youth from Jetson Center to other Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) facilities (so, just how out of touch was A&M to have not known the Jetson Center was closed in January?);
  • Increase OJJ span of control.

Department of Children and Family Services ($2 million)

  • Continue to implement innovative strategies intended to reduce;
  • Safely decrease the time children spend in state custody.

Louisiana Economic Development ($142.9 million);

  • Adjust fees for inflation;
  • Enhance review process for Motion Picture Tax Credits;
  • Enterprise Zone benefits and audit review process;
  • Consolidate Louisiana Economic Development (LED) offices into one government-owned facility (What? No privatization?).

Human Capital Management ($65.9 million)

  • Creation of agency workforce and succession plans;
  • Redesign of job families through creation of a competency model;
  • Improve the administration of Family and Medical Leave (FMLA) across agencies;
  • Review overtime policies;
  • Increase span of control for agency supervisors.

Office of General Counsel ($3.825 million)

A&M noted that the Office of the General Counsel (that would be the in-house legal counsel—they hate being called that—for the Division of Administration) “is responsible for ensuring that the commissioner’s statutory duty to respond to public record requests in a timely and legal manner is carried out.”

This was a favorite part of the entire report for us. The DOA Office of the General Counsel has historically delayed responding to public record requests of LouisianaVoice far beyond any reasonable—or legal—time limits. Louisiana’s public records statutes require an immediate access to public records unless they are unavailable in which case the custodian of the record must, according to law, respond in writing as to when they will be available within three working days. It is not at all unusual for the Office of the General Counsel to drag his feet for weeks on end before producing requested records.

But A&M has solved that knotty little problem by pointing out that as the custodian of the DOA’s public records, “it is the commissioner’s (Kristy Nichols) responsibility to receive and process public records.”

A&M’s recommendation that the Office of the General Counsel can generate its five-year cost savings simply by:

Increasing the organization efficiency of the office, ($1.975 million) and

Increasing the efficiency of document review process and reducing internal and external attorney costs ($1.85 million).

That, of course, raises the burning question of what will happen to Jimmy Faircloth?

Other suggested savings came under:

  • Procurement ($234.8 million);
  • Facilities Management and Real Estate ($70.9 million), and
  • Provider Management ($2.2 million).

“I am so proud of this report,” gushed Nichols. “These are real, common sense solutions that will not only save money for the people of Louisiana, but will improve the way we operate.”

Question, Kristy: If they are such “real, common sense solutions,” why has this administration in six-plus years experienced this epiphany before now?

Another question: If these suggestions, which you say were “thoroughly vetted,” are going to save money for us and make our lives better through better operations, where has Jindal, his cabinet secretaries, undersecretaries, deputy secretaries department heads, managers and great legal minds been all this time? Wasn’t it their job to give us the biggest bang for the buck? (Oops, that’s three questions.)

Oh, well, let’s go for broke here. Fourth question: Who “vetted” these wonderful ideas? If the vetting was done by those already on the state payroll, why didn’t those employees perform the task in the first place instead of blowing $5 million on this report that a second year economic major at LSU could have written?

Fifth question: Does the administration—and by extension, A&M—hold employee morale in such low regard that it was not considered as a factor in facilitating more efficient job performance across the board? Improved employee morale would seem to be conducive to cost savings, yet it was never addressed even once in the entire 425-page document. That omission speaks volumes.

And finally, if you are “so proud of this report,” why was it that you reportedly tossed an A&M representative out of your office with the admonishment that he’d better find something after he initially reported to you that his consulting firm was having trouble coming up the $500 million savings?

Could this explain why some of the “savings” appear to have been plucked out of thin air?

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