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Leader of St. George Baton Rouge pullout linked to Eichers; fledgling company awarded $717,000 no-bid state contract

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Finances on February 5, 2014| 24 Comments »

It will be interesting to see if Alvarez and Marsal (A&M), with its $5 million contract, will find any significant savings in its whirlwind four-month tour of the labyrinth that is Louisiana state government.

We’ve been poking around the Louisiana Department of Economic Development (LED) and we’ve come up with a number of contracts—83 to be precise—which look as though they could be a duplication of some services provided by the Louisiana Workforce Commission. The 83 contracts, ranging from $8,000 to $717,000, were issued to 63 individuals and 20 companies and totaled more than $8.5 million. Before you go searching for your calculators, we’ll save you the trouble: it works out to about $102,600 per contract.

Of the 83 contracts, 63 at a combined cost of $6.3 million were issued to “provide assistance as requested in connection with LED’s FastStart program, including but not limited to the development and/or delivery of materials for training classes for the LA. FastStart Program.” The others were for writing, editing, graphic design, art work, video production, development of a PowerPoint production and “to establish a database of potential trainees for continued pre-hire training using a customized assessment instrument to determine skills proficiencies based on individual company requirements…for the Louisiana FastStart (LFS) Program as may be requested by LED.” (Emphasis ours.)

It is one contract in particular that got our attention. But first, a little background:

Louisiana FastStart is a single-source workforce solutions provider that works at no cost with businesses to anticipate and address workforce needs in the startup or expansion process.

http://wwwprd.doa.louisiana.gov/laservices/publicpages/ServiceDetail.cfm?service_id=3467

The FastStart process includes project evaluation, workforce solutions, material development, pre-employment identification, course (classes) delivery, evaluation and feedback, customized training, core skills training, warehouse and distribution, research and development.

The thing that makes us believe A&M could obliterate many, if not all, of these contracts is the fact that the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) appears to provide many of these very same services. http://www.laworks.net/Downloads/employment/employerhandbook.pdf

LWC aids employers in finding any type of employee by registering professional, semi-professional, skilled and unskilled applicants and even provides access to its Business and Career Solutions Center for businesses to conduct job interviews. The center employs the latest computer technology to select qualified applicants for job screening and referral.

LWC also offers several Business and Career Solutions centers throughout the state which provide online job listings, education, skills and interest assessments, job counseling and placement assistance, computer access, basic skills upgrades.

http://www.laworks.net/WorkforceDev/WFD_MainMenu.asp

LWC, in fact, has more than $130 million in contracts with individuals, companies, community action agencies and local governments for the purpose of training applicants and finding them jobs.

But LED’s $717,000 contract no. 718453 with a company called LR3 would appear to warrant closer examination.

The president of LR3 is one Lionel Rainey, III, who people in Baton Rouge will recognize as the public face of a concerted effort to break away from Baton Rouge and to create a separate city of St. George in East Baton Rouge Parish.

That effort has sharply divided the residents of unincorporated South Baton Rouge with opponents wanting to remain part of the greater community of Baton Rouge. For the proponents, the motivation would seem to be education or more specifically, charter schools.

State Rep. Bodi White (R-Central) is a major supporter of the pullout even though Central is on the northern edge of East Baton Rouge Parish.

More than a year ago and before the St. George pullout movement was formalized, White called on businesses in South Baton Rouge in an effort to drum up financial support for a charter school in that part of the parish.

Lately, as momentum on both sides has picked up, local television has begun covering the issue on almost a daily basis. Each time a TV news story airs, Rainey invariably is the spokesperson for the proponents.

But what about that contract with LED?

Well, first of all, it was awarded on a no-bid basis. In other words, LED never issued a request for proposals (RFP) nor did LR3 ever submit a proposal despite having no obvious qualifications for creating an Internet database system.

When asked about the no-bid contract, LED responded by pointing out that contracts for social services may be awarded “without the necessity of competitive bidding or competitive negotiation,” provided the director of the Office of Contractual Review determines that certain conditions apply, one of which is that the total contract amount is less than $250,000 per 12-month period.

At the same time, LED’s response acknowledged that service requirements “shall not be artificially divided so as to exempt contracts from the (RFP) process.”

And that’s where things get a bit dicey.

LATRAC, the state database for contracts, lists the amount of Contract no. 718453 as $717,202 over three years (Oct. 20, 2012 through Sept. 30, 2015) while the LED contract document breaks the contract into three amounts: $217,204 the first year and $249,999 in the second and third years.

Contract Number 718453
Contract Title LR3 CONSULTING, LLC
Contract Description DEVELOPMENT, ESTABLISHMENT AND/OR DELIV- ERY OF A DATABASE   OF POTENTIAL TRAINEES FOR CONTINUED PRE-HIRE TRAINING USING A CUSTOMIZED   ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENT TO DE- TERMINE SKILLS PROFICIENCIES BASED ON INDIVIDUAL   COMPANY REQUIREMENTS (ED6); 100% STATUTORY DEDICATION – LED FUNDS
Agency DED – OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
Amount $717,202.00
Begin Date 10/20/2012
End Date 9/30/2015
Approval Date 12/3/2012
Document Type OTHER CONTRACT – CFMS
Status ENCUMBRANCE SUCCESSFUL
Contractor LR3 CONSULTING LLC
Contractor City and State BATON ROUGE , LA

Not only did LED appear to be circumventing the RFP procedure by breaking the contract into three sections, but there appear to also be questions about another state regulation that says agency heads shall take into account, in the following order, “the professional or technical competence of offers, the technical merits of offers, and the compensation for which services are to be rendered, including fee.”

First, there appears to have been no “offer” from LR3, which only incorporated as a business on Sept. 19, 2012—barely a month before its $717,000 contract with LED took effect on Oct. 20, 2012.

PTDC1281

So, to recap, we have a company that is barely a month old landing a $717,000 contract with a state agency without benefit of competitive bidding, or without a formal proposal from a contracting firm that provided no evidence of its qualifications to perform work that appears to be already available through another state agency, LWC.

PTDC1248

And then there’s LR3’s billing address.

Invoices submitted to LED by LR3 give its billing address as 2133 Silverside Drive, Suite A, in Baton Rouge.

PTDC1291

Rainey is also listed as president of Vote Guards Dot Org., of the same address.

But there also are three other businesses of 2133 Silverside Drive, Suite A, Baton Rouge, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State’s corporate web page: Phoenix Consulting Group, BP Oil Claim Solutions, LLC, and EFL Angels Foundation.

All three list Meredith Eicher as a corporate officer.

Meredith Eicher, along with her sister Ashley, was sentenced to five months in prison in 1990 after pleading guilty to two counts of aiding and abetting mail fraud in connection with the collapse of Champion Insurance Co.

She also was ordered to serve two years’ probation after her release and fined $10,000.

Champion, the third largest insurer in the state, collapsed in June of 1989, leaving $150 million in unpaid claims. Her father, John Eicher, was sentenced to 46 months in prison in connection with the collapse which also implicated then State Insurance Commissioner Doug Green, who received $2.7 million in bribes from the Eichers. He received a 25-year federal sentence.

All in all, when one takes the St. George pullout effort that is supported by a political figure at the opposite end of East Baton Rouge Parish and led by an individual whose newly founded company, housed in the same office as four other companies—three of which have as a corporate officer someone who participated in the defrauding of $150 million in insurance claims 25 years ago—lands a $717,000 no-bid contract with the state, one has to ask….

What could possibly go wrong?

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As Arkansas office holders resign in separate ethics probes, Louisiana officials thrive under our ethics ‘gold standard’

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians on January 14, 2014| 8 Comments »

Apparently Arkansas has ethics laws that are a bit stronger than those in Louisiana.

Lt. Gov. Mark Darr announced last week that he will resign, effective Feb. 1, in a move to avoid impeachment by the Arkansas House of Representatives after he was fined for 11 separate counts that included his personal use of more than $30,000 in campaign funds.

Earlier this year, Democratic State Sen. Paul Bookout also resigned after he was fined $8,000 by the State Ethics Commission for using thousands of dollars in campaign funds for personal purchases.

In that case, reports totaling more than 35 pages revealed that Bookout spent more than $5,000 alone on clothes and accessories at a Jonesboro, Ark., clothing store.

And then there is Martha Shoffner, the Democratic State Treasurer who resigned last May under pressure from both Democrats and Republicans and who was arrested the following month on 14 counts, including receipt of a bribe and extortion—not quite the same thing as using campaign funds for personal purposes, though we do have a legislator who awarded a $4 million contract to a firm when he was head of a state agency only to resign and go to work for the firm within weeks of signing off on the contract. He apparently continues to represent the company even while now serving in the legislature.

The personal use of campaign funds, while a common practice among Louisiana politicians, is apparently frowned upon in Arkansas to such an extent that even Darr’s fellow Republicans urged him to resign in the wake of his ethics problems.

Darr signed a letter on Dec. 30 in which he agreed to pay the Ethics Commission $11,000 in fines and to reimburse the state for findings in a legislative audit, which said he improperly spent $3,500 on his state credit card and then filed for an equal amount in travel reimbursements.

Remember back on Feb. 10, 2008, when Gov. Bobby Jindal signed Senate Bill 1 into law which, among other things, banned legislators and other state officials from contracting with the state?

SB-1, which became Act 2 with Jindal’s signature, was the centerpiece of the new governor’s agenda (he had been in office little more than a month at the time). “Today, we take the first step towards building a better Louisiana where our ethics laws are the gold standard,” he boasted as he signed the bill.

Well, not so much, it turns out.

Jindal’s “gold standard” removed enforcement from the State Ethics Board and gave it to some creature called the Ethics Adjudicatory Board whereby ethics cases are now heard by administrative law judges. Enforcement became such a joke that 10 ethics board members, including its chairman and vice-chairman resigned in disgust.

Today, we have a Teach for America (TFA) director serving on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) which administers funding for TFA, the BESE president voting on charter school matters while his sister serves as director of the state charter school association, another BESE member whose company has a multi-million contract with another state agency; a member of the LSU Board of Supervisors voting to turn over operations of the LSU Medical Center in Shreveport and E.A. Conway Hospital in Monroe to a foundation which he serves as CEO.

And worse, no one in a position to take appropriate action appears to want to step up to the plate.

Apparently, that “gold standard” in Louisiana means whoever has the gold sets the standard.

Campaign funds in Louisiana appear to serve as a handy slush fund for legislators who use the money for any purpose they wish—even, in one case, to pay a legislator’s federal income taxes not once, but for four straight years.

Take for example the Louisiana Election Code (Title 18:1505.2-I, paragraph 36 on page 36): “No candidate, political committee, person required to file reports under this chapter, nor any other person shall use a contribution, loan, or transfer of funds to pay a fine, fee or penalty imposed (by the State Ethics Board.)”

Yet The Louisiana Board of Ethics web page lists dozens of individual occasions in which ethics fines were paid with campaign funds. Some of these were paid by political action committees (The Alliance for Good Government paid $1,600 from its campaign funds and the Better Government Political Action Committee paid $5,000 from its campaign funds), some by lobbyists and these, by current or former legislators:

  • Rep. James Armes, III (D-Leesville)—$2,600 (two fines);
  • Rep. Roy Burrell (D-Shreveport)—$2,000;
  • Former House Speaker Charles DeWitt (D-Alexandria)—$5,000;
  • Former Rep. Tom McVea (R-St. Francisville)—$720;
  • Former Sen. Walter Boasso (D-Chalmette)—$1,000;
  • Former Rep. Irma Muse Dixon (D-New Orleans)—$600;
  • Former Rep. Dale Sittig (D-Eunice)—$800;
  • Former Sen. Joel Chaisson, II (D-Destrehan)—$5,000 (two fines);
  • Sen. Richard Gallot (D-Ruston)—$1,000.

But the real eye-opener is the list of more than 50 legislators and former legislators who had expenditures for LSU athletic season and individual game tickets, New Orleans Saints, Sugar Bowl, Jazz/Pelican and NCAA event tickets and in some cases, vehicle leases (including Senate President John Alario, who leased a Jaguar for his use) and gasoline purchases and even federal income tax payments. Here are a few examples of current members of the House and Senate who have dipped into campaign funds to pay for athletic event tickets that total more than $500,000 (car leases, gasoline, travel, parking and other personal expenditures are in parenthesis):

  • Rep. Neil Abramson (D-New Orleans)—$12,200 in 2009, 2011 and 2012 (Abramson also spent an additional $13,563 on legislative travel, airline tickets, Washington, D.C., Mardi Gras events and hotel fees in New York);
  • Senate President John Alario (R-Westwego)—$88,441 in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 on athletic and Jazz Fest tickets, $62,365 in auto lease payments from 2009 through 2012 (Jaguar), another $12,000 for fuel, more than $16,000 in meals during that same time frame, more than $10,000 on entertainment, $13,840 in rent for his Pentagon Barracks apartment in Baton Rouge; $1,200 for cable TV for his Pentagon Barracks apartment;
  • Rep. John Anders (D-Vidalia)—$9,142 in 2009, 2010 and 2011;
  • Rep. James Armes, III (D-Leesville)—$11,688 in 2008, 2010 and 2011;
  • Rep. Jeff Arnold (D-New Orleans)—$3,000 in 2011;
  • Rep. John Berthelot (R-Gonzales)—$7,770, all in 2011;
  • Sen. Sherri Smith Buffington (R-Keithville)—$10,798 in 2009, 2010 and 2011;
  • Rep. Thomas Carmody, Jr. (R-Shreveport)—$11,556 in 2009, 2010 and 2011;
  • Sen. Karen Carter Peterson (D-New Orleans)—$3,738 in 2009 and 2010;
  • Sen. Norbert Chabert (R-Houma)—$3,015 in 2010;
  • Rep. Patrick Connick (R-Marrero)—$25,026 (Connick also paid $5,073 in lease payments for an Infiniti automobile in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and also paid $2,107 for lodging at the Baton Rouge Hilton Hotel;
  • Rep. George Cromer (R-Slidell)—$14,228 in 2008 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 (Cromer also paid $1,709 to the Sandestin Hilton on Aug. 3, 2008, for a Louisiana Forestry Association meeting and eight days later paid himself $1,500 for “expenses Hilton Hotel—hotel $969, mileage $285 and food and drink $250” and he paid $1,254 to the Hilton Washington for expenses for the Washington Mardi Gras in January of 2009. He also paid two New Orleans hotels a combined $1,141 for lodging for a legislative retreat and for a freshman retreat. He also paid himself a $500 cash advance for that 2009 Washington Mardi Gras;
  • Rep. Herbert Dixon (D-Alexandria)—$2,750 in 2011 (Dixon also paid $1,593.26 out of his campaign funds for hotel bills in Phoenix, Arizona, and Chicago.);
  • Rep. Brett Geymann (R-Lake Charles)—$1,500 in 2008 (he paid another $10,500 in rent for a Pentagon Barracks apartment in Baton Rouge);
  • Rep. Hunter Greene (R-Baton Rouge)—$6,394 in 2010 and 2011;
  • Rep. Frank Hoffman (R-West Monroe)—$11,106 in 2008, 2010 and 2011;
  • House Speaker Charles Kleckley (R-Lake Charles)—$17,492 in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011;
  • Rep. Bernard LeBas (D-Ville Platte)—$11,316 in 2009, 2020 and 2011;
  • Sen. Dan Martiny (R-Metairie)—$69,529 from 2002 through 2012 (Martiny also spent $12,351 on travel and another $12,976 for rent and furniture for his Pentagon Barracks apartment in Baton Rouge);
  • Sen. Jean Paul Morrell (D-New Orleans)—$8,043 in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011;
  • Rep. James Morris (R-Oil City)—$2,735 in 2009;
  • Sen. Dan Morrish (R-Jennings)—$2,978 in 2009;
  • Rep. Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell)—$20,660;
  • Sen. Jonathan Perry (R-Kaplan)—$16,653 in 2009, 2010 and 2011;
  • Rep. Stephen Pugh (R-Ponchatoula)—$5,900, all in 2011;
  • Rep. Jerome Richard (I-Thibodaux)—$2,678 in 2009;
  • Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia)—$2,000 (Riser spent an additional $8,138.84 in 2012 for his personal vehicle, another $6,656.86 for fuel for the vehicle, $1,013.67 to Riser & Son Funeral home—his business—in Columbia for reimbursement for purchase of an I-Pad, and $1,005.72 for insurance coverage on his truck;
  • Rep. Joel Robideaux (R-Lafayette)—$19,756 in 2004, 2005, 2006 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012;
  • Rep. John Schroder (R-Covington)—$1,708 in 2009;
  • Sen. Gary Smith (R-Gonzales)—$14,952 in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011;
  • Rep. Regina Barrow (D-Baton Rouge)—$5,238 in 2008 and 2009;
  • Rep. Roy Burrell (D-Shreveport)—$6,100 in 2010 and 2011;
  • Rep. Patrick Connick (R-Marrero)—$8,448 in 2008, 2010 and 2011;
  • Rep. Mike Danahay (D-Sulphur)—$11,386 in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012;
  • Sen Daniel Martiny (R-Metairie)—$7,466 in 2007, 2009 and 2011;
  • Rep. Jack Montoucet (D-Crowley)—1,010 in 2010;
  • Sen. Kevin Pearson (R-Sulphur)—$3.010, all in 2010;
  • Rep. Harold Ritchie (D-Bogalusa)—$810 in 2005;
  • Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport)—$8,075 in 2011 and 2012 (Seabaugh also spent $1,309.74 for a hotel stay for an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) conference in Baton Rouge in 2011;
  • Sen. Francis Thompson (D-Delhi)—$11,958 in 2009, 2010 and 2011(Thompson also paid $3,456 for hotel rooms on three trips to Sandestin Beach Golf Resort in 2009, 2010 and 2012, ;$11,958 in gasoline and auto insurance for those same years and $2,725 in dues to the Delhi Country Club and the Black Bear Golf Course. Even more curious, he $11,367 from his campaign funds for his federal income taxes for the years 2008 through 2011;
  • Sen. Mike Walsworth (R-West Monroe)—$1,785;
  • Sen. Bodi White (R-Central)—$5,858 in 2009, 2010 and 2011 (White also spent $2,543 on hotel stays in Destin, Fla., and in Washington, D.C. and another $1,398 on air travel to Phoenix and Atlanta;

Former Rep. Noble Ellington who spent $32,380 of his campaign funds since 2007 on athletic event tickets, more than $8,000 of which was spent in 2011 when he did not seek re-election. He spent another $40,755 in rent payments for his Pentagon Barracks apartment and another $2,400 attending meetings of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), of which served as national president during his last year in office.

Ellington, within weeks of leaving office, was named the second in command at the Louisiana Department of Insurance at $150,000 per year, a position which will greatly enhance his retirement benefits at the same time Gov. Jindal is asking state employees to work longer, pay more in employee contributions and accept fewer benefits.

Other former legislators who found no problem soliciting campaign contributions from supporters and to use the money for LSU athletic tickets and other personal expenditures included:

  • Former Rep. Bobby Badon (D-Carencro)—$8,448 in 2008, 2010 and 2011;
  • Former Rep. Damon Baldone (R-Houma)—$8,865 in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011;
  • Former Sen. Nick Gautreaux (D-Meaux)—$3,060 in 2010;
  • Former Rep. Walker Hines (R-New Orleans)—$5,688 in 2010;
  • Former Sen. Mike Michot (R-Lafayette)—$14,797 in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011;
  • Former Sen. Rob Marionneaux (D-Maringouin)—$6,075 in 2010 and 2011;
  • Former Rep. Billy Montgomery (R-Bossier City)—$4,075 in 2011 (Montgomery has not served in the legislature since 2008.);
  • Former Rep. Ricky Templet (R-Gretna)—$8,638 in 2009, 2010 and 2011;
  • Former Rep. Ernest Wooton (R-Belle Chasse)—$4,755 in 2009 and 2011;
  • Former Rep. Troy Hebert (D-Jeanerette)—$10,425 in 2009, 2010 and 2011 (Hebert also $1,505.70 for lodging at a Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., and $691.80 on an airline flight to Washington in 2010, and  $500 at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, which he listed as a “donation” in 2011;
  • Former Rep. Nickie Monica (R-Metairie)—$9.670 in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011;

Some of the current and former legislators listed their expenditures as “donations,” but the “donations” often were in multiples of $1,010: $1,010, $2,020 and $3,030, which correspond to the price of LSU tickets. Interestingly, other legislators listed identical amounts, but their reports said the expenditures were to purchase LSU tickets which would seem to make the donations claim appear somewhat duplicitous.

And apparently there is no inclination—or desire—on the part of the legislature to enact appropriate legislation to keep such rampant abuses in check.

Rank indeed has its privileges.

And what Louisiana’s legislators get away with is pretty damned rank.

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Sen. Dorsey got campaign contribution from future husband just months before his foundation got $300,000 state grant

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Ethics, Finances, Grant, Grants, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, NGOs, Politicians, Public Records, Transparency on November 24, 2013| 11 Comments »

From time to time at LouisianaVoice, someone will ask us how we get the information we use for our stories.

The answer is quite simple, really.

Instead of listening to what elected officials, political appointees and attorneys are saying, we listen to what they’re not saying.

And then we find out where the appropriate public records are and we go get them, sometimes finding it necessary to take legal action to obtain what rightfully belongs to the citizens of Louisiana. Our driving obsession is that public records are not the exclusive domain of whomever happens to be holding office at any given time.

The public’s right to know should be uppermost in any government—unless that government or a particular politician or bureaucrat has something to hide and we feel that having something to hide is the only reason for not releasing public records, deliberative process be damned.

And so, we choose to ask one more question. We know the politicians, bureaucrats and lawyers are going to put the best possible spin on any issue, so we must ask one more question and if we’re not satisfied with the answer, there are always the public records.

That’s the beautiful thing about a democracy; there’s always a paper trail when the politicians and their lawyers quit talking—or when they talk and we hear what they don’t say loud and clear.

And so it was when Baton Rouge attorney Mary Olive Pierson fired off that six-page letter to State Treasurer John Kennedy in which she chose to attack Kennedy for his political aspirations as much as to defend her client, State Sen. Yvonne Dorsey (D-Baton Rouge), that we listened.

Dorsey, in 2007, pushed through the legislature a $300,000 appropriation for the Colomb Foundation in Lafayette which Kennedy in July of this year listed as one of three dozen non-government organizations (NGOs) that owed the state some $4.5 million for non-compliance in reporting on how their grant money was spent.

The Colomb Foundation received its funding to design and build a community center in Lafayette Parish.

The Colomb Foundation is run by Sterling Colomb who is married to Sen. Dorsey.

Pierson, however, went for Kennedy’s jugular when she dropped her bombshell in her letter: Dorsey and Colomb were not married until 2010, three years after the issuance of the grant, she said.

It was one of those “aha” moments that attorneys love. A “gotcha,” as it were, the implication being that there could be no conflict if Dorsey was not married to Colomb at the time.

Advantage, Dorsey.

But wait.

There was something in Pierson’s declaration about their marriage date that was not said—like how long had they known each other or how long had they been in a relationship? Could Dorsey have used her position to funnel $300,000 in state funds to her future husband?

We listened but all we could hear was crickets chirping. So, we embarked on a little paper chase that took only a few minutes and a couple of clicks of a computer mouse. And what do you suppose we found?

On Jan. 5, 2007, one Sterling Colomb contributed $1,000 to the campaign of Sen. Yvonne Dorsey, according to records obtained from the Louisiana Ethics Commission. And while the $300,000 grant to the Colomb Foundation was indeed approved three years before their marriage, the campaign contribution from her future husband came approximately four months before the opening of the 2007 legislative session during which the grant to his foundation was approved—a little more than three years prior to their marriage.

Aha.

Your move, counsellor.

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Rhetoric over NGO funds ratcheted up with letter from foundation’s attorney to State Treasurer John Kennedy

Posted in Audit Reports, Finances, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, NGOs, Transparency, Waste on November 21, 2013| 1 Comment »

The heretofore one-person debate over state funding of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has been ramped up a notch with Baton Rouge attorney Mary Olive Pierson’s six-page letter to State Treasurer John Kennedy that challenged Kennedy’s contentions that the Colomb Foundation owes a refund in lieu of an additional accounting of how it spent a $300,000 grant awarded the foundation in 2007.

The Colomb Foundation in Lafayette, run by Sterling Colomb, received its “public purpose” grant to “design and build a much needed community center that will house social services activities and programs that will be directed toward improving the quality of life through advocacy in crime prevention, distribution of health information and in an effort to decrease mortality rates among the at-risk population, and enhancing youth education through reading,” Pierson quoted from the foundation’s grant application.

Colomb is the husband of State Sen. Yvonne Dorsey (D-Baton rouge) but Pierson noted the two were not married until 2010, three years after the issuance of the grant.

The Colomb Foundation is one of three dozen NGOs that Kennedy said in July owed the state more than $4.5 million because of non-compliance in reporting how grant money is spent.

Several of the recipient NGOs no longer exist and the whereabouts of many of the NGO officers and representatives are unknown.

The state Capital Outlay Bill (Act 24) is peppered with local NGO projects that consume tens of millions of dollars of state taxpayer funds at a time when the state faces repeated annual budgetary shortfalls and while the number and amounts of NGO funding projects has diminished, their presence is still felt. http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=858547&n=HB2 Act

Included in this year’s construction spending bill were such items as:

  • $200,000 for a sports complex in Princeton in Bossier Parish;
  • $500,000 for a water system in Bienville Parish;
  • $245,000 for planning and construction of a community and recreational center in Ascension Parish;
  • $380,000 for the purchase of the Lamar Dixon Development in Ascension Parish;
  • $450,000 for planning and construction of a multipurpose community center in Avoyelles Parish;
  • $300,000 for an airport industrial park in De Soto Parish;
  • $1 million for development of an industrial site in East Carroll Parish;
  • $500,000 for a new industrial facility in Evangeline Parish;
  • $1.3 million for an activity center in Franklin Parish;
  • $185,000 in first year expenditures for a recreational complex in Iberia Parish;
  • $3 million for a new hospital in Iberville Parish;
  • $2 million for a community center in Iberville Parish;
  • $300,000 for street lighting and security upgrades for the Jefferson Parish Housing Authority;
  • $5.2 million for recreation and achievement center in Jefferson Parish;
  • $3.5 million for construction of Parc des Familles in Jefferson Parish;
  • $735,000 for the Woodmere Community Center in Jefferson Parish;
  • $400,000 for the Avondale Booster Club and Playground upgrades in Jefferson Parish;
  • $17 million for a new hospital in St. Bernard Parish;
  • $220,000 for civic center planning and construction in St. Martin Parish;
  • $300,000 for recreational improvements at Kemper Williams Park in St. Mary Parish;
  • $125,000 for the St. Mary Parish Tourist Commission;
  • $980,000 for a community health center and livestock facility addition in St. Tammany Parish;
  • $400,000 for a multipurpose livestock and agricultural facility in Tangipahoa Parish;
  • $180,000 for a recreation complex in Vernon Parish;
  • $180,000 for improvements to rodeo arena in Vernon Parish;

Also funded were various local court houses, jails, water and sewer systems, local airports, fire districts, parish road improvements, councils on aging, and municipal projects too numerous to list here.

For a list of 2013 NGO funding requests, go here: http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/NGO/NgoSearch.aspx

A spokesperson for Sen. Dorsey has contended all along that the organization is in compliance but Pierson’s letter of Wednesday, Nov. 20, was the first time that an attorney has weighed in on the issue.

An addition to her letter which she said she was sending to news outlets (LouisianaVoice was not among those to whom she sent copies of her letter—and yes, we feel slighted—although she did include a couple of long-retired reporters in her list of 24 media contacts) “because of all the fanfare you (Kennedy) have caused and the press coverage you demanded through your press releases, Pierson attached 10 exhibits—just like a lawyer in a real trial—which contained another 61 pages of receipts, emails and letters.

Among the exhibits were receipts from retail outlets for supplies, emails from the Legislative Auditor’s office indicating that office had found no irregularities, and even emails and letters from Kennedy’s office indicating its satisfaction with documents provided by the foundation.

“I suspect that the compliance by the foundation does not fit into your apparent political agenda for re-election or, even better, a campaign for governor,” Pierson wrote.

“On behalf of the Colomb Foundation, I demand it be deemed in compliance and that this matter be closed…and a letter be sent to Mr. Colomb ‘notifying him of the closure,’” her letter said.

“Failing the closure of the matter by your office on or before noon on Dec. 2, 2013, I have advised Mr. Colomb and the Foundation that a suit for mandamus may be filed, directed to you to compel you to perform the only remaining ministerial duty of closing the file because there is no further accounting to be done for any legitimate purpose,” she said.

And of course, her letter contained the requisite threat to sue for damages: “In addition, your prior actions, performed under the color of state law, have caused substantial damage to the Foundation and Mr. Colomb, if the matter cannot be amicably resolved by that date a claim for said damages will also be filed.”

kennedy letter

kennedy letter EXHIBITS

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RSD supervisors’ travel records appear to be as shaky as the financial figures in all those critical legislative audit reports

Posted in Audit Reports, Finances, Recovery School District, RSD, tagged on November 20, 2013| 9 Comments »

When it comes to submitting and verifying employee travel expense claims, it appears that the Recovery School District (RSD), in keeping with past performances as reflected in several state audits, is somewhat sloppy in approving what appear to be questionable travel expense reports by RSD employees.

Three unclassified RSD employees submitted itemized expense reports for travel in their personal vehicles covering a single month for one of the employees and multiple months for the remaining two. Though the reports covered at least five days of travel, each report summary sheet appeared to have been completed on a single day.

Even more curious was the uniformity in the case of each traveler’s giving the departure and return times for each trip.

James Delano Ford, Deputy Superintendent for the RSD and who is paid $145,000 per year, listed nine separate trips during April and May of this year. Seven of those trips were from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and one was from New Orleans to Claiborne Parish and the other from New Orleans to Caddo Parish. The latter two trips would involve round trip distances in excess of 600 miles but for all nine trips, Ford listed his departure time on his trip summary sheet as 6 a.m. and his arrival time back in New Orleans as 3 p.m. the same day.

On the individual travel expense statement form, however, he listed his departure time as 6 a.m. and his return time as 6:01 a.m. for each trip.

His trips to Baton Rouge were listed as having been taken on April 11, 16, 18, and 25 and on May 6, 9, and 13. The trip to Caddo Parish was given as April 26 and to Claiborne on April 29.

Tracy Guillory, RSD Executive Director of Achievement at $115,000 per year, claimed only five trips, all for the month of June. Three were to St. Helena Parish on June 11, 18 and 26, and two were to Shreveport on June 7 and 21. The two to Shreveport were to Lanier Academy, the same school visited by Ford in April.

His five individual travel expense statement forms each listed his time of departure as 6 a.m. and his return to New Orleans as 12 noon and his trip summary sheet listed the same departure and return times for the Shreveport trips, two of the St. Helena trips gave departure times as 6:30 a.m. and return times as 8:15 a.m. while the third gave a 6:45 a.m. departure time and a return time of 8:30 a.m.

Dana Peterson, Deputy Superintendent of External Affairs at $125,000 per year, was the busiest traveler, racking up 23 trips from Feb. 19 through June 8.

He is the husband of State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson (D-N.O.) who also is the State Democratic Party Chairperson.

His report included trips to St. Landry on Feb. 19 and March 18 and 21; Pointe Coupee on May 8 and 16, St. Helena on May 9 and Baton Rouge on March 22 and 25, April 1, 5, 9, 12, 16, 17, 18, 24, 25, and 29, May 1, 2, 20, and 21 and June 8.

June 8 was a Saturday.

And while he never bothered to list a departure and arrival time on his trip summary sheet, he, like the other two, was consistent in listing his departure times on each trip as 6 a.m. and his return time as 12 noon.

Eight of Ford’s nine individual trip reports were each computer dated May 21, 2013 with the lone exception being the May 2 date on his Claiborne Parish trip report. One of Tracy Guillory’s individual trip reports was dated July 22 and the other four July 24 while 22 of Peterson’s individual trip reports were stamped July 11. There was no individual trip report for the June 8 trip.

In each individual’s case, RSD Superintendent Patrick Dobard, whose $225,000 salary is second only to Superintendent of Education John White’s $275,000, by his signature, certified that the expense accounts were “just and true,” and each of the travel expense reports was audited by Administrative Business Official Shaundra D. Moore—on May 30 for Ford, July 11 for Peterson and July 29 for Guillory.

State regulations require that whenever a state vehicle is not available, “a rental vehicle should be used…for all travel over 99 miles.” The state’s contract for rental cars is with Enterprise Car Rentals and in an apparent effort to discourage the use of private vehicles, regulations stipulate that for trips of 100 miles or more in a private vehicle, “the traveler will reimbursed for mileage on the basis of 51 cents per mile only, not to exceed a maximum of 99 miles per round trip and/or day.”

Each of the 37 trips made by the three exceeded 100 miles and each charged for the maximum of 99 miles.

Guillory also made nine other trips in September but used a state vehicle for those trips.

With such lax procedures as allowing reports for several months to be compiled and submitted on a single day and with no real oversight in place (each of the travelers was in a senior management position with little or no real supervision), it would seem a simple matter to pad travel expense reports to make up for the 99-mile restriction—especially given the fact that some of these trips exceeded 600 miles round trip.

Why else, considering the cost of fuel these days, would an employee agree to use his or her own vehicle at a reimbursement rate of less than 20 percent of the mileage traveled on those trips to Caddo and Claiborne parishes? It simply does not make sense to do that unless…

And the uniformity of the departure and return times on each of the reports certainly raises additional questions as to their validity. There’s no way to possibly make a trip from New Orleans to Shreveport and back to New Orleans in six hours.

It’s a system that invites abuse.

We’re just sayin’…

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