Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, Health Care, Notable Quotables, Transparency on February 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »
“You can spend or you can save but you can’t do both. There’s been no showing how you have savings to make up for that $37 million.”
–Baton Rouge attorney J. Arthur Smith III, who represents about two-thirds of the 69 IT employees of DHH who would lose their jobs if a privatization contract pushed by the administration is approved. The Civil Service Commission rejected the proposed $37 million contract.
Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, Layoffs, Privatization, Teague on February 23, 2012| 10 Comments »
One of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s former teachers at Baton Rouge’s McKinley Middle Magnet School recently provided revealing insight into his mental makeup when she confided that he was a difficult student who simply could not accept the fact that he might be wrong. About anything.
That certainly explains a lot.
Take, for example, that state Civil Service Commission meeting of Feb. 1.
The commission each month is provided a list of proposed contracts along with justifications of why it is more economical—or necessary—to contract services out than for state employees to perform a job.
(These are the same documents, by the way, that the Division of Administration said did not exist when LouisianaVoice made a public records request for them back on Dec. 19.)
Yes, this more about Jindal’s apparent obsession with privatization.
The contract called for the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) to contract out its information technology (IT) services to the University of New Orleans. The proposed contract would have provided IT services currently provided by 69 classified employees.
Approval of the contract would have resulted in the 69 employees being Teagued.
To the less erudite, to be “Teagued” is to be removed from one’s employment with state government by a governor critically short on forgiveness.
The term derives its name from Jindal’s propensity to fire employees, especially those who may have the temerity to question or challenge his decisions. It began early in his first administration when Tammie McDaniel, a member of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, questioned certain budget decisions. Jindal immediately asked for her resignation. She refused at first but eventually resigned.
Then there was William Ankner who was forced out at the Department of Transportation and Development when it was revealed that a $60 million highway contract was awarded not to the low, but the high bidder.
Jim Champagne, executive director of the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission, in a moment of ill-advised level-headedness, disagreed publicly with Jindal’s plan to repeal the state’s motorcycle helmet law. Gone.
Ethics Administrator Richard Sherburne hit the bricks when Jindal gutted the Ethics Board’s adjudicatory authority and gave it to administrative law judges.
But the most high-profile firings, and the namesake of our new terminology, were the dismissals of Department of Social Services grant reviewer Melody Teague in October of 2009 and her husband, Office of Group Benefits (OGB) Director Tommy Teague, 18 months later.
Mrs. Teague testified against Jindal’s government streamlining plan that included calls for massive privatization. It took her six months but she got her job back.
Her husband was not so lucky. He was shown the door when he did not jump on board quickly enough to please the administration when it floated its idea of privatizing OGB.
Thus, the all-too-appropriate term Teagued.
But now, back to those 69 IT employees.
The Civil Service Commission took one look at the contract proposal—and balked.
For one thing, documents submitted by DHH never nailed down the precise cost of the proposed three-year contract, saying it would be for either $35 million of $37 million.
Carol Steckel, chief of DHH’s Center for Health Care Innovation and Technology, said the proposal would save an estimated $2.1 million over the next three years (later revised to $7 million) but commissioners weren’t buying it.
“I have zero confidence in your numbers,” commission member Scott Hughes, of Shreveport said.
“I don’t think you have come close to showing there’s either a cost saving or efficiency,” added member John McLure, of Alexandria.
Member Lee Griffin, of Baton Rouge, said he could not understand the proposal despite his “50 years in the banking industry.”
Commissioner Kenneth Polite, of New Orleans, said he found it difficult to support the proposal because the Jindal administration “has railed against increased spending” and yet DHH is relying on additional federal funds, which the administration also has opposed.
Information submitted by DHH was “woefully inadequate,” said commission Chairman David Duplantier, of Covington.
The commission voted unanimously to disapprove the contract after Hughes observed that the documents submitted by DHH made it clear that instead of saving money, the agency would actually increase spending by up to $8 million with the contract.
That, as we said, was on Feb. 1.
But let’s back up to December. DHH employees were called in for a telephone conference call several weeks before the contract proposal was presented to the Civil Service Commission.
During that conference call, the IT employees were informed that in January, their positions would be abolished.
Following that collective downer, the IT personal returned to their work stations only to discover that during the conference call, they had been locked out of their computers.
Subsequent to the Civil Service Commission’s action, the employees have regained access to their computers. But the issue is scheduled to come before the commission again in March and if the past is prologue, there will have been considerable pressure applied by the fourth floor of the State Capitol by then.
So, what we have here is an administration so cocksure of itself that it notified 69 IT employees that they would be unemployed in a few weeks before it ever got around to making its pitch to the Civil Service Commission, even going so far as to unplug the employees’ computers while their backs were turned.
What could conceivably account for such arrogance, such underhanded Machinations?
For that answer, perhaps someone should ask the governor’s middle school teacher.
Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, Layoffs, Privatization, Retirement on February 22, 2012| 10 Comments »
Cindy Rougeou, executive director of the Louisiana State Employees’ System (LASERS) has been openly critical of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s retirement package for Louisiana Civil Service employees.
Jindal has offered sweeping retirement reforms for some 58,000 active employees—reforms which Rougeou says targets workers who are barred from lobbying on their own behalf, which attempt to force state employees to work longer for reduced benefits, which give legislators false information on the percentage that employees contribute to the cost of their retirement, which ignore that the current unfunded accrued liability (UAL) came about because of legislators’ reneging on their obligation to pay the state’s required contribution, and which violate both the Louisiana and U.S. constitutions.
What’s more, Jindal is concentrating only the LASERS’ $6.8 billion unfunded accrued liability, which is just over a third of the total UAL for the four state retirement systems—teachers, school employees and state police are the others.
But it seems there may be one more: The Jindal Retirement Alternative Plan Enhancement.
Also known as J-RAPE, as in raping state taxpayers, this is an unofficial plan to enhance former legislators who the governor feels were loyal to him before either losing their re-election bids or becoming term limited.
In other words, while the state struggles to find funds to balance the budget for yet another year, the administration sees nothing wrong with padding the state payroll with pathetically unqualified former legislators—so they can enhance their state pension.
Example: former Rep. Noble Ellington spent 24 years in the legislature. If his three highest earning years in the legislature averaged $35,000, he would qualify for a yearly retirement of $21,000.
But wait. He somehow managed to land a job as second in command to Jindal ally Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon at a cool $150,000 per year. If he remains in that position another three years—five years if Jindal’s retirement reform passes—he will be able to retire at $105,000 or $108,750 per year, again, depending on passage of Jindal’s retirement package. Either way, that’s a 400 percent increase in retirement benefits as a political favor from our fiscally-responsible governor.
J-RAPE.
Then there is Jane Smith, another legislator-with fewer years than Ellington-who was term limited but nevertheless landed a $107,500 per year job as deputy secretary of the Department of Revenue, a stroke of good luck that will bump her retirement from $10,500 to $43,000—in addition to her benefits from the teachers’ retirement system. Both she and Ellington possess woefully inadequate experience or qualifications for their positions.
J-RAPE.
An infuriating aspect of these—and other appointments—is that the average retirement for state civil service employees is around $19,000 per year. Yet, neither the appointees nor the governor show any remorse for such blatant misuse of political patronage—all while Jindal holds himself up to voters as the citadel of ethics and all things good and decent.
Troy Hebert is another. After 11 years in the legislature, he was eligible for a whopping $9,650 per year in retirement benefits. But then he was appointed Commissioner of the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control. His $107,000 job will qualify him for an annual pension of $40,000 if he stays on for four years, an increase of more than $30,000. If he remains for nine years, giving him 20 years of state service, his retirement would be $53,500.
Another aspect of all this that is particularly grating is that no one in the media asks the obvious questions: How can you possibly justify thumbing your nose at taxpayers and state employees by handing out these six-figure jobs to political cronies? Where is that transparency, that accountability now?
When someone like Edwin Edwards, probably the most media-accessible, media-friendly governor in this state’s history did things like this, reporters were all over him like red beans on rice.
But when Jindal, who seldom holds press conferences because he despises reporters, abhors the media, loathes the fourth estate, does it, no one says a word.
The silence is deafening.
Where’s the outrage?
J-RAPE.
Posted in Exemptions, Incentives, Governor's Office, Revenue, Taxes on February 19, 2012| 5 Comments »
Gov. Bobby Jindal loves to use looming budget deficits as justification for cutting jobs, shredding state retirement, and privatizing state agencies as ways to bring the state budget into balance and to make state government more efficient and accountable.
But if you examine the state tax exemptions that have become the norm since Jindal took office, you would have to conclude that the state’s financial plight is of his own doing.
The state did not have to fight off a threatened $1 billion deficit last year nor was it really necessary to look for ways to avoid a $900 million deficit this year, a likelihood of which he has already warned legislators.
The question is, did he intentionally create the state’s fiscal crisis in order to justify dumping off the Office of Group Benefits, state prisons, Medicaid, and public education and placing thousands of state workers on unemployment and costing them medical benefits in the process? Is he exploiting a deliberately engineered fiscal crisis in order to revamp the state retirement system?
As incredible as that might sound, consider his veto last year of a 4-cent-a-pack cigarette tax because he didn’t want to impose any new taxes. Forget for the moment that the cigarette tax was a renewal, not a new tax. And forget, if you will, that he was not opposed to an increase in college tuition because, in his words, it was not a tax but a fee.
Forget, too, that his veto of the cigarette tax was in effect turning his back on $50 million a year in badly-need revenue—$12 million directly from tax revenue and an additional $38 million in federal matching funds.
And finally, don’t remind him of his bumbling, stumbling, fumbling of two federal grants totaling $140 million. Those included $60 million in funding for early childhood education and $80 million to fund broadband internet connection to 21 rural parishes.
And the reason there is a crisis in the state retirement systems is because the Legislature and Jindal simply reneged on the state’s contribution requirements.
So clearly, the administration won’t consider new sources of revenue—like maybe eliminating some of the exemptions. Instead, the obvious solution is to require state workers to chip in an extra 3 percent to their retirement contributions.
It would be one thing if that 3 percent went to actually fund their retirements or even to pay down the UAL. Instead, it’s to be used to bail Jindal and the Legislature out of the consequences of their moronic tax policies.
While Jindal has never met a tax he liked, all the corporate tax exemptions that have gone into effect on his watch should raise a few eyebrows. Going into his fifth year in office, there have been at least 113 bills filed that deal with tax exemptions of one description or another. Some of those were duplicates and not all of them passed, of course.
Nor did all of them call for corporate tax breaks, but most did.
Figures provided by the Louisiana Department of Revenue reveal that for Fiscal Year 2006-07, the year before Jindal took office, corporate income taxes were $721 million against exemptions of $972 million.
For FY 2009-10, the last year for which figures were available—and three years into his first term—corporate income taxes dropped by more than half to $435 million while exemptions surged to $1.3 billion.
In some cases, there was not even an accounting of money lost to corporate income tax exemptions. Take the Louisiana Superdome and Zephyr Field, for example, both managed by SMG, Inc.
The Department of Revenue Report on Corporation Income Tax, under the heading “Exemption for Events, Activities, or Enterprises Conducted in Domed-stadium or Certain Baseball Facilities,” made the following observation:
“Any event, activity or enterprise conducted in certain domed-stadium (that would be the Louisiana Superdome) or any open baseball site owned and operated by the state (Zephyr Field), or any of its agencies, boards or commissions, with a seating capacity of at least 10,000 and has a professional sports franchise that participates in Class Triple A professional baseball is exempt from all state and local taxes. The purpose of this exemption is to promote use of the domed stadium.”
Under the heading “Beneficiaries,” was the explanation that “The increased use of the dome-stadium facilities benefits the state and its residents.”
Under the heading “Estimated Fiscal Effect,” the explanation was even more ambiguous. “We are unable to estimate the fiscal effect; there is no reporting requirement for the data.”
This is an exemption that went into effect on May 23, 1985, more than 26 years ago and there is no way to estimate the fiscal impact? There is no reporting requirement for the data?
Well, neither was any data as to the fiscal impact of the sales tax exemption for “state-owned domed stadiums” or sales by “certainly publicly-owned facilities.” Neither was there any explanation as to why state-owned domed stadium was pluralized.
At the same time, sales tax collections for 2006-07 totaled $2.8 billion while exemptions came to $688 million. By 2009-10, sales tax collections had dropped to less than $2.5 billion while exemptions had leaped fivefold to $3.9 billion.
The Stelly Plan that had eliminated sales taxes on food, drugs and household utilities and replaced them with income taxes was repealed under Jindal. That contributed to a decrease in individual income tax collections from $3.1 billion to $2.2 billion while exemptions more than doubled, from $519,000 to $1.1 billion.
The year-to-year total tax revenue losses from all exemptions are as follows:
$1.07 billion in FY 2004-05; $1.13 billion in FY 2005-06, and $2.55 billion in FY 2006-07.
The projected revenue loss for FY 2007-08 was $2.57 billion and $2.8 billion for FY 2008-09, according to the Department of Revenue report for FY 2006-07, former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s last year in office.
Instead, the actual revenue lost to exemptions for 2007-08 was $6.7 billion, $4.1 million more than the projections. It was more of the same for 2008-09, when lost revenue was $7.2 billion, more than double the estimate. For FY 2009-10 tax exemptions accounted for revenue losses of $7.1 billion and were projected to drop slightly to $6.68 billion for the fiscal year ended last June 30 and back up slightly to $6.8 by June 30 of this year.
While all these figures admittedly are mind-numbing, it is nevertheless important to know that the five-year (FY 2004-05 through FY 2008-09) loss of revenue to the state treasury comes to $18.7 billion.
The combined unfunded accrued liability (UAL) of the state’s four retirement systems?
$18.3 billion.
Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables, Retirement, Transparency on February 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »
“Saying that promises are being kept and keeping promises are two different things.”
“The retirement benefits of current employees are part of the package of compensation they were promised when hired; any change to that package is breaking the promise made to those employees.”
–Cindy Rougeou, executive director of the Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System (LASERS) in a recent LASERS publication on its web page.
Louisiana Voice 