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Archive for the ‘Governor’s Office’ Category

DHH hospital privatization financial report misleading, but attracts media supporters as the Gospel according to Bobby

Posted in DHH, Governor's Office, Health Care, Media, Privatization, Revenue, Transparency on August 5, 2014| 5 Comments »

When the Department of Health and Hospitals released its “Public-Private Partnership” financial report on nine state hospitals last month, it was pretty much assumed that the state media would accept the glowing report at face value and trumpet the Jindal administration’s brilliance in the privatization plan.

To no one’s surprise, Jindal cheerleader Scott McKay, curiously writing under the pseudonym “MacAoidh,” which he explained was the Gaelic spelling of his name, jumped out in front of the parade. Close behind were Lauren Guillot of the LSU Reveille and Chris LeBlanc of the Thibodaux Daily Comet.

http://www.lsureveille.com/news/hospital-privatization-cost-million-less-than-budget/article_aba78c98-12c6-11e4-9da3-0017a43b2370.html

http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20140724/ARTICLES/140729784

The latest to chime in is Quin Hillyer, an unsuccessful Alabama-congressional-candidate (he finished fourth in the Republican primary)-turned-columnist for the Baton Rouge Advocate who somehow purports to be an expert on Louisiana politics but who continues to live in Mobile.

The DHH report attempted to show that Jindal’s privatization plan—a plan, by the way, that has yet to be approved by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services(CMS)—has cost the state $51.8 million less than expected during the fiscal year ended June 30.

STATE HOSPITAL FINANCIAL REPORT

But those numbers are disingenuous at best.

The first column of the DHH spreadsheet contains the amounts budgeted for each of the nine hospitals for the fiscal year that ended on June 30.

That’s simple enough to comprehend but the second column is the key. That column lists the amounts actually spent as of June 30 while the third column reports the difference between the amounts appropriated and the amounts spent. That’s where DHH came up with the aggregate savings of $51.8 million.

But what the report neglects to say is that the books on those fiscal year 2013-2014 expenditures will not be closed until later this month, so any reported costs (Column 2) will necessarily increase, thereby negatively impacting Column 3. (Column 4 simply gives the appropriations for each hospital for the current (2014-2015) fiscal year.)

By way of explanation, “Public Claims” is the traditional Medicaid payments the state made to the public hospitals. “Public UCC” is the uncompensated care, or DSH payments the state made to the LSU hospitals. “Private Claims” are the Medicaid payments made to the new private hospital partners. These are the same payments as the “Public UCC” payments, only larger and fueled by the lease payments used by the state for match, thereby cutting state funds and giving the illusion of shrinking government.

“Private UPL” stands for “upper payment limit,” which is a supplemental Medicaid payment which the state must match—which is now done from the lease payments that CMS has yet to approve. “Private UCC” is DSH payments the state is also allowed to make to private hospitals.

It is not unusual for individual hospitals to vary from their original budgets because they have the flexibility to move money around, using savings in one area to cover expenditures in others. The bottom line is what is significant.

Even with that Enron-esque method of bookkeeping, several hospitals have already overspent their budgets even before the final numbers are in, the report shows. Those include Earl K. Long Medical Center in Baton Rouge ($12.2 million over budget), Interim LSU Hospital in New Orleans ($5.9 million), University Medical Center in Lafayette ($8.8 million) and W.O. Moss in Lake Charles ($1.2 million).

Others that were close to spending all of their appropriations included Chabert Medical Center in Houma and E.A. Conway in Monroe.

The total appropriations for all nine hospitals for the 2013-2014 fiscal year is $1.111 billion against $1.058 billion spent, a difference of $51.8 million, according to the report which again, does not reflect the final numbers.

The 2014-2015 appropriation for the nine facilities is $1.15 billion which means if nothing changes in expenditures for the current budget (a highly unlikely, almost impossible scenario), the state will still spend $91.5 million more on the hospitals in 2014-2015 than in the previous fiscal year.

And should the final numbers for 2013-2014 show that the hospitals spent the entire $1.111 billion appropriated, the state still will spend $39.7 million more this year than last.

Somehow, that just doesn’t support the $51.8 million “savings.”

Moreover, the report conveniently does not provide us with the means of finance so we have no concept of how much is state funding and how much is federal. No matter; the cold hard facts are that the partnerships between the state and private hospitals were supposed to save money and they clearly have not.

The 2013-2014 fiscal year was a hybrid between the old public model and the new private model in which the private hospitals lease the state hospitals and use those lease payments for matching funds that the state puts up to receive federal dollars to make “private” payments.

It is that arrangement that CMS has yet to approve because they involve largely inflated lease payments. While the arrangement may be counterintuitive, the private hospitals are more than happy to agree to the inflated lease payments because the state plans to use those payments as match and promptly draw down big federal matching dollars to then pay back to the private hospitals—if, that is, CMS approval is forthcoming.

None of this matters to Hillyer and McKay, though. Eager to thumb their noses at the skeptics and while taking a deliberate shot at “liberal” gubernatorial candidate State Rep. John Bel Edwards, Hillyer called the hospital privatization plan “good medicine,” adding that early critics “should be pulling out the salt and pepper” in preparation to “eat their earlier words.”

http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/9878018-123/quin-hillyer-jindals-privatization-was

But even more egregious on Hillyer’s part, he claims (erroneously, it should be noted) that CMS “has not sent an official ‘disallowance’ notice” on the advance lease payments when in fact those have already been disallowed outright as being illegal. That, says Edwards, will likely result in future clawbacks of $507 million that the state will owe Medicaid.

He also quoted DHH Secretary Kathy Kliebert as saying negotiations with CMS have put the feds “in a position where, fairly shortly, they can approve our State Plan Amendments.”

Perhaps so, but we’ve heard that song and dance before so we’re going to withhold judgment on that optimistic report.

At least McKay (or MacAoidh if you will) had the good sense not to accept the DHH spreadsheet as the final numbers and at acknowledged a “fuller accounting” would be forthcoming. “And we’ll know next year, after the first full year of the implementation of Jindal’s idea to privatize the charity hospitals, exactly how much money is saved,” he added, making an apparent assumption there would be a savings despite the increased budget for the current fiscal year. http://thehayride.com/2014/07/surprise-the-privatized-charity-hospitals-come-in-52-million-under-budget/

But then McKay, as is his wont, became a bit melodramatic by pointing out observers “might be at a loss to summon up memories of dead bodies due to neglect as a result of the privatization. If there are oodles of corpses littering the roadsides outside of hospitals throughout Louisiana for lack of admittance, they’ve gone strangely unreported.”

We honestly don’t know where he came up with that wild scenario that he somehow implies was the claim of privatization opponents. “Nobody suffered from the leases of those hospitals,” he continued. “And the state is going to save a lot of money as a result, while likely delivering better services to the public.”

That, of course, remains to be seen. If he is right, he’s right. But it’s difficult to arrive at that conclusion when you look at the numbers on the DHH spreadsheet.

If, that is, you bothered to study the numbers closely which some obviously did not—just as the administration counted on.

(With appreciation to two regular readers who helped us interpret the numbers and their meaning.)

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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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State Police emails reveal ‘talking points’ for Edmonson Amendment, disdain for LouisianaVoice board coverage

Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Media, Public Records, Retirement, State Police on July 31, 2014| 7 Comments »

Results from a public records request submitted to the Louisiana State Police by LouisianaVoice for emails related to the now notorious amendment to Senate Bill 294 did not produce any communications between legislators and Superintendent of State Police Mike Edmonson or his staff but a couple of the emails we got did reveal a rather defensive mode on the part of the powers that be at state police headquarters.

Not that we really expected full disclosure in releasing any damning emails in light of the response to a similar public records request by both the House and Senate that public business conducted by the legislature via emails and text messages is none of the public’s business.

Considering the brand of “transparency and openness” exhibited by the Jindal administration and the legislature’s willingness eagerness to roll over and play dead at the governor’s command, we should not have been surprised.

Typical of the attitude of this administration from top to bottom, including the Department of Public Safety and state police, is one particular email from Capt. Jason Starnes of the State Police Operational Development Section to several administrative types, including Edmonson, Ronnie Jones and Edmonson’s Chief of Staff Charles Dupuy on Wednesday, July 16.

The subject line of the email said, “RE: Advocate news story,” but Starnes’s message focused instead to the presence of our reporter Robert Burns at the meeting of the Louisiana State Police Retirement System (LSPRS) board which met on Tuesday, July 15, to discuss the ramifications of the SB 294 amendment which was quickly signed into law as Act 859 by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Burns videotaped that meeting as well as an interview with board member State Treasurer John Kennedy following the meeting and posted both clips online.

“Here is the link to the video footage taken by Mr. Burns (whoever he is, wherever he came from and why he is so concerned about the LSP (Louisiana State Police) retirement system I have no idea),” Starnes wrote (emphasis ours).

So, if we read this correctly, Louisiana taxpayers have no business attending public meetings and have no right to concern themselves with such matters of infinite financial exposure created by subterfuge perpetrated by Edmonson’s staff (so Edmonson claims), a cooperative legislator in the person of Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia), and most likely, a conspiratorial governor whose brilliant idea it was to bump Edmonson’s retirement pay by a cool $55,000 or so a year.

On Tuesday, the day before Starnes expressed his apparent antipathy toward Burns, he authored an earlier email to Dupuy, Jones and State Police Public Affairs Commander Capt. Doug Cain in which he offered suggested talking points regarding the amendment controversy which was beginning to attract widespread media attention.

“Here is a draft of talking points and other legislative precedent,” he said, apparently setting the stage for an intricate misdirection campaign by citing other legislative acts dealing with state police retirement but which were not related to the amendment to SB 294.

“Please let me know if there or (sic) any other points that I failed to include,” he added.

Starnes then proceeded to list his proposed “talking points” which he grouped under specific headings, the first of which was:

What does ACT 859 do?

  • ACT No. 859 provides active members of LSP who entered DROP (before it was repealed in 2009) with an actuarially adjusted longevity retirement benefit when they retire.
  • The member must have been continuously employed since completing the DROP program.
  • The total retirement benefit will be equal to the benefit that such member would have received had he not entered DROP (the key element of the amendment) and cannot exceed 100 percent of the member’s final average annual salary (this corrects an earlier incorrect report that Edmonson would receive 100 percent of his salary plus $30,000 per year).
  • The actuarial cost associated with SB 294 (Act 859; Starnes uses the bill number and act number interchangeably, which could be confusing to some) will be paid from the balance in the Experience Account (Notice there is no mention that the Experience Account is intended to provide cost of living increases for retired troopers and their widows and children.).
  • The legislation does not rescind the DROP decision by the member and does not alter that benefit. This legislation provides for an actuarial adjustment to account for member that has continued to make contributions into the retirement system since completing the DROP program and would otherwise be eligible for full retirement benefit based on their actual years of service (This is where the financial exposure puts the LSPRS—and other state retirement systems—at risk by opening the door for others to sue for the same consideration.).

Legislative precedents

  • 2001—ACT No. 1160 was passed that increased the accrual rate from 2.5 percent to 3.33 percent for all active members of (LSPRS). This legislation was retroactive to date of hire and resulted in numerous members becoming instantly eligible for full retirement benefits. The estimated cost for this benefit was approximately $9.4 million. The ACT (we don’t know why Starnes capitalized “ACT” throughout his email) included those members that (sic) had entered DROP prior to June 30, 2001. This provision provided those members with an adjustment increase to their retirement benefit after entering DROP. (This simply means that instead of computing retirement benefits by multiplying the average salary for a members top three years of earnings by the number of years of service by 2.5 percent—$100,000 X 40 years X 2.5 percent would equal an annual retirement benefit of $100,000 or 100 percent of his/her salary—the years of service would now be multiplied by years of service by 3,33 percent, thus allowing one making $100,000 to retire at 100 percent in 30 years instead of 40—$100,000 X 30 X 3.33 percent. All other state employees’ retirements remain computed at 2.5 percent.).
  • 2003—ACT No. 748 was passed to provide a longevity adjustment to members that had previously entered the DROP program. This adjustment was the greater of a new calculated benefit (per statute) or 20 percent. All members affected by this legislation received a minimum of a 20 percent increase to their retirement benefit. The estimated cost for this benefit was approximately $1.03 million.
  • 2009—ACT No. 480 was passed that eliminated the DROP program and instituted the “Back-DROP” program. This was passed to improve benefits to active members who were required to make retirement decisions prior to necessarily completing their careers with the department. (Note: Edmonson said on the Jim Engster Show that he was forced into DROP. That is incorrect. While members were required to make a decision whether or not to enter DROP, no one was forced to enter the program.). This eliminated members being forced to make retirement decisions that adversely impacted their benefits. Both ACT 1160 and ACT 748 addressed those members in adverse retirement situations.

Notes

  • Act No. 859 simply follows other legislative precedents to address retirement adjustments for members remaining employed with the department following completion of the DROP program. (Well, maybe, but why was it done so surreptitiously? That would seem to be the key question that should be addressed here.).
  • This is an actuarial adjustment that will provide the same benefit as those who received full retirement benefits following the requisite number of years of service (Again, and not to beat a dead horse, Edmonson made a decision that no other employee throughout state government is allowed to revoke, a special benefit extended to him and one other trooper only.).
  • The members affected by the legislation have continued to pay into the retirement system since completed (sic) DROP.
  • Members will not receive more than 100 percent of their final average salary.
  • This legislation will not negatively impact the benefits of any retiree (other than drawing down the Experience Account).
  • There has been clear legislative precedent set to protect and adjust the retirement benefits for those members that (sic) have been negatively impacted by the DROP program (But again, that legislation was done openly, not sneaked in as an amendment to an unrelated bill during the final hectic hours of the legislative session.).
  • Public notice regarding the retirement legislation was published in The Advocate on Jan. 2-3, 2014 (Once again, we have unanswered the question of why then, did it become necessary to do this as a furtive amendment on the last day of the session?).
  • The conference committee report is deemed to be germane to the original bill in that it deals with rights of law enforcement officers which include the rights to retirement benefits per statute (This is the biggest stretch lie of all; the original bill dealt with disciplinary procedures to be used when law enforcement officers are accused of wrongdoing. That’s all. How can a pension amendment affecting only two officers possibly be germane to that?).

There also were copies of a series of email sent back and forth between Edmonson and the governor’s office in an attempt to schedule a last-minute attendance at a Sunday bill signing by Jindal that turned in something of a comedy sketch with Edmonson seeming to lose his patience in the final email.

The five bills all dealt with retirement and were to be signed on Sunday, June 1, that had everyone scrambling to round up warm bodies to attend the signing ceremony.

On Saturday, May 31, at 6:34 p.m., Shannon Bates, deputy communications director for the governor’s office, wrote, “Tomorrow we are having a bill signing ceremony for the retirement reform bill by

(Rep. Joel) Robideaux (R-Lafayette) and the 4 (Sen. Elbert) Guillory (R/D/R-Opelousas) COLA bills,” Bates wrote. “I know that is a Sunday but a lot of stakeholders are able to attend since the lege is in session anyway. Do you know if someone from the State Police system could attend or at least send us a quote for the release? (Nothing like waiting until the last minute to throw things together). We are having problems getting into (sic) touch with them…”

Nine minutes later, Edmonson responded: “Yes we will get somebody there.”

Three minutes following Edmonson’s reply, Shannon wrote, “Thank you – if you could let me know who it is that would be great!”

At 6:52 p.m. Edmonson Chief of Staff Dupuy wrote that he felt TFC Frank Besson, president of the Louisiana State Troopers Association, should accompany Edmonson to the event.

Edmonson, at 7:03 wrote to Dupuy, “He (Besson) needs to call Shannon for a quote.”

“Ok,” replied Dupuy 10 minutes later.

At 7:52, an apparent nervous Edmonson wrote to Besson: “Frank, have you handled?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Besson at 8:14 p.m. “I just spoke with Natalie (no last name available) to get the time, which will be 1:30.”

Edmonson, at 8:20 p.m., wrote to Besson: “Shannon is the contact. Make sure she gets a quote. I will be with you.”

“I’ll send her something tonight,” Besson answered.

At 8:25, Edmonson, apparently by now a little agitated, wrote Besson: “Get with Doug (Cain) and handle now. It should not have taken six emails.”

(Actually, including the emails from Bates, there were 11—eight between Edmonson and his subordinates—but who’s counting?)

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Kennedy continues to push for investigation of ‘Edmonson Amendment’ in letter to LSPRS; no pressure to end probe

Posted in Ethics, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Retirement, State Police on July 30, 2014| 5 Comments »

State Treasurer John Kennedy has sent a second letter to the executive director of the Louisiana State Police Retirement System (LSPRS) to emphasize his wish that a thorough investigation be conducted into the last second amendment to Senate Bill 294 which gave State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson and one other state trooper huge increases in their state police pensions.

Kennedy wrote to Irwin Felps on Tuesday (July 29), saying, “I strongly oppose any delay or discontinuation of the system’s investigation of Act 859.”

SB 294 became Act 859 when Gov. Bobby signed the bill into law soon after it was adopted by the legislature on the last day of the session last month.

At first blush, it would appear that Kennedy might be responding to push back or resistance to a continued investigation but he assured LouisianaVoice that was not the case. “To my knowledge, no one has suggested that we terminate the investigation,” he said. “I just wanted to make certain that the board (the LSPRS board) understands that we still have this law on the books and we need to see what our options are in order to carry out our fiduciary responsibility to protect the system.”

Cynic-in-Chief C.B. Forgotston isn’t convinced. Observing that a majority of the LSPRS board is comprised of those who work directly for or are allied with Edmonson or Jindal, he says that a legal challenge is the only way in which to dispose of the issue once and for all.

Kennedy, in his capacity as state treasurer, is a member of the board and in his letter to Felps, he listed several reasons why he feels the board should continue its investigation to find a solution to the situation that benefits just two state troopers—Superintendent Mike Edmonson and Master Trooper Louis Bourquet of Houma.

Felps, contacted by LouisianaVoice, also said the board plans to move forward with its investigation. “We (the board) will be meeting in a couple of weeks,” he said. “Meanwhile, our legal counsel is considering options open to us in order to determine a course of action.”

Felps also said that attorney Bob Klausner of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, has been retained to serve in an “of counsel” capacity (a term usually applied to an attorney who has been employed to aid in a particular case but who is not the lead attorney).

“He is one of the pre-eminent authorities on pensions and has worked with us in the past,” Felps said.

While the increases to the retirements for the two law enforcement officers are substantial (as much as an additional $55,000 a year in Edmonson’s case before he finally said he would not accept the increased benefits), there may be retired state troopers who, like Edmonson and Bourquet, may have entered the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP), thus freezing their retirement benefits only to receive substantial promotions or pay increases which would otherwise have increased their retirements.

Kennedy listed several concerns in his letter:

  • Because the act requires that funding for the benefits would be paid from the LSPRS Experience Account, apparently to avoid increasing our unfunded accrued liability (UAL), it would appear to adversely affect the system’s ability to provide cost of living adjustments for retired members and their families. “This must not be permitted to happen to our current and future retirees and their families,” he said.
  • Should the board delay or terminate the investigation, there is no guarantee that the legislature would adequately repeal the act or even consider it and even if it did, there would be no certainty that the governor would not veto any new legislation enacted to remedy what Kennedy calls a “bad law.”
  • Assuming that Bourquet, like Edmonson, rejects the increase, either or both could change their minds, die or become disabled, either of which would trigger the benefits at such time.
  • It is unclear how a recipient of the increased benefits could effective declare that he will not accept them, which would raise other complicated procedural questions.
  • There are several questions concerning the legality and constitutionality of the amendment to SB 294 which was originally authored by Sen. Jean Paul Morrell (D-New Orleans) to deal only with disciplinary procedures when officers are accused of wrongdoing.

The unanimous passage of the amendment has caused a furor over the propriety of such tactics on the last day of the session when both houses are working feverishly to wrap up business before adjournment. As one member who voted for the bill said, “We’re all running around during those final hours trying to get our own bills through conference committee and these things can slip through.”

Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) was a member of the conference committee comprised of three senators and three representatives that recommended passage of the bill. After first denying any knowledge of the amendment, he finally admitted last Friday that he was the one who had the amendment drafted and inserted into the bill.

Because Edmonson appears to be a constant companion of Jindal (he appears in the background in virtually all of the governor’s in-state photo-ops which, granted, are becoming more and more rare because of Jindal’s near constant travels out of state in pursuit of his vanishing presidential aspirations) many legislative observers remain convinced that Riser took the action at the direction of the governor’s office.

That is precisely the kind of back-door deal that Jindal swore he would never tolerate and indeed, would make state government more transparent and accountable. In truth, his every action as governor reveals the lie in that empty promise by Jindal the candidate.

But, after more than six years of his brand of transparency, the real surprise would have been if anyone had been surprised.

And that’s precisely why Forgotston remains unconvinced that anything will get done without a legal challenge to the new law.

“The only issue remaining is who will file the lawsuit,” he said. “The board of LSPRS has the primary fiduciary responsibility to do so. The legislators, especially Senator Neil Riser, have an obligation to the taxpayers to fix the fiscal mess they created.

“The only interest being neglected in this matter is that of us taxpayers.

“It is time for the legislature to join Kennedy and others in calling for LSPRS to litigate SB 294 or to do so themselves.  The taxpayers should not be left holding the bag.”

Even Clancy DuBos, a columnist for New Orleans’ Gambit magazine and WWL-TV has joined the chorus of those demanding a lawsuit to challenge the “Edmonson Amendment.”

http://www.wwltv.com/news/DuBos-Legislature-must-challenge-state-police-chiefs-secret-raise-269100661.html?ref=prev

To read the entire text of Kennedy’s letter, go here:

Treasurer Kennedy Letter to State Police Retirement 07 29 2014

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OGB laying off 24 more; blow softened when CEO assures affected employees losing their jobs ‘not like losing a child’

Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Privatization, State Agencies on July 26, 2014| 23 Comments »

The Jindal administration has announced plans to jettison 24 more positions at the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) as a cost cutting measure for the cash-strapped agency but is retaining the top two positions and an administrator hired only a month ago.

The effective date of the layoffs is Aug. 15.

The latest cuts will leave only 47 employees when the agency is relocated to the Claiborne Building basement to share office space with the Office of Risk Management. The Claiborne Building also houses the Civil Service Department, the Board of Regents, the Department of Education, the State Land Office and the Division of Administration.

The layoff plan submitted to the Department of Civil Service on June 14, said there was insufficient work to justify all 71 positions.

Affected by layoffs are eight Benefits Analyst positions, three Group Benefits Supervisory spots, one Group Benefits Administrator, seven Administrative Coordinators, an Administrative Assist, two Administrative Supervisors, one IT Application Programmer/Analyst and one Training Development Specialist.

OBG Chief Executive Officer Susan West, one of those being retained, will be making a physical move back into her old offices. She previously worked for ORM before that agency was gutted by Jindal’s grand privatization scheme and she moved over to OGB.

West, who makes $170,000, and Interim Chief Operating Officer Charles Guerra ($107,000) are not affected by the layoff nor is Elis Williams Cazes ($106,000)) was appointed as Group Benefits Administrator on June 23.

Cazes was previously employed by Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana which serves as the third party administrator of the OGB Preferred Provider Operation at a cost to the state of $5.50 per month per enrollee, which computes to an amount a little north of $70 million per year.

Her position was created—and the requirements reportedly written especially to her qualifications—as the Medical/Pharmacy Administrator responsible for benefit plan management and vendor performance with the primary responsibility to “continuously monitor medical and pharmacy benefit plans to seek out modification of plans or implementation of new plans that reduce claims costs and provide efficiencies for the state and plan participants,” according to the justification given for retaining her position.

Well, we can certainly see where her position is as indispensable as West’s and Guerra’s.

All this takes place at a time whe OGB’s reserve fund has dwindled from $500 million at the time of the agency’s privatization in January 2013 to about half that amount today. Even more significant, the reserve fund is expected to dip as low as $5 million by 2016, just about the time Jindal leaves town for good.

Completing the trifecta of good news, we also have learned that health benefits for some 200,000 state employees, retirees and dependents will be slashed this year even as premiums increase.

In June, West broke the news to the OGB employees. She erroneously said the 47 remaining employees would be reassigned other duties and some might see pay reductions and that those with seniority could bump junior employees in desired positions. The Civil Service Department, however, said salaries could not be cut and bumping is no longer allowed.

Isn’t it nice to know your agency director knows the procedures?

Employees were told that letters would go out between July 1 and July 15 to those who were being laid off. On July 7, they were told the letters would be delivered by hand on Friday, July 11. None came. On the following Monday (July 14) confusion of the order of the day as Deputy Commissioner of Administration Ruth Johnson sent emails to those affected and instructed them to attend a noon meeting in the OGB board room. Upon entering the board room, each person was handed a packet that informed them that Civil Service had not approved the layoffs.

During the meeting, according to one who was there, West kept repeating, “I get this. I’ve been where you are. I get this. However, there are worse things. It’s not like losing a child. I get this.”

Way to soften the blow, Susan. You might have reminded them that the fighting between Israel and Palestine isn’t so bad because there’s also an Ebola outbreak in Africa or that while you’re losing your home to a hurricane storm surge, some people are having to endure heavy wind damage. Or better yet, take them all to a showing of The Fault in Our Stars. That’ll cheer them up.

“It was the ‘I get this’ and comparison of losing a job to losing a child that infuriated the OGB state employees,” the employee said. “This is the worst thing in their lives right  now, some are battling cancer and working; some have children and grandchildren to feed; some live paycheck to paycheck; some are taking care of the elderly and family; all have bills, rents/mortgages, school tuition, etc.”

But you really can’t blame Susan. She previously worked for ORM and was among those present when ORM Director Bud Thompson broke the privatization news to his employees by standing before them, grinning, as he said, “I still have my job.”

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