Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, Notable Quotables, Retirement, Transparency on March 30, 2012| 7 Comments »
“We must act now in order to keep our promise to workers, protect critical services like higher education and healthcare and protect future generations from more debt and higher taxes.”
–Gov. Bobby Jindal, in his response to a study by Dallas law firm Strasburger & Price which said virtually all the provisions of Jindal’s proposed state employee retirement reforms are unconstitutional.
Posted in Civil Service, Higher Education, Layoffs, Notable Quotables, Privatization, Transparency on March 29, 2012| 2 Comments »
“The agency does not at this time have a list of names of the employees who will be retained other than as noted in the plans.”
–George Eldredge, General Counsel for the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA), in response to a request by LouisianaVoice.
Posted in Civil Service, Higher Education, Layoffs, Notable Quotables, Transparency on March 28, 2012| 4 Comments »
“The layoff is being proposed because the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 eliminated the origination of new loans under the Federal Family Education Loan Program.”
–Melanie Amrhein, executive director of the Louisiana of Student Financial Assistance, in a March 19 letter to Louisiana Civil Service Director Shannon Templet explaining the reasons for the proposed layoff of 47 LOSFA employees to become effect on June 30.
Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Layoffs, Privatization on February 28, 2012| 5 Comments »
The Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA) is the latest state agency to be scheduled for privatization by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration, LouisianaVoice has learned.
LOSFA, the administrative arm of the Louisiana Student Financial Assistance Commission and the Louisiana Tuition Trust Authority, has been instructed by the governor’s office to outsource the office’s loan program.
The agency comes under the organization umbrella of the Board of Regents. Jindal, in presenting his executive budget to the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget, targeted 2,837 jobs in higher education for elimination. Many of those are vacant positions that will not be filled.
In all, Jindal is proposing to eliminate 6,371 authorized positions, again meaning that an unspecified number may be vacant positions.
LOSFA will lose between 50 and 60 positions in the outsourcing action, according to Gus Wales, director of public information for the office. The affected employees are scheduled to be laid off by June 30.
Like the privatization of the Office of Group Benefits, the latest outsourcing move makes little sense in that the office’s loan program is funded from self-generated revenues, not the State General Fund.
What’s more, after June 30, students with questions about their loan repayment will probably have to talk to someone in another state instead of in Baton Rouge as before meaning Jindal will have taken jobs from Louisiana residents and given them to citizens outside Louisiana.
Many of the employees scheduled to lose their jobs have as much as 20 years of service but three unclassified staff members, reportedly making in excess of $100,000 each, will be retained, according to information provided to LouisianaVoice.
Unclassified personnel in the office include Executive Director Melanie Amrhein, Deputy Executive Director Sujuan Boutté, Assistant Executive Director of Marketing and Outreach David Roberts, Assistant Executive Director for Fiscal and Administrative Affairs Jack Hart and General Counsel George Eldredge.
The administration reportedly was approached by Great Lakes Higher Education Corp., a student loan servicing company in Madison, Wisconsin. The company was said to have told the governor’s office that the state could cut a significant number of employee positions by giving them the portfolio.
The agency has forwarded an invitation to bid (ITB) to State Purchasing for public release, sources said.
Posted in Budget, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Notable Quotables, Transparency on February 10, 2012| 2 Comments »
The administration preferrs “coordinated responses from our (public relations) offices so that all units of higher education respond in the same generally positive and supportive way to the administration’s efforts to avoid significant loss of funding…”
–From an email memorandum from LSU Systems President John Lombardi to system administrators just hours before the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget received Gov. Bobby Jindal’s executive budget for FY-2012-2013.
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