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Archive for the ‘Layoffs’ Category

Piyush lags in eliminating state jobs; did it cost him snub from Mitt Romney as his vice presidential running mate?

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Charters, Civil Service, Economy, Education, Governor's Office, Jobs, Layoffs, State Agencies, Transparency on August 14, 2012| 6 Comments »

(Editor’s note: at least one person failed to detect the parody in a recent posting about the Delhi Charter School, so leaving nothing to chance, we’re letting everyone know up front that the headline is tongue-in-cheek as are a couple of comments in the body of this story.)

Not only was Gov. Piyush Jindal not among the top six finalists in the recent Mitt Romney Vice Presidential Sweepstakes, it now turns out that Louisiana’s absentee governor is not even among the top 15 in what he does best: eliminating state jobs.

That may explain in part why Romney, who once said he likes to fire people, did not include Jindal on his short list of five potential running mates whom he called last week to let them know he had decided on Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Jindal was so far down that list that he didn’t even warrant a courtesy call.

Even though the Governor in-Abstentia has eliminated more than 6,000 state jobs during the months between June 2011 and June 2012, that wasn’t good enough to put him in the top 15 for placing workers in the unemployment lines who have mortgages, tuition costs, and other living expenses, according to a report just released by the National Governors’ Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO).

Apparently, the 6,400 positions cut in this year’s budget were not factored into the equation. If they had been, that almost certainly would have vaulted Piyush to within a heartbeat of the presidency. State job losses, after all, appear to translate to economic gains in the eyes or our globetrotting governor.

“States go to great lengths to avoid layoffs,” NASBO Executive Director Scott Pattinson said, exposing the naked truth that he has not been to Louisiana since 2008.

For that matter, the Disappearing Governor hasn’t been in the state much since then himself.

Pattinson also pointed out that laying off employees is not always the best fiscal strategy. “Firing state government workers often does not result in money saved in the short term. Once required benefits and severance (unemployment payments) are included, states may not see savings for at least a full fiscal year.”

The study attributed the widespread layoffs of state government employees to a stalled recovery from the recession and “shifting political pressure.” That shifting political pressure alluded to may be traced back to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is very up front in its advocacy of massive state employee layoffs and equally impressive tax breaks for corporate friends of all politicians of a Republican stripe.

To that end, Jindal, the Incredible Vanishing Governor, invisible to the naked eye, has been most compliant. While many corporate tax breaks and incentives were already in place well before he assumed office in January of 2008, he has nevertheless encouraged the continuance and expansion of those breaks—to the state treasury’s financial detriment of approximately $5 billion per year.

But have no fear, Ghost-Governor Piyush the Magnificent, upon his return—if he ever does return—is almost certain to pick up where he left off. With the announced closure of prisons and state hospitals, teacher layoffs in virtually every parish because of his ill-conceived voucher scheme, and deep cuts to the LSU medical school’s programs, he is sure to begin cutting into the lead of the states ahead of Louisiana in the layoff game.

If Piyush truly is a disciple of “trickle-down economics” (and Rush Limbaugh did refer to him as the next Ronald Reagan), then we can anticipate additional layoffs at the local level—by parish and municipal governments—as the excrement begins to flow downhill.

In case you may be curious, in no particular order other than alphabetical, here are the top 15 states in layoffs:
• Alabama
• California
• Connecticut
• Florida
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Missouri
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• New Mexico
• Ohio
• Oregon
• South Dakota
• Washington

It should be pointed out that there was no significant edge for one political party over another in the layoff Race to the Top (where have we seen that before?): The party representation is as equal as possible, given there is an odd number of ranking states. Eight of the top 15 states have Republican governors and seven of the governors are Democrats.

And lest political observers worry about the state’s rankings, not to worry.

We’re pretty sure that Louisiana easily ranks No. 1 in the number of days in which the Phantom of Governor’s Office has been out of state.

That’s gotta count for something.

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Piyush: the clock has run out, the train has left the station; but at least you’re still able to say you have the job you want

Posted in BESE, Broadband, Internet, Budget, Campaign Contributions, Charters, Civil Service, Commissions, Economy, Education, Ethics, Exemptions, Incentives, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, House, Senate, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Politicians, Prison, Privatization, Regents, Retirement, Revenue, State Agencies, Taxes, Transparency, Vouchers, Water Sales on August 13, 2012| 13 Comments »

The clock has run out on Gov. Bobby Jindal and like the Honey Badger, he’s now yesterday’s news insofar as any aspirations either one may have had for bigger and better things.

Realistically, time had run out on Louisiana’s wunderkind some time ago even though like a loyal trooper, he keeps soldiering on—perhaps hoping for a prestigious cabinet position like Secretary of Health and Human Services, something he denies aspiring to.

“I would not consider a cabinet post,” he sniffed like the spoiled little boy that he is after being passed over for the vice presidential nomination by Mitt Romney. “I consider being the governor of Louisiana to be more important and the best job there is.” Well, it is the only job he has for the moment and if he doesn’t challenge Mary Landrieu in 2014, we’re stuck with him through 2015.

Break out the champagne.

We can only surmise that Secretary of Education is out of the question since both Romney and Paul Ryan advocate that department’s abolishment in favor of state and local control (read: vouchers), although Romney has tempered his position somewhat.

But Jindal’s real quandary is not that he was passed over for vice president, but that he needs desperately to advance his career quickly—before all his “reforms” as governor come crashing down around him, doing even more damage to his reputation than that disastrous response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address in 2009.

That image as the crusading reformer who gets things done against all odds is already beginning to wear thin in Louisiana and it’s only a matter of time before the national media begin to take a critical look at his administration. The Washington Post and New York Times already have.

Beginning with his repeal of the Stelly Plan only a few months into his first term—the move is costing the state about $300 million a year while benefiting only couples earning more than $150,000 per year or individuals making $90,000 per year—through this year’s veto of a car rental tax renewal for New Orleans, Jindal his consistently found ways to cut taxes while doling out tax breaks to corporate entities.

In 2011, the legislature could not muster the votes to override a Jindal veto of a cigarette tax renewal and the renewal had to go before voters in the form of a constitutional amendment—which easily passed.

While he defiantly categorizes tax renewals as “new taxes,” to which he is adamantly opposed, he has no compunctions about cutbacks to higher education that force colleges and universities to increase tuition. He considers the tuition hikes as “fees,” not taxes.

While turning up his nose at federal grants for early childhood development ($60 million), broadband internet installation in rural parishes ($80.6 million) and for a high-speed rail system between Baton Rouge and New Orleans ($300 million), Jindal, upon slashing funding for parish libraries throughout the state, apparently saw no inconsistency in suggesting that the libraries apply for federal monies in lieu of state funding.

The grumblings began ever-so-slowly but they have been growing steadily. The legislature, albeit the right-wing Tea Party splinter clique of the Republican Party, finally stood up to Jindal toward the end of this year’s legislative session and refused to give in on the governor’s efforts to use one-time revenue to close a gaping hole in the state budget.

Other developments that did not bode well for the governor include:

• A state budget that lay in shambles, resulting in mid-year budget cuts of $500 million because of reductions in revenue—due largely to the roughly $5 billion per year in corporate tax breaks;

• Unexpected cuts to the state’s Medicaid program by the federal government which cost the state $859 million, including $329 million the first year to hospitals and clinics run by Louisiana State University—about a quarter of the health system’s annual budget. Those cuts will mean the loss of medical benefits for about 300,000 indigent citizens in Louisiana;

• Failed efforts to privatize state prisons, even though he did manage to close two prison facilities and a state hospital without bothering to notify legislators in the areas affected—a huge bone of contention for lawmakers who, besides having their own feathers ruffled, had to try and explain the sudden turn of events to constituents;

• Revelation that he had refused to return some $55,000 in laundered campaign funds from a St. Tammany bank president;

• Failed efforts to revamp the state employee retirement system for civil service employees. State police were exempted—perhaps because they form his security detail. And despite questions about the tax or Social Security implications, Jindal plans to plunge ahead with implementation of the part of the plan that did pass without the benefit of a ruling by the IRS—a ruling that could ultimately come back to bite him;

• A failed effort by the Sabine River Authority to sell water to a corporation headed up by two major Jindal campaign contributors—Donald “Boysie” Bollinger of Lockport and Aubrey Temple of DeRidder;

• A school voucher system that is nothing less than a train wreck, a political nightmare. State Education Superintendent John White, after Jindal rushed the voucher program through the legislature, rushed the vetting process for the awarding of vouchers through the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, abetted by members Penny Dastugue, Jay Guillot and Chas Roemer—quickly turning the entire process into a pathetic farce;

• A school in New Orleans run by a man calling himself an “Apostle,” a school in Ruston with no facilities—classrooms, desks, books or teachers—for the 165 vouchers for which the school was approved, tentative approval of vouchers for a school in DeRidder that could not even spell “scholarship” on its sign and for a school in Westlake that teaches that the “Trail of Tears” led many Native Americans to Christianity, that dragons were real, that dinosaurs and humans co-existed at the beginning of time (6,000 years ago, the approximate age of earth, according to its textbooks), that slave owners in America were kind, benevolent masters who treated slaves well, and that the Ku Klux Klan was a helpful reform-minded organization with malice toward none (Don’t laugh, folks; this is what many of these fundamentalist schools who qualified for vouchers are teaching.);

• Then there’s that charter school in Delhi that held girls to a slightly higher standard than boys. Any girl who became pregnant was expelled and any girl even suspected of being pregnant may be ordered to undergo an examination by a doctor of the school’s choice. The boy who gets her pregnant? Nothing. No punishment, no responsibility. Only after being subjected to public exposure, ridicule and criticism did the school alter its policy;

• A state legislator who said she approved of vouchers for Christian schools but not for an Islamic school in New Orleans because this country was founded on the Christian principles of the founding fathers, neglecting for the moment that the founding fathers were for the most part, Deists;

• And to top it all off, White smiles condescendingly and tells us that the criteria applied for approval of vouchers for these schools is part of the “deliberative process,” a catch-all exemption employed by the administration when it doesn’t wish to provide what are clearly public records—an administration, by the way, that touts its so-called “transparency.” Fortunately for the public, the Monroe News-Star is taking White’s pompous behind to court over that decision. (Confidentially, it is the humble opinion of LouisianaVoice that White never had any criteria and that he is creating policy and criteria on the fly because he simply is in way over his inexperienced, unqualified head as the leader of the agency charged with the education of our children. And that perhaps is the most shameful aspect of the entire voucher system and the single biggest act of betrayal on the part of a governor equally overwhelmed by the responsibilities of public office—especially an absentee governor.)

So as the Jindal Express rumbles down the track like a bad motorcycle going 90 miles per hour down a dead-end street (with apologies to Hank Snow) and things begin to unravel on the home front, just where is this absentee governor?

Well, it seems that rather than remain in the state and address the problems that are piling up and growing more complex with each passing day, he seems to prefer to spend his time stumping for Romney—or auditioning for a cabinet position he says he won’t accept—after seeing his chances for the vice presidency fall by the wayside.

A mature governor, a caring governor, a capable governor—one who is truly concerned about the welfare of his state—would defer from flitting all over the country spouting rhetoric on behalf of his presidential candidate in favor of remaining at home and addressing problems that are very real and very important to the people who elected him. Romney, after all, never once voted for Jindal.

There could be only one motive for turning his back on nearly 600,000 voters who first elected him in 2007 and the 673,000 who re-elected him last fall: he doesn’t really care about Louisiana and its people; he cares only about Bobby Jindal and those who can help him in the advancement of his political career.

If Gov. Jindal was truly concerned about the welfare of Louisiana, he certainly would have provided us with an encore of his hurricane and BP spill disaster performances: he would have headed straight to Assumption Parish to grab some TV face time at the Bayou Corne sinkhole and then flown away in a helicopter even as a ghost writer busied himself penning a book sequel: Failed Leadership and Fiscal Crisis: the Crash Landing.

That’s the very least he could do.

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Toothless Tiger Civil Service Commission lobs soft balls at DOA before wimping out, capitulating to OGB outsourcing

Posted in Civil Service, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, Transparency on August 1, 2012| 7 Comments »

Anyone who didn’t think the fix was in before the meeting ever convened had only to attend Wednesday’s meeting of the State Civil Service Board to realize that the outsourcing of the Office of Group Benefits was a done deal and the meeting itself a mere formality.

Anyone who thinks the Department of Civil Service has not become a toothless tiger had only to observe the manner in which the commission rolled over and let the governor’s proxy, i.e. Division of Administration (DOA) rub its tummy until the docile feline was once again asleep.

Oh, sure, the vote was close, 3-2, with members Curtis Fremin and Sidney Tobias voting no on the proposal by Gov. Piyush Jindal to issue a contract to Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS) which will eliminate 177 positions, 121 of which are actually filled. Voting in favor of validating BCBS’s campaign donations to Jindal and his wife’s foundation were Commission Chairman David Duplantier, John McClure, and Scott Hughes.

Absent and not voting were commissioners Lee Griffin and Kenneth Polite.

Fremin and Tobias apparently were less than enamored by the smooth talking mouthpieces for Piyush as reports filtered out of the meeting that there had been considerable disagreement among commission members in the hours leading up to the meeting.

If those discussions prior to the regular meeting involved a full quorum (four members), then it would have constituted a violation of the state’s open meeting laws.

But that’s no big deal; the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has already set the precedent for ignoring that pesky little law that is of little or no consequence to this administration.

Accountable? Transparent? Open?

What a crock.

The commission majority on Wednesday apparently overlooked the Civil Service Department’s mission which is “to provide human resource services and programs that enable state government to attract, develop and retain a productive and diverse workforce that excels in delivering quality services to the citizens of Louisiana.” (emphasis ours.)

DOA and OGB officials were given time to explain in detail their reasons for wanting to outsource the Preferred Provider Organization which has accrued a $500 million surplus over the past six years but attorney J. Arthur Smith, who represented about 100 employees, was cut off in the middle of his presentation.

When Smith later attempted to respond to what he said was incorrect information provided by DOA, he was cut off sharply by Duplantier who snapped, “This was submitted in April and we just receive a three-inch thick stack of paper from you on Monday. This is not a debate and you have had your time.”

While Smith did, in fact, submit a thick stack of supporting documentation, including reports by two political scientists, and several publications showing problems with privatizing governmental functions, DOA’s complete proposal was contained in an eight-pate Power Point presentation that did little to evidence any real financial advantage of turning over the PPO and other claim services to BCBS.

At one point in the proceedings Wednesday, commission member McClure uttered the most curious statement since then-Rep. M. J. “Mert” Smiley, Jr. inquired of a state official if there were some way in which she could forbid employees from leaving her agency.

In the middle of discussion about whether or not the commission would approve the layoff of the 121 employees, McClure said, “Wisdom should be left to the political arena and not to us.”

Perhaps indicative of the way in which state agency heads across the board have capitulated to Piyush was the casual manner in which Charles Calvi Jr., chief executive officer of OGB (the third CEO since the administration first floated the idea of privatization/outsourcing a little more than a year ago), spoke of his employees who will soon be on the street.

Sixty-two of the 121 are eligible for retirement, he said.

Oh, good. That makes everything okay with them.

As for the others, he told the commission that they could avail themselves of training assistance from the state or pursue jobs with Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

“It is our hope that they find work,” he said.

That sounds vaguely reminiscent of another agency head who, in announcing to his employees that they were being outsourced, smiled as he informed them, “I still have my job.”

What went unsaid, of course, was if agency heads want to continue at their jobs, there had best be no dissenting opinions voiced.

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Political science professors trash Jindal, OGB privatization, legislature in scathing reports; can Teagues be far behind?

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, Teague, Transparency on July 31, 2012| 7 Comments »

A Baton Rouge attorney has filed papers in opposition to the privatization of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) for Wednesday’s Civil Service hearing but in the process he could get two university professors teagued by Gov. Piyush Jindal.

Attorney J. Arthur Smith filed his lengthy objection on behalf of 177 OGB employees who stand to lose their jobs if the proposed takeover by Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS) goes through. He reminded the Civil Service Commission that the fundamental purpose of the Civil Service system “is to prevent permanent classified employees from being subjected to adverse personnel actions based on political influence.”

Political influence on the part of the Jindal administration is precisely what he is claiming—along with offering evidence that privatization has not proven to be the panacea claimed by governmental entities that have boldly gone where Piyush is attempting to go now.

BCBS was recently announced as the winner of the state contract to take over the OGB Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) which serves some 60,000 state employees, retirees and dependents.

But two political science professors at LSU and Southern University were sharply critical of the administration’s motives for privatizing OGB and challenged the administration’s fiscal arguments in written reports.

The State Civil Service Commission will hear presentations by the administration and by opponents of the privatization proposal on Wednesday at 9 a.m. in the appropriately named Louisiana Purchase Room of the Claiborne Building on North Third Street in Baton Rouge.

Smith cited a court case—New Orleans Civil Service Commission v. City of New Orleans—in which the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the mayor and city council “do not have the unfettered discretion to potentially decimate the civil service system by eliminating all civil service positions to privatization, and, therefore, we find that checks on that discretion are necessary and authorized by the Constitution.”

That ruling also said that the city must turn over all documents and other evidence which enable the Commission to determine (1) whether and civil service employees will be involuntarily displaced from the Civil Service; and, if so, (2) whether the contract was entered into for reasons of efficiency and economy and not for politically motivated reasons.”

The Jindal administration has been conspicuously reluctant in providing “all documents and other evidence,” to the legislature as well as the media. The reason for non-disclosure, which has become almost a cliché, is the often-cited “deliberative process,” an obscure provision behind which the governor consistently hides. He pushed through the deliberative process provision shortly after becoming governor and since has boasted non-stop to the nation that he has made state government more responsive, accountable and transparent.

Smith cited several examples in which privatization has run into problems, including cost overruns, little or no cost savings, inferior service, and a lack of accountability. In many of those cases, he said, governmental entities have on occasion been forced to bring outsourced services back in-house. That has already happened with OGB once before.

He also cited what he considered to be conflicts of interest regarding BCBS. He cited contributions to Jindal of $43,500 by BCBS; $12,500 by Louisiana Health & Indemnity (BCBS’s parent company), and at least $100,000 by BCBS to the Supriya Jindal Foundation. The foundation is run by Jindal’s wife, Supriya Jindal.

Moreover, Smith said the State of Louisiana “essentially donated in excess of $1 million to Louisiana Health & Indemnity to expand and upgrade its headquarters building.” That subsidy, which produced only 22 new jobs, was approved in 2009 as an Enterprise Zone project.

Smith also said the Jindal administration has failed to prove that the proposed OGB privatization would result in increased efficiency.

He cited former OGB Director Tommy Teague as saying in March of 2010 that if OGB is dismantled, the PPO provider network, most of the agency’s extensive expertise in claims, provider services, customer service and information technology would be lost. Also lost, he said, would be the capacity to reinstate the existing self-administered PPO plan structure. Teague pointed out that OGB, in addition to providing “excellent customer service,” also holds down costs by self-administering the PPO plan.

His arguments notwithstanding, Smith’s aces are two political scientists who have weighed in on the side of OGB employees with comprehensive reports that take issue with the administration stand that privatization would be best for OGB and the state.

Albert L. Samuel, chairman of the Political Science Department at Southern University, was critical of the fiscal irresponsibility of the administration and legislature in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita which he said led to the current fiscal crisis.

“Due to federal recovery dollars as a result of the 2005 hurricanes and historically high oil prices, the (Jindal) administration inherited a budget surplus of nearly $2 billion. During its first year in office, the administration and its legislative allies swiftly passed a series of large tax cuts and spent millions of dollars in one-time money on road projects, deferred maintenance at state colleges and universities, levee improvements, coastal restoration projects and upgrades to Pennington Biomedical Center,” he said. “Perhaps most notably, Gov. Jindal signed a repeal of the Stelly Tax Plan which provided a substantial tax savings for upper-income Louisianians.”

When the 2008 financial crisis struck, however, Samuel noted that rather than reconsidering the deep tax cuts that were enacted in previous years, Jindal “held steadfastly to (his) conservative ideals.” Jindal, he said, “adamantly opposed every attempt on the part of legislators to deal with the financial crisis through tax increases.”

“Consistent with that Naomi Klein calls ‘The Shock Doctrine,’ the governor capitalized on the financial crisis of the state to advance an agenda that called into the question the rationale for government to perform basic services on a wide range of issues.”

Samuel concluded his 21-page report by saying that political motivations “are driving the Jindal administration’s push to privatize the Office of Group Benefits.

“It locates Gov. Jindal squarely on the cutting edge of a national Republican party, determined to pursue this course without making a clear and convincing case that OGB, as currently constituted, has failed to provide quality service and coverage to its plan members at reasonable costs to taxpayers.

“The proposed privatization cuts to the heart of the fundamental rationales for having a civil service system in the first place—the idea of protecting state government workers from dismissal driven by politics.”

LSU political science professor Belinda Creel Davis cited from Shrinking the State: The Political Underpinnings of Privatization, a book by Harvey Feigenbaum, Jeffrey Henig and Chris Hamnett who said that privatization “is a political tool having the end goal of realigning institutions and decision-making in order to privilege the goals of one group over another.”

Davis cited the privatization of Louisiana’s Medicaid program as “an excellent example” of the difficulty in evaluating the effectiveness of privatization, specifically citing Jindal’s reluctance to approve legislative oversight of privatization programs.

“The Louisiana Legislature has passed bills in the 2011 and 2012 sessions that were designed to give legislators more information on the way the Jindal administration is implementing health care programs for the poor via private health care firms.

“For the second year in a row, Gov. Jindal has vetoed the bills, claiming they were unnecessary and duplicative since the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) issues extensive evaluations.

“It is interesting to note that his veto message does not claim that the report issued by DHH provides all or even most of the information sought by legislators. In the 2012 session, Senate Bill 569, seeking greater transparency on this matter passed unanimously in the House and Senate. Legislators seeking transparency regarding implementation must find the reports lacking if they have sought additional information, but they are unable to access the information they seek—resulting in a more difficult accountability process under privatization than you would see under government provision of the service.

“This is exactly the type of consequence systemic privatization predicts,” she said.

“In my opinion, as a scholar of public policy and government, privatization is an inherently political process. The evidence from both national and state studies supports this view. I believe the case before you is a clear case of politically motivated privatization.”

Those are the kinds of statements, bold and insightful as they may be, that seem to get people teagued these days.

Teagueing, after all, is the one activity in which this administration is abundantly transparent and open.

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Administration said in secret negotiations for Southeast Louisiana Hospital takeover by Magellan Health Services

Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals, Transparency on July 25, 2012| 13 Comments »

LouisianaVoice has learned that the recent $651 million cut to the state’s healthcare system may have had nothing to do with the decision by Gov. Bobby Jindal to close down Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville and in fact the move may have been in the works for months.

In fact, secret negotiations have apparently been ongoing for some time between the state and Magellan Health Services of Avon, Connecticut, to take over the hospital after the hospital is closed and subsequently privatized.

Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein announced late last Friday that the 348-bed hospital would be closed down beginning Oct. 1, putting about 300 employees out of work.

Southeast Louisiana Hospital is one of three state hospitals offering treatment for mental illness, including depression and attempted suicide. Early word is Southeast Louisiana Hospital’s patients will be transferred to the remaining two facilities—Central Louisiana State Hospital in Pineville and East Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson.

Only last month, the state sold 1,442 acres of hospital property to St. Tammany Parish for $6.45 million, far below the $14.7 million the property (including $200,000 in timber assessed valuation) was appraised for in February 2011.

The total 1,900-acre tract, including the remaining area of approximately 500 acres on which the hospital is situated and a park area leased to St. Tammany Parish, was appraised at $67.865 million only last week, according to the web page of the Office of State Lands.

LouisianaVoice has also learned from DHH sources that Greenstein is prepared to sign forms to officially declare the hospital as surplus property preparatory to its being put up for auction.

Early speculation had the hospital property being sold for the development of a high-end residential subdivision.

But LouisianaVoice learned that Greenstein had recently confided in Reps. Paul Hollis (R-Covington) and Tim Burns (R-Mandeville) that he had been in negotiations with Magellan about taking over the operation of the hospital once it is privatized.

Moreover, a New Orleans doctor reportedly was approached several weeks ago—before news of the loss of the $651 million in Medicaid funds by the state—about becoming the chief of staff of the Mandeville facility.

The unidentified doctor initially thought he was being recruited for an existing private hospital or for a private hospital’s expansion into the Northshore area because nothing had been said at that point about Southeast Louisiana’s closure. “It all makes sense now,” he told a colleague after learning of the impending closure of East Louisiana Hospital.

Once the hospital is declared surplus property and the facility closed, a request for proposals would have to be issued by DHH and private companies would be required to bid on contracting for either purchasing the hospital or running it as a contractor.

Magellan already has a connection with the state and Jindal, including three lucrative contracts.

The company, in addition to contributing $5,000 to Jindal’s campaign in 2008 and another $5,000 to the Louisiana Republican Party last September, currently has separate multi-million dollar contracts with three separate state agencies totaling more than $392 million. All three contracts run for two years, from March 1, 2012 through Feb. 28, 2014, records show.

The first contract, for $357.6 million, is with DHH through the Office of Behavioral Health. That contract calls for the firm to run a statewide management organization for a prepaid inpatient health plan for behavioral health services.

A $22.4 million contract with the Department of children and Family Services calls for Magellan to provide an array of coordinated community based services and support for children and youth with behavioral health disorders.

The third contract, for $12 million, is with the Department of Public Safety and Corrections and calls for Magellan to provide coordinated community-based services and supports for incarcerated youths with serious behavioral health disorders.

The larger, $357.6 million contract was approved in January but the two smaller ones were each approved in April, retroactive to March 1.

The recent appearance at the Capitol of former DHH Secretary Alan Levine only serves to fuel speculation swirling around the Mandeville hospital.

Levine, who came to DHH from Florida in January 2008, resigned in August 2010 to return to Florida where he currently serves as the Division 3 President of Health Management Associates where he is responsible for the administration of for-profit hospitals in Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Kentucky and West Virginia.

Greenstein to a legislative committee last week that Levine was in town to discuss Florida’s setup. He said Florida is one of several models for ways in which to increase revenues for state hospitals.

All the latest developments—Greenstein’s meeting with the legislators, the informal recruitment of the New Orleans doctor, last month’s sale of 1900 acres of adjoining hospital property and the impending declaration of the remainder of the property, including the hospital itself, as surplus, and the administrations reported secret negotiations with Magellan—all point to a covert plan by Jindal and Greenstein to close the hospital that dates back well beyond the news of the loss of the Medicaid funds.

All of which leaves unanswered the question of how indigent patients needing mental health treatment will be able to afford that treatment when the state hospital in Mandeville becomes a private, for-profit facility.

Besides the question of continued treatment for patients, employees of the hospital, like the 177 employees of the Office of Group Benefits, will lose retirement and medical benefits when the hospital makes the transition from public to private provider.

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