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Archive for the ‘Layoffs’ Category

Son-in-law of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco appointed DNR Assistant Secretary days after mass layoff scenario predicted

Posted in Budget, Civil Service, Coastal Erosion, Corruption, DEQ, Economy, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Revenue, State Agencies on March 16, 2016| 17 Comments »

You just have to love Louisiana politics.

It’s kind of like having someone pee down your back while telling you it’s raining.

Or maybe trying to run a marathon with a rock in your shoe.

And to no one’s real surprise, it doesn’t seem to matter much which political party is in power.

Take Thomas Harris, the newly-appointed Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), for example.

On Feb. 19, not quite two weeks ago, Secretary Harris testified before the House Appropriations Committee about the agency’s fiscal year 2017 budget. In his testimony, Harris, who spent about a dozen years at the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) before his Jan. 26 appointment by Gov. John Bel Edwards, lamented the fact that his agency was so strapped for funding that up to 66 employees face layoffs come July 1.

While it may difficult for some to feel much compassion for DNR, given the historically cozy relationship between the oil and gas industry and the agency’s top brass. It was DNR and DEQ, after all, which conveniently looked the other way all these years as our coastal marshlands were raped by the industry that curtailed the so-called legacy lawsuits filed against oil companies that neglected to clean up after themselves. http://theadvocate.com/home/9183574-125/house-oks-legacy-lawsuit-legislation

http://legacy.wwltv.com/story/news/2014/12/10/tainted-legacy-legislatures-fixes-create-obstacles-to-oil-and-gas-cleanup/17671639/

Harris gave his testimony during the afternoon session of the Appropriations Committee that met during the recent special legislative session called to address major budget shortfalls.

To save you some time, open the link HERE and move to the 41-minute mark. That’s where Harris begins his address to committee members, most of whom were talking among themselves (as is the norm) and not really paying attention.

So just why are we making such a big deal of this? It’s no big secret, after all, that budgetary cuts are hitting just about every agency and employees are going to have to be laid off. It’s a fact of life for anyone working for the state these days.

Unless you happen to be named David Boulet or Ashlee McNeely

Harris hired Boulet as Assistant Secretary of DNR, effective March 10 (last Thursday), less than three weeks after his calamitous testimony about projected layoffs.

But get this: Ashlee McNeely, wife of our old friend Chance McNeely (we’ll get to him presently), worked in Bobby Jindal’s office from Feb. 3, 2014, until last Oct. 22 as a legislative analyst at $78,000. On Oct. 23, she was promoted to Director of Legislative Services at the same salary (someone please tell us why Jindal needed a director of legislative services when he had less than three months to go in his term—and with no legislative session on the immediate horizon). Of course, come Jan. 11, the date of John Bel Edwards’ inauguration, she was quietly terminated along with the rest of Jindal’s staff.

But wait. Harris decided he needed a “Confidential Assistant.” And just what is a “confidential assistant,” anyway? Well, we’re told that the term is loosely translated to “legislative liaison.” No matter. Harris did the only logical thing: he brought Ashlee McNeely on board on Feb. 10, just nine days before his cataclysmic budgetary predictions. What’s more, he bumped her salary up by eight thou a year, to $86,000.

But back to our friend Boulet: His salary is a cool $107,600—to fill a position that has been vacant for more than five years. So what was the urgency of filling a long-vacated slot that obviously is little more than window dressing for an agency unable to fill mission-critical classified positions?

Had Harris chosen instead to allocate the combined $193,000 the two are getting, he could have hired four classified employees at $46,750 each. Not the greatest salary, but certainly not bad if you’re out of work and trying to feed a family. And still higher than the state’s family median income

So, what, exactly are the qualifications of Boulet? Well, for openers, he’s the son-in-law of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco and that’s of no small consequence. In fact, that was probably enough.

In fact, it’s not the first time he has landed a cushy position that took on the appearances of having all the right connections. We take you back to 2001, when Blanco was Lieutenant Governor and Boulet was hired as the $120,000-a-year Director of Oil & Gas Cluster Development for the Louisiana Office of Economic Development, a move that did not sit well with the scribes at the Thibodaux Comet: http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20011108/NEWS/111080313?tc=ar

And then there’s our old friend Chance McNeely, another holdover from the Jindal disaster. McNeely, all of 27, has seen his star rise in meteoric fashion after obtaining a degree in agricultural business and working four years as a legislative assistant for the U.S House of Representatives. From there, he found his way into Jindal’s inner circle as an analyst at $68,000. He remained there less than a year (March 6, 2014, to Jan. 12, 2015) before moving over to DEQ where the special position of Assistant Secretary, Office of Environmental Compliance (in circumvention of Jindal’s hiring freeze in place at the time and despite having no qualifications for the position)—complete with a $37,000 raise to $102,000. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/01/13/if-you-think-chance-mcneelys-appointment-to-head-deq-compliance-was-an-insult-just-get-a-handle-on-his-salary/

He held onto that job recisely a year, exiting the same day as his wife got her pink slip, on Jan. 11 of this year. Unlike Ashlee, who remained unemployed for just over three months, Chance was out of work for exactly eight days before being named Assistant to the Secretary at the Department of Transportation and Development, albeit at a slight drop in salary, to $99,000.

But by combining his and his wife’s salaries, the $177,000 isn’t too shabby for a state with a median income of $42,406 per household, according to 2014 data. And how many 27-year-olds do you know who pull down $99,000 per year? http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Household-Incomes-by-State.php

So, Secretary Harris, as you struggle with balancing the high pay of your political appointees with cutbacks of the ones who do the real work, please know that we understand fully that we live in Louisiana where, no matter the rhetoric, things never change.

You will head an agency that will protect big oil from those of us with ruined pastureland and briny water. DNR will continue to shield big oil from those who would do whatever necessary to preserve our wetlands. And as those oil companies continue to fight back with whatever legal chicanery they can craft—including the buying of legislators.

And the merry-go-round of appointments to those with the right political connections will continue unabated—no matter what self-righteous rhetoric of freedom and justice for all is spewed by the pompous ass clowns we continue to elect.

Now ask me how I really feel.

 

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DCFS funding slashed, necessitating ‘driveway visits,’ but overworked caseworker is arrested for falsifying records

Posted in Budget, Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, DHH, Ethics, Fraud, Governor's Office, Health Care, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, PACs, Politicians, Taxes, Uncategorized on March 13, 2016| 21 Comments »

(You may enlarge the type by clicking on the plus (+) sign above the image and moving the bar at the bottom to the right to read the entire text.)

On Feb. 15, an arrest warrant was issued for a north Louisiana employee of the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) following an investigation of more than two months by the Office of Inspector General.

Kimberly D. Lee, 49, of Calhoun in Ouachita Parish, subsequently surrendered to authorities and was subjected to the indignity of being booked into East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on Feb. 17 after being accused of filing false reports about mandatory monthly in-home visits with children in foster care.

As is often the case, however, there is much more to this story.

A month earlier, on Jan. 10, LouisianaVoice received a confidential email from a retired DCFS supervisor who revealed an alarming trend in her former agency:

“I served in most programs within the agency, foster care, investigations, and adoptions,” she wrote. “Over my career I witnessed the eight years of (Bobby) Jindal’s ‘improvements.’

“Those ‘improvements’ endanger children’s lives daily. The blight is spread from the Secretary to the lowliest clerical worker in the agency. People are overworked and underpaid but it’s not just that. People are so distraught from the unrelenting stress that children are in danger. Add to that the inexperience of most front line workers and their supervisors’ inability to properly train new staff.”

She then dropped a bombshell that should serve as a wake-up call to everyone who cares or pretends to care about the welfare of children—from Gov. John Bel Edwards down to the most obscure freshman legislator:

“In the Shreveport Region, the regional administrator (recently) told workers that they may make ‘drive-by’ visits to foster homes, which means talking to the foster parents in their driveway. Policy says that workers will see both the child and the foster parent in the home, interviewing each separately (emphasis added). A lot of abuse goes on in foster homes. Some foster families are truly doing the best they can but they need counseling and guidance from their workers. The regional administrator’s answer to that one? Have the foster parent call their home development worker—another person who can’t get her job done now.”

She wrote that she had heard of two separate incidents “where a child new to foster care was taken to a foster home and left without paperwork, without contact information for the person in charge of the case and without knowing even the child’s name.”

Moreover, she said, vehicles used in the Shreveport Region “are old, run-down, and repairs are not allowed. The last time new tires were bought was in 2014. When one (of the vehicles) breaks down, they just tow it away. No replacement is ordered.”

Could those factors have pushed Lee to fudge on her reports? Did the actions attributed to her constitute payroll fraud or did budgetary cuts force her into cutting corners in order to keep up with an ever-increasing caseload? Lee says yes to the latter, that she was told by supervisors to get things done, “no matter what.” Child welfare experts said her actions and arrest shone a needed light on problems at DCFS: low morale, high turnover, fewer workers handing greater numbers of caseloads, and increasing numbers of children entering foster care.

http://theadvocate.com/news/14909284-31/louisianas-child-protection-system-understaffed-and-overburdened-after-years-of-cuts-child-advocates

To find our own answers, LouisianaVoice turned to a document published on Jan. 5 of this year by the Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group of Montgomery, Alabama.

The 77-page report, entitled A Review of Child Welfare, the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services, points to:

  • A growing turnover rate for DCFS over the past three years from 19.32 percent in calendar year 2012 to 24.26 percent in 2014;
  • A 33 percent reduction in the number of agency employees to respond to abuse reports;
  • A 27 percent cut in funding since fiscal 2009, Bobby Jindal’s first year in office;
  • An increase in the number of foster homes of 5 percent;
  • An increase of 120.5 percent in the number of valid substance exposed newborns, from 557 to 1,330;
  • A trend beginning in 2011 that shows 4,077 children entered foster care but only 3,767 exited in 2015;
  • A 19 percent decrease in the number of child welfare staff positions filled statewide from 1,389 in 2009 to 1,125 in 2015.
  • Of the 764 caseworkers, 291, or 38 percent had two years’ experience or less and 444 (58 percent) had five years or less experience.

Moreover, figures provided by the Department of Civil Service showed that of the agency’s 3,400 employees, 44.5 percent made less than $40,000 a year and 19 percent earned less than $30,000.

In 2014 (the latest year for which figures are available), the median income for Louisiana for a single-person household was $42,406, fourth-lowest in the nation, as compared to the national single-person median income of $53,657.

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Household-Incomes-by-State.php

“The stresses within the system are at risk of causing poorer outcomes for some children and families,” the report says in its executive summary. “…Recent falling outcome trends in some of the areas that have been an agency strength in the past are early warnings of future challengers.”

Despite years of budgetary cuts under the Jindal administration, Louisiana has maintained “a high level of performance in achieving permanency for children in past years and currently is ranked first among states in adoption performance,” the report said.

The budget cuts, however, “have negatively affected the work force, service providers, organizational capacity and increasingly risk significantly affecting child and family outcomes” which has produced a front-line workforce environment “constrained by high caseload, much of which is caused by high turnover and increasing administrative duties and barriers that compromise time spent with children and families.”

And it is that threat to “compromise time spent with children and families” that brings us back to the case of Kimberly Lee and to the email LouisianaVoice received from the retired DCFS supervisor who cited the directive for caseworkers to make “drive-by” visits to foster homes, leaving children with foster homes with no paperwork, contact information or without even knowing the children’s names, and of the state vehicles in disrepair.

It’s small wonder then, in a story about how Jindal wrecked the Louisiana economy, reporter Alan Pyke quoted DCFS Secretary Marketa Garner-Walters as telling the Washington Post if lawmakers can’t resolve the current budget crisis, many Louisiana state agencies will see budget cuts of 60 percent. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/03/07/3757416/jindal-louisiana-budget-crisis/

As ample illustration of Bobby Jindal’s commitment to social programs for the poor and sick, remember he yanked $4.5 million from the developmentally disadvantaged in 2014 and gave it to a Indy-type racetrack in Jefferson Parish run by a member of the Chouest family, one of the richest families in Louisiana—but a generous donor to Jindal’s gubernatorial campaigns and a $1 million contributor to his super PAC for his silly presidential run.

Well, thanks to the havoc wreaked by Jindal and his Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols, the legislature did find it necessary to pass the Nichols’ penny tax (not original with us but the contribution of one of our readers who requested anonymity) to help offset the $900 million-plus deficit facing the state just through the end of the current fiscal year which ends on June 30.

Were legislators successful? Not if you listen to Tyler Bridges, one of the more knowledgeable reporters on the Baton Rouge Advocate staff. “Legislators were neither willing to cut spending enough, nor raise taxes enough nor eliminate the long list of tax breaks that favor one politically connected business or industry over another,” he wrote in Sunday’s Advocate (emphasis added). http://theadvocate.com/news/15167974-77/a-louisiana-legislature-that-ducked-tough-budget-decisions-during-its-special-meeting-convenes-again

As is all too typical, most of the real “legislation” was done in the flurry of activity leading up the final hectic minutes of the special session, leaving even legislators to question what they had accomplished. In military parlance, it would be called a cluster—.

But that should be understandable. After all, 43, or fully 30 percent of the current crop of legislators, had to work their legislative duties around their busy schedules that called upon them to attend no fewer than 50 campaign fundraisers (that’s right, some like Neil Riser, Katrina Jackson, and Patrick Connick had more than one), courtesy of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, the Beer Industry League, CenturyLink and a few well-placed lobbyists. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/03/louisiana_special_session_fund.html

It is, after all, what many of them are best at. (Seven of those were held at the once-exclusive Camelot Club on the top floor of the Chase Bank South Tower. We say “once-exclusive” because last week the Camelot announced that it was closing its doors after 49 years. Restrictions on lobbyists’ expenditures on lunches for legislators was given as one cause for the drop in club membership from 900 to 400. Not mentioned was the fact that Ruth’s Chris and Sullivan’s steak restaurants in Baton Rouge have become favorite hangouts for legislators and lobbyists during legislative sessions. One waiter told LouisianaVoice during the 2015 session that one could almost find a quorum of either chamber on any given night during the session—accompanied, of course, by lobbyists who only wanted good government.) https://www.businessreport.com/article/camelot-club-closing-afternoon-can-no-longer-viable-club-owner-says

LEGISLATORS’ FUNDRAISERS

Bridges accurately called the new taxes that will expire in 2018 “the type of short-term fix” favored by Jindal and the previous legislature “that they had vowed not to repeat.”

Can we get an Amen?

In the meantime, he observed that Gov. John Bel Edwards and Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, because the legislature still left a $50 million hole in the current budget, will have to decide which state programs will be cut—again.

Emphasizing the risks to children, Garner-Walters told legislators in a committee hearing during the just-completed special session that state DCFS staff numbers 3,400, down a third from the 5,100 it had in 2008. “You can’t just not investigate child abuse,” she said.

Former Baton Rouge Juvenile Court Judge Kathleen Richey, now heading up Louisiana CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate), a child advocacy non-profit, has expressed her concern over the budgetary cuts that make DCFS caseworkers’ jobs so much more difficult.

“Our political leaders need to understand that while infrastructure represents a physical investment in our future, our children represent an intellectual investment in our future,” she said. “We have to protect innocent children who have no one else to stand up for them.”

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Even after being tagged for $800 and costs, Kristy Nichols, DOA continue to withhold records sought by LouisianaVoice

Posted in Boards, DOA, Ethics, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Layoffs, Public Records, Transparency on May 6, 2015| 8 Comments »

As an illustration of the arrogance of Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols and the Division of Administration (DOA), one need only examine the most recent “compliance” to our request for public records in the matter of former Louisiana Housing Corporation (LHC) Executive Director Frederick Tombar, III. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/04/21/frederick-tombar-a-key-jindal-appointee-resigns-260k-job-at-lhc-following-internal-investigation-of-sexual-harassment/

Even as the parties to our lawsuit against Nichols and DOA were awaiting the start of our case in District Judge Mike Caldwell’s courtroom on Monday, DOA’s legal counsel asked our attorney about our post of Sunday, May 3, in which we revealed that DOA was sitting on another request of ours. We made simultaneous requests, we explained, to DOA and to an office under DOA (LHC). The office responded with the records but DOA still had not complied nearly two weeks after our request was submitted. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/05/03/louisianavoice-v-la-doa-goes-to-trial-monday-we-need-your-help-to-defray-legal-costs-that-will-continue-on-appeal/

But don’t just take our word for it. Here is a column by Robert Mann from nearly two years ago:

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2013/05/louisiana_government_is_making.html

The attorney for DOA, upon being told what records we had requested, promised us we would have the records on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, apparently buoyed by only a partial victory by us, DOA responded with partial compliance as some sort of weird game of gotcha.

The records we received from the LHC contained 16 pages. The records provided Tuesday by DOA contained four pages.

DOA insisted in the trial of our earlier lawsuit against DOA (also before Judge Caldwell, who, in that case, ruled against LouisianaVoice altogether—do we see a pattern here?) that we were not being singled out for deliberate non-compliance or the withholding of records despite DOA’s historically taking weeks and even months to provide requested documents.

Yet, withholding 12 pages of a public record (the LHC board, with the concurrence of legal counsel, had previously decided that the investigative report into allegations of sexual harassment against Tombar was indeed public) certainly appears to us to be deliberate—and against the law.

Here’s the gist of the investigative report:

LHC board Chairman Mayson Foster asked the DOA Office of Human Resources to conduct an investigation on April 13 into claims by two female employees (one, a contract employee and the other a full-time employee of LHC) that Tombar, who lives in New Orleans, had pressured each of them to spend nights with him in his hotel room when he was in Baton Rouge for board meetings.

(The report, as it should, withheld the names of the women and LouisianaVoice has never requested that information. We respect the employees’ privacy; we only wanted the investigative report.)

The harassment of the first employee, a contract worker, began on Nov. 19, 2014, the report said, when Tombar and the employee separately attended a luncheon for the agency. Immediately following the luncheon, he “friended” her on Facebook and Instagram and made repeated requests for her to join him after work for drinks.

The employee made excuses to avoid doing so but then his advances became even stronger as he began to request that she spend the night with him in his hotel room during his stays in Baton Rouge. Specifically, emails provided LouisianaVoice by LHC (with the name of the employee properly redacted) show that Tombar asked her to spend the night with him on Feb. 10, 2015, the night before an LHC board meeting.

Even though she was a contract employee, Tombar promised her in his emails that she would be “safe” from layoffs and then asked her again to spend the night with him on April 7, 2015.

Eventually, the woman blocked his calls and filed a formal complaint and asked that she continue working but away from Tombar.

The second woman, an employee of LHC, said she attended a conference in New Orleans on Feb. 7-9, 2015 and that on March 19, she received an email from Tombar saying he would be staying overnight in Baton Rouge and asking her to stay with him overnight in his hotel room, a request she declined.

He repeated the request on April 7 before she sought relief in the form of a formal complaint in which she said she wished to keep her job but to work “away from Mr. Tombar,” the report said.

In one Instagram message provided LouisianaVoice as part of the record, Tombar asked one of the women, “You’re cool with my having a wife at home?”

The report’s conclusion said:

“Inform

  • “Information gathered from claimant interviews as well as a subsequent review of electronic messages sent to both claimants by Mr. Tombar clearly establish a pattern of sexual harassment and hostile work environment. Specifically, Mr. Tombar’s declaration that (the first claimant’s) position would be protected from layoffs while (simultaneously) trying to establish a sexual relationship with her presents clear evidence of quid pro quo sexual harassment. Additionally, the use of sexually explicit content in electronic messages to LHC employees and contractors presents clear evidence of a hostile work environment.”

The report further said the women “should have been more direct and forceful” in putting Tombar on notice “that his advances were unwelcomed and unwarranted, which they acknowledged in their interviews.” At the same time, the report pointed out that the women were fearful of losing their positions because of Tombar’s position as Executive Director and Appointing Authority within LHC.

Attempts to interview Tombar by DOA’s Human Resources Department “to provide him an opportunity to refute and defend those claims” were thwarted when Tombar abruptly resigned his $260,000-a-year position on April 21, the report said.

Tombar was appointed to head LHC after passage of Senate Bill 269 by State Sen. Neil Riser in 2011. The bill, which became Act 408 upon the signature of Bobby Jindal, consolidated three former agencies into one: the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency, the Road Home Corp., and Louisiana Land Trust. That consolidation became effective on Jan. 1, 2012 and Jindal named Tombar to head the new agency shortly after that.

Tombar earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government from Notre Dame University and later attended Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where he earned a Master in Public Policy degree.

He directed the Road Home Program following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Road Home served as the largest single housing recovery program in U.S. history.

LHC currently is house in an elaborate structure on Quail Drive across from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center just off Perkins Road in Baton Rouge. LOUISIANA HOUSING CORP.(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

The agency has 125 employees and a payroll of more than $7.9 million. Besides Tombar, eight other employees make more than $100,000 per year, according to State Civil Service records.

http://doa.louisiana.gov/boardsandcommissions/viewEmployees.cfm?board=273

In an April 6, 2015, message to one of the women, Tombar said, “Jindal has a claim to my time until 5. Any plans after are negotiable.”

The employee, in an apparent effort to put him off, responded, “Maybe next time.”

In the most explicit message provided by LHC, Tombar sent a message that gave the definition of “sunrise surprise” from the online Urban Dictionary: “To wake someone up at exactly 6 am by having rough anal sex with them.” There was no response to that message.

As for DOA’s pattern of non-compliance with our requests, our attorney has suggested that we pursue criminal charges against Nichols in addition to our civil petitions.

It’s certainly an option we’re keeping open although Attorney General Buddy (or is it Bubba) Caldwell (no relation to the judge) has certainly revealed his reluctance to pursue the interests of the citizens of this state over such mundane matters as public records.

So, it would fall to the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore.

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Bobby Jindal is not Louisiana’s governor; he long ago moved into new role as state’s undisputed Prevaricator in Residence

Posted in Budget, Corruption, Economy, Education, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Jobs, Layoffs, Privatization, Revenue, State Agencies, Transparency on March 27, 2015| 25 Comments »

prevaricator

[pri-var-i-key-ter] /prɪˈvær ɪˌkeɪ tər/

noun

  1. a person who speaks falsely; liar.
  2. a person who speaks so as to avoid the precise truth; quibbler; equivocator.

Bobby Jindal loves to throw around the “L-word.”

So much so that we at LouisianaVoice are beginning to let it creep into our vocabulary when writing about Bobby.

Of course, his “L-word” and our “L-word” have completely different meanings.

For him, it’s invoked when reacting to the “Liberal” media’s calling him out on his claims of being the savior for Louisiana’s health care, education, economy, ethics and general well-being.

For us, the “L-word” denotes Liar, as pathological Liar.

A pathological liar is defined as an abnormally habitual liar, or a person who lies to the point that it is considered a disease or condition. That would be Bobby Jindal, the man who took ideas from medical experts when he headed up the Department of Health and Hospitals, implemented those ideas and called them his own.

Before you get the wrong idea, we don’t reside in a dream world where the sun is always shining and the grass is always green. We know politicians lie. Former Gov. Edwin Edwards once said it went with his job.

We understand that just as we can predict that in the upcoming gubernatorial election, one of the candidates is certain to stretch the truth a bit by claiming that then-State Rep. David Vitter’s vote against tabling House Bill 1013 way back in 1993 was because he supported gay rights. https://louisianavoice.com/

Anyone who knows Vitter knows better than that (maybe hooker rights, but that’s another story for another day). His voting not to table the bill that would have made it illegal for employers or insurers to discriminate based on sexual orientation was merely an effort to keep the bill alive for full floor debate where it was certain to have been defeated.

But Bobby Jindal elevates lying to an art form At least he tries to, but his prevarications are so disingenuous as to appear laughable—except the joke is on us.

Take that letter that Jindal recently wrote to the New York Times http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/03/bobby_jindal_defends_his_recor.html#incart_river  in response to the paper’s editorial about governors being unable to hide from their records http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/opinion/sunday/governors-can-run-but-they-cant-hide.html?_r=0 and the column about the Jindal implosion http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/opinion/charles-blow-gov-jindals-implosion.html by  Times writer Charles Blow who just happens to be from the north Louisiana town of Gibsland and who was a Grambling State University honor graduate.

In that letter, Jindal repeated the claim that he had cut the state payroll by “30,000 workers.”

Liar.

The Louisiana Office of Civil Services issues monthly layoff reports and contained in that monthly report is a year-by-year accounting of the number of civil service positions eliminated and the number of employees laid off. February 2015 Layoff Report

Since Fiscal Year 2008, which began six months prior to Jindal’s taking office in January of 2008, through the end February 2015, there have been a grand total of 13,577 positions eliminated and 8,396 employees laid off. The difference is apparently 5,181 eliminated positions were already vacant and simply not filled. Taking either number, you have far fewer than half the 30,000 claimed by Jindal.

“This fiscal responsibility resulted in eight straight upgrades by the major credit agencies,” he said in his letter, while neglecting to mention that two major rating agencies, Moody’s and Stand & Poor’s recently moved the state’s credit outlook from stable to negative while threatening the more severe action of a downgrade. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/02/14/two-major-investment-rating-firms-downgrade-louisiana-to-negative-state-is-now-officially-at-the-financial-end-game/

“And what did lower taxes do for our economy? They spurred growth,” he said. “Louisiana now has higher incomes…”

Liar.

The state’s per capita income while increasing 1.1 percent from 2012 to 2013, has actually decreased overall since 2008 and continues to lag nearly $3,500 behind the national average while the median family income decreased by more than $2,500 and trailed the national median family income by more than $8,000. http://www.deptofnumbers.com/income/louisiana/

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/09/louisiana_ranks_poorly_on_late.html

Were it not for Mississippi and the District of Columbia, Louisiana’s poverty rate (by household income) of 18.3 percent would be the highest in the nation. (Mississippi’s poverty rate is 20.1 percent and D.C. has a poverty rate of 20.7 percent.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate

Moreover, our already stratospheric poverty rate is continuing to rise. http://www.labudget.org/lbp/2013/09/poverty-on-the-rise-in-louisiana/

“…more jobs…”

Liar.

The February unemployment rate for Louisiana (the latest figures available) was 6.7 percent, compared to 5.5 percent for the rest of the country. The rate was 4 percent when Jindal took office but three years into his first term, the rate had risen to 8 percent before dropping below 6 percent in 2014 and spiking again this year. http://www.deptofnumbers.com/unemployment/louisiana/

“…and more people than we’ve ever had in the history of our state.”

Perhaps, but when those who were evacuated to other states in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita return, that does not signify population growth. That’s just folks coming home after a hiatus of a few years.

But no matter. Jindal long ago staked out his position on immigration reform. http://www.ontheissues.org/Governor/Bobby_Jindal_Immigration.htm

But while he is claiming “more people than we’ve ever had in the history of our state,” he may wish to take a closer look at what the numbers mean.

Yes, it’s true that the state’s population grew by 64,396 (an increase of 1.44 percent from 2000 to 2010). But the state actually lost 20,426 (-.47 percent) in the number of residents “not Hispanic or Latino origin” while registering a gain of 84,822 (78.7 percent increase) in the number of people of “Hispanic or Latino origin.” http://censusviewer.com/state/LA

How’re you gonna square those numbers with your stand on immigration reform, Bobby? You can’t very well boast of population growth and decry the influx of Hispanics in the face of those facts.

“A larger gross domestic product…”

Shoot, on this we don’t even beat Mississippi. Of the 12 states in the Southeast Region, our GDP ranks eighth and barely nudges out Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina. http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_state/2014/gspSE_glance.htm

Back in February, Jindal told a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor that Louisiana’s higher education budget “is actually a little bit, just slightly, higher than when I took office.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/02/11/jindals-claim-that-louisianas-higher-education-budget-is-slightly-higher/

“Wait. Wha…?

LIAR!

No, Bobby, that’s a DAMN LIE!

Anyone who can make that claim with a straight face has some serious mental issues of either being unable to separate face from fantasy or of just being unable to tell the truth—even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Even the Washington Post, for whom he often pens his op-ed pieces when not stumping for the Republican presidential nomination, called him out on that one. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/02/11/jindals-claim-that-louisianas-higher-education-budget-is-slightly-higher/

Remember when Jindal promised that premiums for the Office of Group Benefits would not increase and benefits would not decrease under his privatization plan?

Liar.

And remember how he told us that health care for the state’s poor population would actually improve and the state would save millions by jettisoning those burdensome state hospitals?

Liar.

Team Jindal moves toward developing a medical corridor along Bluebonnet Boulevard and Essen Lane in South Baton Rouge while creating a medical wasteland north of Government Street (thereby protecting medical care for the affluent population but not so much for the poorer, largely black population of North Baton Rouge). Baton Rouge General Mid City (north of Government by a couple of blocks), as part of that plan, is being forced into closing its emergency room facilities next week and there’s good reason to expect similar crises at private hospitals in Lake Charles, Shreveport and Monroe. In fact, the problems are already starting in Shreveport. http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268748/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=6CI2I0hA

And, of course, there was Jindal’s claim of the infamous “no-go” zones in England in the face of all those apologies by Fox News for initiating the story.

Liar.

It appears Bobby made that claim purely for the sake of political expediency, the worst reason of all. http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/politics/jindal-no-go-zones-london/

Jindal, of course, did that major flip-flop on Common Core and is somehow managing to link the Common Core to the radical teaching of American history at the cost of something called “American exceptionalism.”

Liar.

So you’ve changed your position on Common Core. But you overlooked (deliberately, we strongly suspect) one minor detail: Common Core deals only in math and English, not history. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/06/bobby-jindal-what-happens-when-we-stop-teaching-american-exceptionalism-to-our-students/

Finally, there is the biggest Lie of all:

“I have the job I want.”

LIAR!

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Gov. Bobby’s misleading claims in USA Today op-ed piece mindful of 2011 TV ad on job gains in reelection campaign

Posted in Elections, Governor's Office, Jobs, Layoffs, Media, Politicians, Transparency on March 10, 2015| 10 Comments »

As we wrote in Monday’s post, Gov. Bobby appears to be quite adept at embellishing the facts when it comes to his claims of resuscitating a moribund Louisiana economy. But a seasoned politician should know better than to put claims out there that are so easily debunked.

Of course, we have to give him credit: he was apparently way ahead of the curve on using private emails to conduct public business. While the national media is obsessing over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account as a means of keeping the public in the dark, the Louisiana media, namely AP’s Melinda Deslatte, called Jindal and his staff out more than two years ago on that very issue. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/top-jindal-aides-use-personal-email-strategize

But back to the matter of Gov. Bobby’s pumping up his résumé. Back in September of 2011, LouisianaVoice cited his inaccurate claims in TV ads during his 2011 reelection campaign. https://louisianavoice.com/2011/09/29/jindal-plays-fast-and-loose-with-jobs-claim-tv-campaign-ad/

In those ads, he made all sorts of claims about the number of jobs created during his first term. He named 17 companies across the state, leaving the unspoken impression that each was a new company when in fact many were companies already domiciled in Louisiana that announced expansions which were, in all likelihood, already in the planning before he ever took office.

The ad flashed purported job gains for which he took full credit. But a closer look at the actual number of jobs as posted on the companies’ own web sites should have raised eyebrows then and certainly should result in anything he says now to being taken with a huge grain of salt.

For example, he claimed responsibility for the following figures (actual jobs created are in parenthesis):

  • 3,970 new jobs at the Foster Farms chicken processing plant in Union Parish (1,060);
  • 6,050 new jobs at the Nucor Steel plant in St. James Parish (650);
  • 1,570 jobs at Blade Dynamics in New Orleans (600);
  • 1,300 jobs at Globemaster in Covington (500);
  • 2,282 jobs at LaShip in Terrebonne Parish (1,000);
  • 1,253 jobs at DG Foods in Bastrop (317);
  • 1,970 new jobs resulting from CenturyLink expansion in Monroe (1,150);
  • 1,920 new jobs at the ConAgra sweet potato processing plant in Delhi (500);
  • 650 new jobs from expansion of Schlumberger oilfield equipment company in Shreveport (120);
  • 500 new jobs from Ronpak fast food packaging company in Shreveport (175);
  • 446 new jobs at Northwest Pipe (120);
  • 805 jobs at Zagis USA in Jefferson Davis Parish (161);
  • 880 new jobs from expansion of Aeroframe facility in Lake Charles (300);
  • 727 new jobs at Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal in Cameron Parish (77);
  • 339 new jobs at the Northrop Grumman facility in Lake Charles (80)

In all, Gov. Bobby’s 2011 TV ad claimed that he created 25,425 new jobs through the Department of Economic Development when in fact only 6,729 new jobs were actually created, or about 26.5 percent of the total claimed.

And now, with Gov. Bobby flailing away like a drowning man in his desperate attempt to gain traction in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, makes a whole new laundry list of distorted claims in Monday’s USA Today op-ed piece that reads more like a campaign ad than a legitimate opinion piece.

We listed several of those in Monday’s post but overlooked one major claim, the inaccuracy of which came to light on Tuesday when LouisianaVoice received its monthly report from the Louisiana Department of Civil Service.

That report, which is a public record not controlled by the Division of Administration and Commissioner Kristy Nichols and thus, immediately available to any member of the public, is the monthly state employee layoff report and when comparing its contents with Gov. Bobby’s USA Today claim, the differences were quite striking.

You will need to scroll down to the third page to get to the meat of the report but the gist of it is that since Fiscal year 2008-2009, which started six months prior to Gov. Bobby’s first taking office, the number of state jobs abolished is 13,577 and the number of actual employees laid off is 8,396 (the difference is that were 5,181 of those that were vacant positions). ELIMINATED STATE POSITIONS BY YEAR

And, it should be noted, the bulk of those layoffs were the result of his giving away the state’s charity hospital system and, in the process, separating thousands of medical staffers from the state payroll.

That’s a far cry from Gov. Bobby’s spouting that there are “over 30,000 fewer state workers then when we took office in 2008.”

In fact, the actual reduction in the number of employees is 72 percent lower than the number he claims.

That’s 194 percent higher than his current approval rating of 27 percent.

It’s enough to make one wonder if the man is even capable of telling the truth—and that’s no embellishment.

 

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