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Archive for the ‘Legislature, Legislators’ Category

J. Ryan Hudson and Time magazine had it right

Posted in Budget, Campaign Contributions, Economy, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Taxes, Transparency on October 21, 2010| 1 Comment »

J. Ryan Hudson made the most of his 15 minutes.

Just in case you haven’t been paying attention lately, J. Ryan Hudson is the LSU Student Body president who wrote the now-famous op-ed letter to the Keene (New Hampshire) Sentinel in which he opined that Gov. Bobby Jindal “is spending more time in your state than the one he was elected to represent.”

As class sizes at LSU have grown, higher education has undergone $280 million in budget cuts over the past two years and is facing another $290 million in cutbacks, prompting Hudson to write that Jindal should pay more attention to state budget shortfalls than spending time campaigning for Republican candidates in other states.

“On behalf of the students whose hopes for a brighter future will soon be crushed, I beg you to return to Louisiana and fix your state’s serious problems,” Hudson said. “You’ve neglected your constituents long enough.

“You’ll have a much better chance of becoming president if you save, instead of destroy, Louisiana’s universities,” he said, implying that Jindal may have a not-so-secret agenda aimed at seeking higher office.

To be sure, Hudson’s letter was brash, maybe a little rude, and certainly timely.

And, sadly, all too accurate.

Jindal, rather than anchoring himself to the Capitol’s fourth floor office, chooses to globetrot on behalf of Republican candidates most in Louisiana have never heard of while refusing to endorse Republican candidates in Louisiana. One can understand his reluctance to speak out in favor of David Vitter in his Senate race against Charlie Melancon given Vitter’s political baggage, but Secretary of State Jay Dardenne can’t wrangle an endorsement from Jindal even though Dardenne’s TV spots stress his wish to work with Jindal in promoting the governor’s programs.

Even more difficult to comprehend is Jindal’s reluctance to tackle state finances head-on. After all, hasn’t he been telling us over and over that he has the job he wants? If that’s true, then he should stay home and do that job.

Oh, sure, he pays lip service to reducing, or streamlining, state government. But as the state budget turns an ever-darkening shade of red, he stands adamant in his refusal to address a tax increase in the wake of dwindling state revenues.

Tax increases are never pleasant, especially with statewide elections only a year away, but neither is the prospect of a state becoming insolvent. That’s a very real prospect.

And Jindal, along with an out-of-control legislature, must shoulder the blame. The state had money, but the legislature, drunk with one-time revenue, went spend-crazy this year and Jindal wouldn’t—or couldn’t—summon the courage to rein in the insanity with his line item veto power.

Time magazine describes half the states as having joined the federal government “in the fiscal sick ward” as high unemployment and the recession combined with drastically reduced income to deliver a weakened economy that appears at times to be spiraling out of control.

Barely into its new fiscal year, Louisiana is already facing a $100 million deficit, thanks to depressed oil prices and reduced tax revenues, the magazine said. To deal with the crisis, the state has frozen hiring, deferred maintenance on state buildings and canceled $500,000 in new equipment. Legislators, meanwhile, are talking tax increases. “We’ve run out of windfall from Washington,” the state budget director lamented. “We’ve run out of exotic tax measures. Our economy has run out of gas, and in Louisiana, when you run out of gas, you run out of money.”

Sound familiar? The by now all too familiar theme should resonate with anyone who follows Louisiana politics.

But that story actually ran in Time on Nov. 8, 1982—almost exactly 28 ominously prophetic years ago when Ralph Perlman was budget director and Dave Treen was governor. Louisiana has held seven elections and has chosen five new governors since then. The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same.

Today, nearly three decades after that story, Louisiana is wrestling with a $108 million budget deficit less than four months into the 2011 fiscal year than began on July 1. Even worse, the administration is anticipating a staggering projected shortfall of up to $2 billion next year.

It’s not as if the administration and legislators were not forewarned: Greg Albrecht, the chief economist for the Legislative Fiscal Office, said in May that he didn’t expect state income tax revenue to meet earlier forecasts.

Now, Gov. Bobby Jindal finds himself trying to find a way to cut state budgets yet another 35 percent—when he’s in the state, which is becoming more and more infrequent. Some legislators said they see the present fiscal malaise as a chance to downsize government in lieu of falling back on the usual accounting tricks to balance the budget.

Sen. John Alario, D-Westwego, called the situation “a grand opportunity for us to scale back government.” Alario, the legislator primarily responsible for the often-criticized state’s $22 million purchase of the financially troubled Players Tournament Club golf facility in Marrero, said downsizing “could never be done if you didn’t have to be faced with this situation.”

Jindal, in lieu of raising taxes, seems intent on slashing higher education and health care. Meanwhile, he keeps popping up in Florida, New Hampshire, New York, Missouri, Georgia, California, Ohio, and Minnesota to campaign for GOP candidates.

Legislators say the anticipated budgets will close hospitals for the poor and cripple higher education while college presidents call the proposed cuts “catastrophic.” Former Gov. Kathleen Blanco says a 35 percent cut would effectively shut down government services and that education would undergo a “meltdown to mediocrity.”

Jindal says spending cuts are preferable to higher taxes and that additional privatization may be in store as a means to save the state money.

He missed his chance to cut spending at the end of the last regular legislative session when he could have exercised his line item veto power to bring the Capital Outlay bill more into line. He had the opportunity to veto more than $450 million in Priority One spending but chose to veto only $9.4 million—all in Priority Two, or second year spending. Among the Priority One appropriations in the Capital Outlay Bill that were allowed to stand were:

• $800,000 for land acquisition for the proposed Allen Parish Reservoir;
• $1.4 million for the proposed Bayou Dechene Reservoir in Caldwell Parish;
• $2.6 million for the Washington Parish Reservoir Commission Feasibility study;
• $17.2 million for Bayou Segnette Festival Park land acquisition and sports complex improvements;
• $28 million for modifications to the Performing Arts Center in Jefferson Parish;
• $2 million for construction of a playground Basketball Gym in Orleans Parish;
• $1.8 million for construction of the Little Theatre of Shreveport;
• $2.6 million for a new Westbank YMCA in Algiers;
• $2 million for the New Orleans Music Hall of Fame;
• $6 million for construction of a new courthouse in Baton Rouge;
• $2.8 million for the Dryades YMCA in New Orleans;
• $5.4 million for the Red River Waterway Commission;
• $7.7 million for the renovation of the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette;
• $2.5 million for improvements to the Coteau Water System in St. Martin and Iberia parishes;
• $2.4 million for the Union Parish Law Enforcement District;
• $1.8 million for construction for the Robinson Film Center in Caddo Parish;
• $12 million for construction of a convention center complex in Shreveport;
• $3.8 million for a new tennis center in Orleans Parish;
• $4.7 million for construction of the Louisiana Artist Guild Arts Incubator in New Orleans;
• $26.5 million for expansion and construction of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans;

Millions more were spent on construction projects that included recreational facilities, councils on aging, courthouses, sheriffs’ offices, jails, drainage projects, work on parish and municipal road and street construction projects, community centers, and water systems.

As if that were not enough, when legislators found extra money lying around, as they always seem to do during each legislative session, the House quickly pushed HB 76 through, appropriating an additional $33 million in local pork projects. Some of those expenditures:

• $150,000 for the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame in Winnfield;
• $500,000 for the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities;
• $500,000 to “organizations which assist small towns and rural areas with their water and wastewater systems;”
• $250,000 for construction of an animal shelter in St. Charles Parish;
• $1 million to the Lafayette Parish Consolidated Government for infrastructure construction;

Of that $33 million, Jindal vetoed only 32 projects totaling less than $2.5 million.

That’s a sign of a weak governor—one who lacks the singular courage to scale back reckless spending by legislators when the very future of the state depends on it, demands it. As a result, higher education and health care will continue to suffer while golf courses, community centers, baseball parks, sheriffs’ offices, ground water reservoirs, and other local projects will flourish while legislators take the credit and bask in the gratitude of constituents back home.

The name of that 1982 Time magazine article that chronicled economic hard times for state governments?

“Living Beyond Their Means.”

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Gov. Jindal’s cost saving plan for Louisiana

Posted in Auditor, Budget, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators on October 11, 2010| 2 Comments »

Once upon a time the State of Louisiana owned a vast scrap yard in the middle of nowhere.

The Legislature said, “Someone may steal from it at night.”

So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then the Commissioner of Administration said, “How does the watchman do his
job without instruction?”

So they created a planning department and hired two consultants, one person
to write the policy manual, and one to do time studies.

Then the governor said, “How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?”

So they contracted with a Quality Control expert and hired two people:
one to do the studies and one to conduct motivational workshops.

Then the Legislative Fiscal Office said, “How are these people going to get paid?”

So they created two positions: an HR director and a payroll officer, then hired two clerks.

Then the Inspector General said, “Who will be accountable for all of these people?”

So they created an administrative section and hired three people: an
Administrative Officer, an Assistant Administrative Officer, and an in-house
Legal Counsel.

Then the Legislative Auditor said, “We’ve had this agency for one year
and we’re $918,000 over budget. We must cut back.”

So they laid off the night watchman.

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A quick overview of official arrogance

Posted in Auditor, BESE, Education, Governor's Office, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Prison, Recovery School District, RSD, Vitter, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 28, 2010| 1 Comment »

Louisiana’s Superintendent of Education doesn’t seem to be very smart. But don’t worry, he appears to have plenty company.

Paul Pastorek, originally appointed by Gov. Kathleen Blanco and retained by Bobby Jindal, is quick to blame the teachers of any school or school system that is shown to be failing.

But when test scores improve, guess who takes full credit? Okay, that was too easy.

But to repeat, he doesn’t seem to be very smart, especially for a lawyer, the occupational genus from which he was plucked to save Louisiana public education.

Taking the typical legal approach, Pastorek, without ever admitting actual culpability, earlier this month said he would repay the state $4,185 for dozens of private trips taken in a state vehicle by Paul Vallas, head the department’s Recovery School District. Both Pastorek and Vallas have insisted they were unaware that it was improper to take the Dodge Durango out of state on personal business, including several trips to visit family in Chicago. It was on one of the Chicago trips that Vallas wrecked the state car, the incident that led to the discovery of its out-of-state use.

What part of “improper use” don’t they understand?

In June, Higher Education Commissioner Sally Clausen resigned after it became public that she had furtively retired in August of 2009 without informing the Board of Regents, her bosses, only to be rehired after missing exactly one day of work. While entirely legal, the resulting flak caused her to become, in her own words, a “constant distraction.” The retire-rehire move netted her a $90,000 payout for unused sick leave and vacation time and entitled her to an annual pension of $146,400 on top of her regular salary.

It is still not certain as to who was responsible for “re-hiring” her. The Board of Regents is the hiring authority for the commissioner’s position and no member of the board has ever acknowledged knowing of her move in advance or indeed, for a full nine months after the fact. And she couldn’t very well re-hire herself, given the fact that she had resigned her position.

For questionable actions that may not necessarily be illegal but which have raised eyebrows for their apparent indiscretion, one need only pick a year. Take 2005, for example. In March of that year, Commissioner of Insurance Robert Wooley apparently felt his department needed a $40,000 special Harley-Davidson edition Ford truck, complete with heated seats, a camper package, diesel engine, red flames painted on the side, and a CD changer.

Wooley said he saw the vehicle on a car lot and wanted it so he traded in a year-old Eddie Bauer-designer edition Ford Expedition with only 30,000 miles on it. “I ain’t going to jail,” Wooley sniffed. “I sleep well every night.”

Edwin Edwards went to jail. So did former Commissioner of Elections Jerry Fowler and Commissioners of Insurance Sherman Bernard and Doug Green. Likewise Agriculture Commissioner Gil Dozier, three consecutive sheriffs in St. Helena Parish, and several judges in Orleans and Jefferson parishes. Former Congressman William Jefferson appears headed for jail for corruption and Federal Judge Thomas Porteous just underwent a rigorous impeachment trial with the U.S. Senate expected to render its verdict by Thanksgiving. Insurance Commissioner Jim Brown also went to jail but on the flimsiest of charges, that of lying to the FBI in an informal interview.

Senator David Vitter and former Congressman Bob Livingston both became involved in extra-marital affairs. Vitter’s was with a prostitute and Livingston’s affair was revealed at the same time he was calling for Bill Clinton’s resignation over the president’s Monica Lewinsky scandal. Livingston subsequently resigned from Congress only to emerge as a major player among the K Street lobbyists in Washington.

Vitter was considered vulnerable until Chet Traylor, a former Louisiana Supreme Court justice, decided to run against him and in so doing ended up making Vitter look good by comparison. Not only did Traylor have an affair with a Winnsboro legislator’s wife, but after they married and she later died, he began an affair with his stepson’s ex-wife. Traylor, who initially was considered a viable candidate, ended up with about 7 percent of the vote in the Republican primary.

In August, a federal jury in Shreveport convicted former State Senator Charles Jones of Monroe of tax evasion.

Just last week New Orleans Deputy Mayor Greg St. Etienne resigned. Hired by Mayor Mitch Landrieu to supervise the city’s chief financial office, he is accused of misuse of $500,000 in federal loans at a nonprofit organization he once ran.

Then there is Eddie Jordan, the man who put Edwin Edwards away.

Jordan, who succeeded Harry Connick as Orleans Parish district attorney, became embroiled in controversy almost from the day he took office. He summarily fired all his white assistant district attorneys who promptly filed suit. A jury found in favor of the fired workers and awarded them $3.7 million.

Jordan also came under heavy criticism for releasing suspects in high profile murder cases and in one instance, a suspect sought by police fled to Jordan’s home. In 2007, he released a suspect in the murders of five teenagers, saying that his office was unable to locate a key witness in the case. The New Orleans Police Department promptly produced the witness, who was in their custody all along. Later that same year, Jordan resigned.

But those are the high-profile cases. It’s those lawmakers and agency heads who try to fly just below the radar who sometimes are exposed as guilty of at least questionable behavior.

Whether it’s a legislator voting in favor of a bill that would benefit him financially or a pair of legislators swapping out Tulane scholarships in order to circumvent the prohibition against awarding the scholarships to family members, there are numerous conflicts of interest that often go unreported. Many public officials simply ignored that stipulation and put entire families through Tulane with the scholarships. (The families of former Crowley Judge Edmund Reggie and former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu come to mind.)

But what could any more of a conflict than a legislator’s making it a common practice to sue the state? It would be akin to a member of the board of Wal-Mart, IBM, or Exxon suing their companies on behalf of clients who walk in off the street.

It’s assumed that legislators take an oath to protect the state fisc, or treasury, but that almost seems mythical these days. But don’t try to tell State Sen. Rob Marionneaux (D-Livonia) that. Not only does he sue the state on a regular basis, but he recently found himself in hot water when he attempted to negotiate a settlement between LSU and his client, Bernhard Mechanical. The State Board of Ethics said Marionneaux told LSU representatives that Bernard would accept $7.1 million from LSU and that he would secure a legislative appropriation of an additional $5.5 million.

The board further said that Marionneaux violated the law by not notifying the board that he was representing Bernard Mechanical. Marionneaux countered by saying he was not required to do so. He elaborated by saying the reporting requirement does not apply to lawyers who are legislators.

In June, however, even as the ethics board was investigating him, Marionneaux attempted to slip language into a bill that would eliminate requirements that he disclose his representation of Bernard to the board. The bill failed.

Perhaps then, it should be no surprise that Pastorek, who said he gave permission to Vallas to use the vehicle on the trips, said of the repayment, “I don’t think legally, technically, I have to, but my feeling is we need to get this behind us and move forward.”

A legislative auditor’s report said Vallas, who doesn’t fly, used the state-owned SUV for dozens of visits to family in Illinois and along the Gulf Coast from the time he was hired in July 2007 through April 2009. Vallas admitted to auditors that 31 of his 41 trips out of Louisiana were not work-related.

Vallas no longer has a state vehicle. Instead, he has been given a $2,200 per month car allowance in addition to his $252,689 yearly salary.

Considering the number of trips taken and time away from the office for Vallas, plus repairs to the Durango, Pastorek may have gotten off light with paying $4,185 (gasoline alone should have exceeded that amount).

If that’s not sufficiently magnanimous of Pastorek, a week later he graciously declined a pay raise after receiving a favorable review of his job performance by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education but not before making it clear that he had earned the increase had he opted to take it.

It may have come as a surprise that he was even eligible for a pay increase when state classified workers were denied raises by the governor earlier this year. Pastorek, as a political appointee, is unclassified or non-civil service. His salary is $287,907, plus a housing allowance of $57,240 and a car allowance of $31,800. A 6 percent raise would have meant an additional $22,616 in annual compensation for Pastorek.

All things considered, it’s probably no surprise that a writer for the Chicago Tribune rated Louisiana worse than Illinois in public corruption.

Maybe new Southern University President Ronald Mason Jr. knew what he was doing when he brought his own lawyer onto the Southern payroll even as the university was laying off 50 employees.

Mason came to Southern from Jackson State University in Mississippi and brought both his Chief of Staff Evola Bates ($150,000 per year) and Executive Counsel Byron Williams ($120,000).

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Read the bill, Mr. Speaker, read the bill

Posted in Budget, Economy, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Transparency on September 5, 2010| 1 Comment »

At a meeting of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget during the legislative session earlier this year, House Speaker Jim Tucker popped in long enough to admonish fellow legislators (primarily state senators, it’s presumed) to “read the (state) Constitution.”

His remarks, however condescending they may or may not have been, were prompted by a running dispute he was having with Senate President Joel Chaisson in particular and the senate in general.

“Read the Constitution.” Terse, dramatic, patronizing. Exit left.

Now it turns out that Speaker Tucker might be advised to do some reading of his own.

Tucker, in a recent address in Monroe, blamed the Senate and Gov. Bobby Jindal for their failure to make deeper cuts in an attempt to mitigate next year’s anticipated $2 billion budgetary shortfall.

Speaking to the Monroe Chamber of Commerce on September 1, Tucker said of next year’s impending fiscal crisis, “We knew this was coming. We’ve been trying to manage this in the House for three years, but we were rebuffed by the Senate and the governor.

Tucker said the House had more significant cuts in the 2011 budget than the version ultimately approved after Jindal supported the Senate version, which, according to the House Speaker, used one-time money to postpone more severe cuts.

“So next year we’re going to deal with it as a crisis,” he said. “It’s not how I would have preferred to deal with it. I was disappointed, but we’ll deal with it as it comes.”

Perhaps Speaker Tucker should take his own advice and go back and read over HB 76 that passed the House by a vote of 88-0 and was signed by the governor as Act 41. HB 76, the ancillary appropriations bill, was the notorious bill that dumped some $33 million into local pork projects after additional funds were “found.”

Of that $33 million, Jindal managed to find 32 projects totaling less than $2.5 million that he could veto. Of the remaining $30 million-plus, $3.4 million was for local arts councils, $1.5 million was for local councils on aging, and another $12.8 million was appropriated for local parishes and municipalities, some of those with no explanation of how the money would be used. The City of Baton Rouge, for example, got two separate appropriations totaling $515,000 with no explanation of how the funds would be spent.

Of the appropriations for the councils on aging, $325,000 was for the Jefferson Council on Aging. Tucker is from Jefferson Parish.

The St. Landry School Board received $750,000 for “enhancements to public elementary and secondary education.”

The expenditures contained in HB 76, however, do not even approach the waste included in HB 1 (General Appropriations) and HB 2 (Capital Outlay).

Those two bills included, among other expenditures:

• $12 million for the Convention Center Complex in Shreveport;

• $6.1 million for the Baton Rouge Riverside Centroplex;

• $6.6 million for City Park Golf Complex in New Orleans;

• $6.12 million for golf course development in Westlake;

• $301,184 for Black Bear Golf Club at Poverty Point;

• $325,000 for promotion of the Audubon Golf Trail;

• $5,000 for the Delhi Municipal Golf Course;

• $200,000 for Junior Golf training facilities in Shreveport;

• $1.17 million for repairs to Zephyrs baseball facilities in Jefferson Parish;

• $17.5 million for professional sports facilities in Jefferson and Orleans parishes;

• $1 million for a recreational complex in Iberia Parish;

• $1.4 million for baseball stadium improvements in Baton Rouge.

Baton Rouge has no baseball team.

Is this House Speaker Jim Tucker’s idea of fiscal responsibility?

Read the bill, Mr. Speaker. Read the bill.

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Francis Thompson: Water Water Everywhere….but we need more

Posted in Budget, Economy, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Transparency, Water Reservoirs on August 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

State Sen. Francis Thompson is not only the family employment champion among state lawmakers (a news report from the 1980s claimed that he had more relatives on the state payroll than any other member of the legislature) but he also appears perfectly capable of siphoning off millions of dollars in state revenue for pet projects. Those projects primarily include ground water reservoirs in more than a dozen parishes costing taxpayers more than $163 million since 1997.

In a state teeming with hundreds of lakes and reservoirs while reeling from dwindling tax revenues, Sen. Thompson has managed to convince fellow legislators and three governors of the necessity of constructing even more. With the passage of each piece of legislation to appropriate funds for a new reservoir Thompson’s brother, former Delhi mayor Mike Thompson, secured a $100,000 per year consulting contract from the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD). That’s $100,000 per year per reservoir project.

Mike Thompson earlier this year was sentenced to 18 months after having been found guilty of one count of using district employees to work on his home in Delhi and charging the Poverty Point Reservoir District for the labor in violation of the Hobbs Act. The Hobbs Act was enacted by Congress in 1951 to combat racketeering in labor-management disputes but is often invoked in cases involving public corruption. He could have been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and prosecutors did argue for a sentence of 41-50 months. He was scheduled to report to prison on Monday of this week.

Francis Thompson’s older brother, Clyde Thompson, currently employed as executive director of the Madison Parish Port Commission at $49,207 per year, once served as second in command to DOTD Secretary Paul Hardy during the administration of former Gov. Dave Treen.

Monroe engineer Terry Denmon just as consistently was awarded engineering contracts for each of the reservoir projects undertaken. His contracts ranged from $200,000 to more than $700,000. Like Francis, Mike, and Clyde Thompson, Denmon is a graduate of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston and as recently as 2007 was chairman of the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission.

None of the reservoir projects has proved as expensive to the state and profitable—and troublesome—to the Thompsons and Denmon as the centerpiece of all of Francis Thompson’s reservoirs, Poverty Point Reservoir in Richland and Madison parishes. That project alone has cost the state more than all the others combined in priority 1, or first-year, funding. From 1997 through the 2010 regular legislative session that adjourned on June 21, Poverty Point has cost state taxpayers at least $81,855,000. That compares to $81,257,000 for all the other reservoir projects combined.

Not that the Bayou Dechene Reservoir project in Caldwell Parish isn’t in the running. The cost of that proposed lake to date is $40,650,000 in priority 1 funding—and counting.

Even as the state budget was swimming in a sea of red ink that forced major cutbacks to higher education and health care this year, the legislature plowed ahead, appropriating nearly $8.1 million in funding for Thompson’s reservoir projects in 2010. That amount included $3,152,000 for Poverty Point and $4,940,000 for four other reservoir projects in Allen ($800,000), Caldwell ($1,415,000), Washington ($2,625,000), and LaSalle ($100,000).

Those figures can be misleading because if bonds approved are not sold or funding appropriated for a project are not spent, the project must obtain renewed approval the following year. Bayou Dechene, for example, has received approval of identical amounts of $1,415,000 in each of the last seven years, including 2010.

What is not misleading, however, is how the Thompsons, through the efforts of Francis, have ensconced themselves in profitable recreational lakefront property development largely at the expense of taxpayer dollars. Francis Thompson even convinced the state in 2006 to take control of the 439-acre Black Bear Golf Course which is part of the Poverty Point Reservoir development and to install Mike Thompson as administrative director of the golf course.

But more significantly, was the plan to develop an elaborate retirement community at Poverty Point Reservoir. After purchasing the land and constructing elevated berms on which the state constructed roads and cul de sacs that would extend outward as island lots into the still-to-be-built lake, Thompson, then serving in the House, pushed through HB 1136 in the 2001 session which called for the state to purchase 2,586 acres that would become the Poverty Point Reservoir, excluding of course mineral rights and the berms that would make up the residential island lots on which Francis and Mike Thompson planned to develop a retirement community. That sale was consummated in early 2003 when the state paid the Poverty Point Reservoir District more than $2 million. The state, according to a 2002 state audit, also paid $1.2 million to develop the island lots, one of which was sold to a neighbor of Francis Thompson for $621,200. The state also paid $2.2 million for a keyed-gate entry private road to the lots and another $300,000 for an office burglar alarm system.

Then, during the 2002 legislative session, then-Rep. Francis Thompson struck again with what he probably felt would be the major coup. HB 84 of that session called for the exemption of a “developer of a qualified retirement community” from having to pay state or local ad valorem (property) taxes. The measure passed Senate by a 33-0 vote and the House with only seven dissents. Thompson might have been expected to abstain from voting on a measure that stood to benefit him financially—but he didn’t. Instead, he was among the 93 members voting in favor of the bill that eventually became Act 57 when signed by then-Gov. Mike Foster. Likewise, Thompson was one of 99 House members who in 2001 voted in favor of HB 1136, Thompson’s bill to sell Poverty Point Reservoir to the state for $2 million.

The only fly in the ointment was that the measure would have to go before the voters as a constitutional amendment in the Nov. 5, 2002 statewide election. It turned out to be a major problem when voters rejected the proposed amendment.

Thompson, upon being term-limited in the House, was elected Senator in 2007 to succeed similarly term-limited Charles Jones. Undeterred over the failure of the 2002 proposed constitutional amendment, he tried again, this time with SB 584, a bill identical in language to the 2002 House bill. This time, opponents were better prepared. The Legislative Fiscal Office provided estimates that the bill, if successful, would cost local and state governments as much as $600,000 per year in lost revenue.

Perhaps Francis Thompson, in voting in favor of HB 84 back in 2002, a bill that had the potential of enriching himself by as much as $600,000 per year was not joking when in his farewell address to the Louisiana House in 2007, he admonished fellow House members to “never allow ethics to get in the way of a good bill.”

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