Posted in Jobs, Notable Quotables, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Privatization on May 19, 2011| 3 Comments »
“I still have my job.”
—a beaming J.S. “Bud” Thompson, on March 15, 2010, to his Office of Risk Management employees who were losing theirs, on announcing the takeover of ORM by F.A. Richard & Associates (FARA). Less than a year later, FARA sells out to Avizent, an Ohio company.
Posted in Contract, Contracts, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Privatization, Transparency on May 19, 2011| 3 Comments »
BATON ROUGE (CNS)—Neither rain, nor sleet, nor act of sale by contractor shall deter Gov Bobby Jindal’s ever-onward march of privatization of state agencies.
LouisianaVoice has learned that F.A. Richard & Associates (FARA), the company that assumed control over the Louisiana Office of Risk Management (ORM) only last July, has been sold for an undisclosed amount to an Ohio company.
Avizent, of Dublin, Ohio, will apparently assume control of ORM, though no timetable was immediately available as to when the transition would take place.
FARA signed a contract with the Division of Administration (DOA) last year whereby the Mandeville company would be paid $68 million to take over all lines of coverage provided by ORM, as well as its Loss Prevention, Accounting, and Subrogation units.
ORM’s Loss Prevention, Subrogation, and Worker’s Comp sections were the first to go over to FARA and General Liability will follow later this year.
Only last week, Rep. Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee chastised DOA and ORM for neglecting to seek approval for a $7 million amendment to FARA’s five-year contract.
The Office of Contractual Review approved the amendment, according to ORM Assistant Director Patti Gonzales, because the agency is allowed one amendment without legislative approval so long as the amendment amount does not exceed 10 percent of the original contract amount.
A $7 million amendment, however, would be $200,000 in excess of 10 percent of the original $68 million contract.
FARA CEO Todd Richard sat beside Gonzales during the committee hearing last Thursday’s hearing but never mentioned the pending sale of his company.
Avizent has 35 offices in 25 states but the Baton Rouge office is manned by only one employee.
Attempts to obtain comments from Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater and Fannin were unsuccessful. A spokesman for FARA declined to comment but a spokesperson for Advizent CEO Tom Watson confirmed that Advizent was “in the process” of acquiring FARA. She said Watson was in Baton Rouge Thursday in preparation for a public announcement of the transaction.
ORM was the first successful privatization of a state agency by Jindal. Other agencies he is attempting to outsource include several state prison facilities and the Office of Group Benefits (OGB).
OGB presently has a request for proposals (RFP) for a financial analyst to assess the value of OGB and to then seek a third party administrator (TPA) to run OGB’s Preferred Provider Organization (PPO). Blue Cross/Blue Shield already administers OGB’s HMO but there has been considerable resistance to the privatization of the PPO.
Tommy Teague, the former CEO of OGB, who was fired on April 15, testified before the Senate Retirement Committee recently that he saw no need for a financial analyst if DOA only wanted a TPA. “There is no need to know the worth of the agency just to obtain a TPA,” he said, adding that a financial assessment would be needed only in the event the state wants to sell OGB.
Rainwater has been inconsistent about whether or not the state desires to sell or obtain a TPA, issuing conflicting statements in testimony before the Senate Retirement Committee (see May 18 Notable Quotables) and its chairman, Sen. Butch Gautreaux (D-Morgan City).
CNS has also learned that a number of private prison enterprises have contributed generously to Jindal’s political campaigns since his first run for governor in 2003.
Leading contributors included Corrections Corp. of America (CCA) of Nashville, Tennessee, the nation’s largest private prison firm ($13,000), which runs the state’s Winn Parish facility on a contractual basis; GEO Group of Boca Raton, Florida, which operates Allen Correction Center in Kinder in Allen Parish ($10,000); LaSalle Management of Ruston, which operates lockups in Claiborne, Ouachita, Catahoula, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, and Concordia parishes ($10,000), and Emerald Correctional Management of Shreveport which operates facilities in West Carroll Parish ($10,000).
A fifth contributor, Wackenhut Corrections of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida ($10,000), once operated a juvenile detention center in Jena but after a CBS 60 Minutes report on abuses by guards at the center prompted federal investigations into the center, it was turned back over to the state.
Abuse of juvenile offenders is not limited to Louisiana.
A lengthy investigation in Pennsylvania revealed that two judges in Luzerne County were involved in the “cash for kids” scandal in which the judges handed down severe penalties for minor infractions. Many juveniles were led from the courtroom in shackles and were shipped directly to private-run detention centers that were paying kickbacks to the judges.
Judge Mark Ciavarella, who sentenced one teenage girl to 90 days in a detention center for the crime of spoofing her high school vice principal on MySpace, was convicted in February for his role in the $2.8 million bribery scandal.
Posted in House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, ORM, Office of Risk Management on May 12, 2011| 2 Comments »
“Isn’t there some rule or regulation where you could prevent your employees from leaving and taking jobs elsewhere?
—Rep. Mert Smiley (R-Port Vincent) to Patti Gonzales, Assistant Director of the Office of Risk Management (ORM) on learning that ORM employees were leaving the agency for other employment in the wake of ORM’s ongoing privatization.
Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Teague, Transparency on May 6, 2011| 13 Comments »
Perhaps it’s only coincidence, but a trend seems to be developing in Baton Rouge and it’s not a very pretty one.
There is a condescending attitude of arrogance that permeates the Jindal administration from top to bottom and the day to day civil servants who work in the trenches are the ones who are feeling the brunt of the administration’s haughtiness.
The attack has been subtle but steady with no letup in sight.
Forget about Jindal’s campaign flyer four years ago in which he pretended to hold state employees in such high esteem (LouisianaVoice post of April 22). That was just political rhetoric that morphed into bitter irony.
State Employee Recognition Day? That was last Wednesday and for the third consecutive year, Jindal signed a proclamation in which he fawned over “dedicated state employees” even as he maneuvered behind the scenes to have legislation introduced last year to abolish Civil Service, to freeze merit pay increases for classified employees but not for unclassified employees (read: political appointees), and even as he moved to privatize everything in sight at the cost of putting mid-career employees on the streets who are not qualified for social security or Medicare. Some of those employees have life-threatening illnesses and will have no medical insurance.
One state employee, Melody Teague, was fired one day after she criticized Jindal during a forum held by the Commission for Streamlining Government. She won her job back but her husband recently evoked memories of the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” of Oct. 20, 1973, when Richard Nixon fired Archibald Cox and abolished the office of Special Prosecutor.
Tommy Teague, by all accounts, had been doing a superb job as CEO of the Office of Group Benefits. OGB went from a $100 million deficit when he took over to a $500 million surplus and the agency was paying claims within 48 hours.
But on April 15, Jindal decided that Teague was somehow standing in his way of privatizing that agency and Deputy Commissioner of Administration Mark Brady was called on to fire Teague. Unlike Attorney General Elliot Richardson, who resigned rather than carry out Nixon’s orders to fire Cox, Brady was more than up to the task and Teague was shown the door.
All that’s old news. Last week a couple more events, though minor in the overall scheme of things, nevertheless strip away that veneer of piety behind which Jindal prefers to hide. Neither event directly involved Jindal but as was said earlier, it’s the arrogance from top to bottom that makes the latest occurrences seem so typical of this administration.
Let’s take the Office of Risk Management first. This agency was privatized last year at a cost of $68 million to the state with a promise of savings of $20 million per year. The first section to go was Worker’s Comp. That was last July. Less than nine months later, the company that took over ORM, F.A. Richard & Associates (FARA) requested and got approval for a $7 million amendment, bringing the cost to $75 million.
Rep. Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro) apparently wasn’t too pleased that FARA was seeking more money or that the Division of Administration approved the amended contract. He has placed ORM on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting of the House Appropriations Committee which he chairs.
But that’s not the story. ORM Director J.S. “Bud” Thompson sent out word to his troops on Thursday that no one from ORM was to attend the meeting.
That is in direct violation of Civil Service rules. In fact, a very recent memorandum just went out to all Civil Services employees from the Department of Civil Service that addresses that very issue.
General Circular No. 2011-009 reminds state employees that the 2011 Regular Session of the Legislature will be taken up mostly with budget issues. “As classified state employees, some of these issues may have a direct impact on you (and) about which you may wish to speak,” the circular said. “Classified employees are prohibited from engaging in efforts to support a candidate, party, or political faction in an election.
“These restrictions do not prohibit classified employees from expressing themselves either privately or publicly on issues that may be pending before the legislature.”
The circular also said state employees who attend legislative hearings must be on approved leave.
Thompson did not respond to an email inquiry from CNS about his new policy—new, because a year ago, ORM employees were allowed to attend Joint Budget Committee hearings on the privatization—but on Friday he did amend his policy to allow one employee from the agency to attend Tuesday’s hearing.
His Friday email, sent to all ORM employees, attempted to justify his decision to limit attendance. “Because of the need to continue our preparations for the July 1st transfer of handling of General Liability claims to FARA and the concern that rising river levels next week might cause us problems in accessing our office, we will allow only one employee to attend that meeting,” he said.
Other lines, or units, will not be involved in preparations for transferring the General Liability line to FARA any more than other lines were involved in last July’s transfer of Worker’s Comp to FARA. In that case, claims adjusters came to work one day and the Worker’s Comp adjusters simply were gone. No pomp, no fanfare, just gone and no one else’s work was disrupted in the least, so the General Liability excuse is a smoke screen easily recognized as such by ORM workers.
Again, though, he is in violation of Civil Service regulations; there is nothing in the regulations that allow him to restrict the number of employees who may attend.
But not to worry: streaming video of the hearing can be accessed by logging onto http://www.legis.louisiana.gov/ and navigating to the proper committee room (5). Thompson’s Friday email also instructed employees they watch the video playback at home but to refrain from viewing it at work. Of course, an enterprising employee could simply plug in his or her headphones and minimize the video and continue working on claims while listening to Thompson’s testimony.
The other event is totally void of any semblance of subtlety.
CNS received an anonymous letter on Friday that contained an email sent from the iPhone of Nick Gautreaux, erstwhile state senator from Abbeville, not to be confused with current Sen. Butch Gautreaux of Morgan City. Nick Gautreaux is the current Commissioner of the State Office of Motor Vehicles.
Dated March 17, the email was addressed to all OMV employees and consisted of only five sentences but it was the third sentence that appeared to hold true to the philosophy of superciliousness that has become the hallmark of the Jindal tenure.
“I am proud of our teams (sic) hard work this past week,” the email began. “All of you have shown a willingness to progress to a higher level of production and customer service.”
Then came that third sentence: “I must say that the individuals who continue to defy change will suffer the wrath of my management team.”
He closed by saying, “I want everyone to know that I have an open door policy. Thanks for the hard work.”
It’s pretty evident that Gautreaux didn’t go to the Zig Ziglar School of Employee Relations. If he did, he was absent on Motivation Day.
Defy Change? Management wrath? Could OMV be next? Holy Privatization, Batman!
Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Transparency, Uncategorized on May 1, 2011| 6 Comments »
You have to give it to Gov. Bobby Jindal: he never runs short of ways to insult state employees.
Time and again, he has shown his disdain, his utter contempt for state employees. His mantra of privatization of everything that moves in state government gives little or no consideration as to how it adversely affects state workers.
When he privatized the Office of Risk Management, there were employees with 20 or more years of service who are too young to qualify for retirement benefits and with the current job market so depressed, their prospects of finding meaningful employment are slim. Others who have worked only for the state and are of retirement age, do not qualify for social security or Medicare and are now faced with no medical coverage. Some of those have life-threatening illnesses.
Accordingly, when they lose their jobs, they not only lose their salaries, but their medical coverage as well. Of course they qualify to keep coverage under COBRA but the responsibility for 100 percent of the premiums falls to them and with no job, it’s rather difficult to keep the coverage.
But not to worry: Jindal has found yet one more way to display the extent of his hostility for Civil Service employees and the low esteem in which he holds state workers. It comes in the form of cruel irony that were the circumstances not so dire, it might be laughable.
Apparently it wasn’t enough to publish that nauseating campaign pamphlet four years ago in which he gushed on and on about his love for the state civil service workers. He was so kind as to remind us then that he had worked for the state and that his mother still did (and still does).
Now comes General Circular No. 2011-008 in which he designates May 4, 2011, as “State Employee Recognition Day.” The circular was actually issued by the Department of Civil Service, apparently because Jindal was too busy attending out of state fundraisers.
Turns out he couldn’t even do that right: While the heading correctly says May 4, 2011, the text of the edict proclaims May 4, 2010, as “State Employee Recognition Day in Louisiana.”
The circular is addressed to Heads of State Agencies and Human Resources Directors and reads thusly:
As a part of the nationwide celebration of Public Service Recognition Week (May 2-6), Governor Bobby Jindal has proclaimed Wednesday, May 4, 2010, as State Employee Recognition Day in Louisiana.
We encourage you to use this opportunity to recognize your employees and educate the public about the work state employees are doing to keep our citizens safe, protect our drinking water, provide medical care to the indigent, help abused children, maintain our roads and bridges, and so much more.
Don’t forget to ask your Human Resources Directors and Communications Directors to partner to effectively educate the public on the many quality services your employees deliver to our citizens. Tell the story of how they are making a difference in our communities.
For ideas on activities and community and media outreach projects, there are helpful resources for your review, such as NASPE’s “2010 NASPE (National Association of State Personnel Executives) Guide to State Employee Recognition Day” found at http://www.naspe.net.
One would think they would at least update last year’s circular to reference the 2011 NASPE guide.
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