Louisiana Voice

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s …well, you know.

But not necessarily, says a lobbyist for the Louisiana School Board Association (LSBA).

It was back in July 2014 that LouisianaVoice broke the STORY of the attempt to sneak an illegal retirement pay raise for then-Louisiana State Police (LSP) Superintendent Mike Edmonson into an obscure bill on the very last day of the legislative session.

That story led to vehement objections by retired state troopers which in turn led to more than 190 stories about Edmonson and LSP that culminated with Edmonson’s retirement but only after that ill-advised to San Diego via the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas by several troopers under Edmonson’s command.

That aborted retirement boost, dubbed The Edmonson Bill, was pushed by State Sen. Neil Riser who at first denied any part in the scam. The outcry was such that State Sen. Dan Claitor filed a suit to block the raise. The court ultimately agreed that the attempted raise was unconstitutional. But by then, the pressure was such that Edmonson had reversed himself, saying publicly that he would not accept the furtive bonus.

Well, guess what? It looks like they’re at it again.

While the latest bill doesn’t involve Edmonson, the tactic looks very much the same as that infamous bill of nearly seven years ago, though the LSBA spokesperson insists they’re vastly different.

This time it’s not an amendment to a bill as was the case in 2014. No, this one is a straight-up bill that quietly attempts to make an exception for the benefit of at most, maybe five persons.

State Rep. Jeremy LaCombe (D-Livonia) has pre-filed House Bill 22 which “provides for the transfer of certain employees of the Louisiana School Boards Association (LSBA), from the Parochial Employees’ Retirement System of Louisiana (PERS) to te Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana (TRSL).”

Current law provides that employees of the LSBA are members of PERS. LaCombe’s bill would provide that certain employees of the association would become members of TRSL but eligibility is restricted to only a few employees:

• New employees (hired after June 30, 2021);
• Any employee with at least five years of service credit in TRSL;
• The director of LSBA.

The bill would affect possibly three employees, five at most, according to an LSBA representative, with the most obvious being that of the LSBA executive director. And it’s those last two provisions of the bill that are key.

Coincidentally, Janet Pope, Ph.D., was named in July 2018 as executive director of LSBA after serving five years as the board’s development/legislative specialist (emphasis added).

LSBA lobbyist Dannie Garrett III said LaCombe’s bill is being filed to correct a flaw in the law that has existed for years. “The bill was pre-filed last year,” he said, “but the pandemic forced legislators to cut back on the number of bills they could file, so we’re trying it again this year.”

He said the bill would actually cost Pope in the short term because her contribution to her retirement would increase because TRSL, like most other state retirement systems, has an unfunded liability it is attempting to overcome with increased percentage contributions. PERS, he said, does not have an unfunded liability.

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If it weren’t such a pitiful farce, the vote by Louisiana’s congressional delegation on President Biden’s economic stimulus bill might be funny.

Instead, all it does is expose the hypocrisy in its rawest, most partisan form.

The four House members, Steve Scalise, Clay Higgins, Mike Johnson and Garret Graves, each voted No on House Resolution 1319, the $1.9 trillion relief bill.

Despite their opposition, the resolution squeezed through on a tight 220-211 vote.

In the Senate, the resolution narrowly passed by a 50-49 vote even though both Louisiana senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, voted No.

They are all Repugnantcans and the bill was being pushed by a president who happened to be a Democrat.

But let us flash back to March 14, 2020. That was the day that the House voted on House Resolution 6201, Donald Trump’s $2 trillion relief package to help struggling Americans who had lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump, of course, was a Repugnantcan.

On that vote, Scalise, Higgins, Johnson, Graves and Cedric Richmond voted Yes. Ralph Abraham, then representing Louisiana’s 5^th District and with one foot out the door, did not vote.

The resolution swept through the Senate by a vote of 90-8. In the House, the result was an overwhelming vote of 363-40 in favor of the resolution.

In the Senate, both Cassidy and Kennedy voted Yes.

I remind you that of the five House members and the two senators casting their Yea votes, only Richmond was a Democrat.

Do we detect a hint of inconsistency in those votes?

So, the question is: how was it that Trump’s $2 trillion relief package sailed through both chambers but Biden’s $1.9 trillion proposal was barely approved by the narrowest of margins?

The answer is simple, really. The Repugnantcans are hypocrites. There is no other answer that could explain the 180-degree switch from bipartisan approval of a Repugnantcan’s $2 trillion proposal and such a struggle to get a Democrat’s $1.9 trillion approved.

Perhaps Kennedy, Cassidy, Higgins, Graves, Johnson and Scalise should insist that their constituents return their uncashed $1400 stimulus checks to the U.S. Treasury.

Seriously though, if those votes don’t clearly illustrate the mindset of today’s Repugnantcan Party, nothing will. They have clearly shown themselves to be obstructionists who will resort to any ploy to keep control – even supporting a clown’s unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen from him and attempting every measure available to them to PREVENT BLACKS FROM VOTING.

They can call the voter suppression efforts by any name they want, but the truth is, it’s just the American version of APARTHEID. There’s just no other name for it. Perhaps they should abandon any pretense at advocating equality and just rename themselves as the American Apartheid Party.

Isn’t it sad that we were so critical of that practice in South Africa but half our leaders in Congress and many of our legislatures are perfectly willing, yea eager, to advance it here?

Hell, an attorney representing the Arizona Repugnantcan Party ADMITTED in his argument before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 3 that striking down a voter suppression law in his state would put Repugnantcans “at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats.”

In other words, Repugnantcans can’t expect to win without denying minorities the right to vote.

In another development, the Associated Press reported that in a LEAKED AUDIO, a leading Trump adviser told influential Wisconsin Repugnantcans in December that voter suppression was “traditionally” part of the party’s election strategy in battleground states.

No fewer than two dozen states have moved forward with efforts enact restrictions on voting. To date, only one curious bill has been pre-filed in Louisiana. Rep. Blake Miguez (R-Erath) has authored a bill that would prohibit the use of private funds to pay election-related expenses.

But if Louisiana follows the lead of other states, you can look for similar efforts to suppress black voting from the state’s Repugnant-dominated legislature.

Watch this space for further developments.

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When Karen Carter Peterson’s father died in 2018, he left an estate valued at more than $6.2 million, half of which went to his wife and the remaining $3.1 million to be divided equally between Sen. Peterson and her two sisters.

That meant she was an instant millionaire.

Still, she found it necessary to rip off state taxpayers for nearly $15,000 in per diem payments at $161 per day for 20 of the 24-day session in 2020 that she did not attend ($13, 685 in per diem, plus another $1,225.90 in mileage). That was in addition to her $22,800 base salary as a member of the Louisiana Legislature.

Back in 2012, when she was elected State Democratic Party Chairperson, she proceeded to stack the State Democratic Executive Committee with her own appointees and then prevailed on her friendly committee to approve an ANNUAL STIPEND of $36,000, plus expenses (It might be interesting to know if she charged mileage to both the state Democratic Party and to the state of Louisiana when she traveled to Baton Rouge on legislative/party business).

Even then she wasn’t finished. Her sister Eileen Carter of Houma was paid $13,000 during October and November 2015 for “organizational/grassroots consultation” ($1500 per week, or a per-annum rate of $78,000).

Given all that, it seems fair to compare Carter Peterson to the owner of a five-star restaurant like say, Antoine’s of New Orleans, going from table to table grabbing the tips intended for the wait staff (of course, it goes without saying that the owner of Antoine’s would never pull a stunt so crass – but the same might not apply, apparently, to Carter Peterson). Considering Louisiana’s abysmal poverty rate, it somehow conjures up images of a rich merchant sweeping crumbs from the outstretched hands of a starving peasant.

She also appointed Stephen Handwerk as Executive Director of the State Democratic Party at a salary of almost $100,000.

But, to be fair, let’s take a closer look at Carter Peterson’s leadership, her sister’s work at “organizational/grassroots consultation” and Handwerk’s performance at identifying and engaging Democratic voters in the state.

Taking the latter first, Handwerk was somewhat reluctant to make use of an available database to perform his job, claiming that he had insufficient staff to perform the task. Yet, he somehow found the time to take a second salaried job with the Democratic National Committee.

Eileen Carter? Well, we just don’t know what the hell she did to earn $13,000 in two months.

But as for Carter Peterson herself, well, in 2017, she managed to get herself elected to the DNC as Vice Chair of Civic Engagement and Voter Participation even as the Louisiana Democratic Party was bleeding membership.

Mark Ballard, writing for the BATON ROUGE ADVOCATE last July, said, “…on Peterson’s watch the number of registered Democrats, who once dominated electoral politics in Louisiana, declined about 10%, losing 148,834 voters to total 1.25 million Democrats as of July.”

The number of Republicans, Ballard said, grew by 20% to 948,850 during her eight years as state Democratic Party chair.

Of course, much of that shift in both directions can be attributed to the trend, especially in the South, of Republican growth and Democratic losses. Still, for someone hired specifically for civic engagement and voter participation, her performance has to be considered disappointing at best and inept at worst. You simply cannot grow interest in any endeavor if you don’t get your message out – and the message from the Louisiana Democratic Party has been one of utter silence. You’d think the state Democratic offices would be a hive of activity, pandemic or no pandemic, during the recent presidential campaign. Instead, a visit to the Baton Rouge headquarters in the midst of the campaign found the place locked and vacant.

At least part of the reason for that must certainly be attributed to her lack of leadership.

“But the biggest concern to several Democratic Parish Executive Committee (DPEC) members,” LouisianaVoice SAID in November 2017, “is the lack of membership on no fewer than 29 parish executive committees, a condition critics attribute to Peterson’s lack of timely appointments.

“There are 29 parishes which have five or fewer members on their committee,” one DPEC member said. “There should be at least 15 members of each parish executive committee. That’s nearly half the state that has non-existent or non-functioning DPECs. Livingston Parish has only seven of 15 seats filled. One member of the Livingston DPEC has been working since February to get the seats filled but that still hasn’t been done even though names have been submitted.”

And nearly two years into Peterson’s second term as state chairperson, there were still 33 Democratic State Central Committee (DSCC) vacancies. “If she fills positions at all, it’s usually with her minions,” one DSCC member said.

So, now Peterson is presenting herself as the best-qualified candidate to succeed the departed Cedric Richmond as U.S. Representative from Louisiana’s 2^nd District.

Given her performances as state Democratic chair and DNC vice chair of civic engagement and voter participation, her torpedoing of gubernatorial appointments, her only occasional appearances at her legislative job while still being paid for non-attendance, the nepotism and favoritism in her hiring and the shrinking of the state Democratic Party under her leadership, it would be a pretty good stretch for her to be considered as the best the 2^nd District has to offer.

In fact, it’s difficult to see her as the best at anything other than looking out for Karen Carter Peterson.

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Even as the St. Tammany Parish School Board refuses to divulge when – or even if – it has requested background checks on personnel and even as the board exerts every effort at its disposal – legal and otherwise – to silence critics, an internal audit has revealed that of the 55 public schools in the parish, at least 44 (80 percent) are considered medium- to high-risks when it comes to sufficient oversight of $12.5 million in student activity funds.

The $12.5 million controlled by the 55 schools comes to an average of $227,272 per school, though five schools considered at high risk are sitting on student activity funds totaling more than $3.5 million – an average of $700,000 per school.

Those schools are Mandeville High School ($1.3 million), Covington High ($610,381), Pearl River High ($387,625), Salmen High ($396,545) and Slidell High ($817,111).

In all, 11 schools are classified as high risk by the board’s own internal auditor while another 33 are considered medium risks, according to the board’s Risk Assessment for the current school year obtained by LouisianaVoice.

The funds are generated through school fundraisers such as fees, field trip payments, food services, T-shirts, P.E. uniforms, parking finds, passes and other activities and are used to finance various student activities such as band, pep squads, athletic teams, etc.

An audit of Honey Island Elementary School, a high-risk school, noted that purchase request forms were either incomplete or did not contain the required prior approval needed for purchases. Moreover, it revealed that the principal’s travel expense form was paid without a supervisor’s approval or without supporting documentation.

Another high-risk school, Bayou Woods Elementary School showed areas of concern as well. A review of purchase request forms, for example, showed in one situation, the school principal initiated a disbursement request and had the assistant principal sign the “Principal Approval” to authorize the expense, meaning that the final expense approval was obtained from an employee who reports to the principal.

In another instance, school funds were used to purchase a $650 “unique item” without the completion of required purchase request forms to document the business purpose of the expense.

The risk assessment report and the 2007 RAPE of an elementary school student by a school custodian have combined to raise alarm with several St. Tammany Parish citizens over whether or not the board carries out its responsibility to conduct criminal background checks on employees in a timely manner.

And whenever the issue is raised with the board, critics are silenced as with the abrupt KILLING OF THE MICROPHONE of that rape victim at a January board meeting.

But the real kicker is the board’s ruling that one can only speak to a particular agenda item but requests to speak must be submitted in writing by noon the Friday before the next meeting – even though the agenda for the meeting has not yet been posted.

“How can someone possibly know what’s on the agenda before noon if it’s not posted?” asked Rebecca Bleker, the mother of the 2007 rape victim, Justin Bleker.

Cindy Rester, a frequent critic of the board, was a bit harsher in her assessment of the board and School Superintendent Frank Jabbia:

“I am appalled after reading your response! You may want to read [the] St. Tammany Parish School Board Policy, and I suggest that you read the LAW particularly La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§17:81, 42:14, 42:15, 42:16, 42:2.

“Public Comments for Agenda Items is totally different and is a requirement set out in law.

“If you are going to be in charge and responding to things like this, I suggest you may want to take a class from Louisiana Legislative Auditor to LEARN about such things. I am attaching for your review the LLA FAQ on Open Meeting Laws you should find it very interesting.

“In fact, they have a whole section just for School Boards Louisiana Legislative Auditor.”

Below are the board Risk Assessment Report for the 2020-2021 school year and the internal audit reports on Bayou Woods Elementary and Honey Island Elementary schools.

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“First, with regards to the reappointment of Ronnie Jones, the Louisiana Gaming Control Board needed an injection of new leadership after seven years of Jones serving as chairman and even more years as a regulator.

“I applaud Gov. John Bel Edwards’ appointment of Lt. Col. Mike Noel, who, as the governor says, brings a “wealth of experience and knowledge” to the Board.”

—State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, on her reasons for objecting to the reappointment of Ronnie Jones as Chairman of the Louisiana Gaming Control Board.

No reflection on the abilities of Noel, but while Carter Peterson felt that new blood was needed after Jones’s seven years, she seems to have ignored the fact that Noel spent 17 years regulating gaming as head of the Gaming Division of State Police.

Her apparent disregard for logic and reason as evidenced in her statement above may well be part of the explanation of how she has run the Louisiana Democratic Party into the ground since her election as Chairperson in 2012.

Now Carter Peterson is seeking election to Congress from Louisiana’s Second District. She hopes to fill the seat vacated by the capable Cedric Richmond now serving as a Senior Advisor to President and Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

So, with a lot riding on who represents citizens of the state’s 2^nd Congressional District, perhaps a closer look at Carter Peterson’s performance in the Louisiana Legislature might be appropriate.

From 2017 through 2020, she missed 45 percent of all votes in the legislature despite drawing a salary of $22,500 per year, plus per diem and mileage. That’s more than 1,770 votes she missed.

And if one thinks 45 percent is a tad on the high side, consider this: in 2020, she missed a whopping 85 PER CENT Of VOTES.

But here’s the real kicker: In the pandemic-shortened legislative session of 2020, State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson missed an eye-popping 20 of 24 days – but collected her per diem (at $161 per day) for all 24 days ($13,685) and $1,225.90 in mileage payments (mileage for about a dozen round trips to and from New Orleans).

Legislators, it should be pointed out, generally stay overnight in Baton Rouge during the session, returning home on weekends and Carter Peterson is one of those fortunate lawmakers who gets to rent an apartment at the Pentagon Barracks across the street from the Capitol at bargain basement rates.

To get an idea of what a generous perk those apartments are, go HERE for a story I did more than 10 years ago.

Last year’s payout comes to almost $15,000 ($14,910.90) for non-attendance – in addition to her $22,800 legislative salary. That’s a total of $37,710.90 for a part-time job when many Louisianans don’t make that much at their full-time jobs.

And as the really campy TV commercials say, but wait. There’s more.

Carter Peterson also holds down, presumably, a full-time job (since 2014) with DENTONS LAW FIRM in its energy division. The June 5, 2014, news release announcing her appointment said, in part, “Her significant experience in Louisiana business and government, and work nationwide, gives her a unique perspective that will be of tremendous value to our clients.”

Among Dentons’ clients are Entergy and the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board.

So esteemed is Carter Peterson that she is not even listed among Dentons’s “professionals” on the firm’s web page. Still, she pulls down more than $100,000 per year, according to FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE FORMS filed with the State Ethics Board.

And then there is her husband, Dana Peterson, who serves as an assistant superintendent for the Louisiana Department of Education at $136,536 per year, according to Carter Peterson’s 2019 financial disclosure.

With those kinds of salaries, she still feels the need to rip off Louisiana taxpayers for sessions she didn’t attend. That’s real class.

With the legislature charged with approving budgets for all state departments, it would be interesting to know whether or not she abstains when matters concerning the Department of Education or the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, come up for legislative action.

…If she shows up to vote at all, that is.

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