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Archive for the ‘Privatization’ Category

Bossier council to pay $1M to firm taking over water system after mayor, 2 councilmen accept $20,000 in campaign cash

Posted in Boards, Campaign Contributions, Commissions, Contract, Contracts, Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Privatization, Public Records, Transparency, Uncategorized on June 7, 2016| 11 Comments »

During the Bobby Jindal years in Louisiana, it was well documented that seats on prestigious boards and commissions were the rewards for generous campaign contributions.

Seats on the LSU Board of Supervisors, the Board of Supervisors of the University of Louisiana System, the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District (Superdome), or various levee boards came at a price and those who wanted the seats ponied up. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/11/bobby_jindals_political_appoin.html

Even the job of monitoring Louisiana’s hundreds of boards and commissions went to the director of the Committee to Re-Elect Bobby for an eight-month period from mid-October, 2012 to June 28, 2013, thus insuring that board appointees would do the bidding of the governor.

That, apparently, is the way politics work just about everywhere.

In Florida, a large enough campaign contribution can even buy justice—or stymie justice, as the case may be.

Pam Bondi, attorney general in the Sunshine State (talk about a misnomer), solicited—and received—a $25,000 contribution from the Donald Trump Foundation and once the check cleared, she promptly dropped her office’s investigation of Trump University, conveniently citing insufficient grounds to proceed. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/florida-ag-asked-trump-donation-075016133.html

And in Bossier City, less than $20,000 in campaign contributions has smoothed the way for the transfer of the city’s water and sewer department to a private Baton Rouge firm—at a first-year cost of more than $1 million to the city, and the loss of about 40 jobs in the department.

http://www.ksla.com/story/32159296/public-private-partnership-in-bossier-city-threatens-dozens-of-jobs

http://www.ktbs.com/story/32163755/bossier-city-council-considers-privatizing-water-sewer-operations

Word has been filtering down to LouisianaVoice for some time now that Caddo Parish is the new New Orleans in terms of political corruption. Apparently elected officials across the Red River have been paying attention to both Caddo Parish and to Bobby Jindal’s love of privatization as well as his thirst for campaign contributions.

The city council voted unanimously Tuesday (June 6) afternoon to approve the PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT with Manchac Consulting Group out of Baton Rouge.

Typical of the seemingly growing penchant of public officials for operating out of earshot of the public, more than 100 employees of the Water and Sewer Department have been told nothing over the last several months of negotiations. City officials have refused to provide information to workers even though an organizational chart proposed by Manchac reflects half the current staffing in some departments.

On Tuesday, the vote was 7-0 to approve a five-year contract with Manchac Consulting to oversee the city water and sewer treatment plants, distribution lines and daily operations at a first-year cost of a little more than $1 million the first year, including $120,000 upon city officials’ signing the contract.

Campaign finance reports show that at-large council member David Montgomery received $2500 from Manchac, $2500 from its CEO Justin Haydel, $2500 from Atakapa Construction Group, which includes Haydel and Manchac President Kenneth Ferachi as officers, $2500 from Manchac Senior Project Manager Christopher LaCroix, and $999 from Ferachi—a total of $10,999.

Council member Scott Irwin received $500 each ($2000 total) from Atakapa, Ferachi, Haydel and Manchac Consulting Group.

Bossier City Mayor Lorenz “Lo” Walker received $6,644 total, including $2500 from Manchac Consulting, $3,144 from Haydel (including $2,144 in an in-kind contribution for a fundraising dinner in Baton Rouge), and $1000 from Atakapa Construction.

An Associated Press story pointed out that the Trump family foundation contribution, received by a political group supporting Bondi’s re-election, was received on September 17, 2013 and was in “apparent violation” of rules regulating political activities by charities.

But hey, what’s a little obstacle like a federal law when you’re trying to buy your way out of trouble? It was The Donald himself, after all, who is on record as saying he expects and receives favors from politicians to whom he gives money.

The commitment to pay Manchac more than $1 million over the next 12 months may be completely above-board—we hope so, anyway—but taken in context with the way city officials kept their own employees in the dark even as the mayor and two council members took contributions from the prospective vendor, it just doesn’t look good. And, as they say: perception is everything.

Public employees, after all, are prohibited—as they should be—from accepting anything of monetary value from vendors or contractors. So why should elected officials be held to a completely different (read: double) standard of ethical behavior?

Before we leave this topic, it should be pointed out that politicians will only do what they can get away with. If the voters lower the bar, then our public officials will respond accordingly. Only if we demand accountability, will officials be accountable. A compliant legislature not held accountable by voters allowed Jindal to rape this state for eight years. Likewise, our failure to insist on statesmanship instead of demagoguery, decorum instead of buffoonery, serious discussion of the issues instead of meaningless rhetoric, sanity instead of hysteria, has created candidates like Donald Trump.

If we consistently look the other say and say that’s just the way it is, that’s the way it will always be.

And we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

We will have done it to ourselves.

 

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Jindal hospital privatization plans just won’t go away; Baton Rouge attorney files appeal of Huey P. Long Hospital closure

Posted in Ethics, Fraud, Governor's Office, Health Care, Huey Long, Lawsuits, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, Privatization, Senate, Transparency on April 25, 2016| 12 Comments »

There’re few feelings worse than a hangover and when the hangover contains remnants of the eight-year drunjeb privatization binge of the Bobby Jindal administration, the pain is particularly excruciating. In this case, it’s the state hospital privatization fiasco that keeps on giving us the dry heaves.

It may not rank up there with the 50-page blank contract http://www.forward-now.com/2014/01/09/as-the-la-hospital-privatization-biomed-worms-turn/ but the less-than-transparent and most probably more than a little illegal closure of one hospital has prompted a Baton Rouge attorney to file an APPEAL with the First Circuit Court of Appeal in Baton Rouge. His appeal follows the State Civil Service Commission’s denial of his Civil Service appeal on behalf of eight employees who lost their jobs when the Huey P. Long Hospital in Pineville.

Arthur Smith III initially also represented Edwin Ray Parker, president of Council 17 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and Brad Ott, a public hospital patient from New Orleans. Upon being informed they had no standing in a civil service matter since they were not state employees, however, they requested that their claims be dismissed.

In all, some 200 employees lost their jobs when the Jindal administration shuttered the facility on June 30, 2014.

Ott and Parker initially sued the state as soon as the closure was approved, claiming legislators did not comply with the Louisiana State Constitution in authorizing Bobby Jindal to close the LSU-run hospital. A retired state judge sitting in for the presiding judge in the case, in a curious ruling noted that the Senate violated the open meetings law when the proposed legislation was heard by its Health and Welfare Committee and said the closure was unconstitutional—but nevertheless allowed the closure to go forward. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/06/lsu_hospital_closure_ruled_unc.html

The open meetings law violation claim came into play when the Senate committee published a meeting notice two days before its hearing, with an agenda that did not include the hospital closure legislation. But on the afternoon prior to the meeting, a revised agenda was posted that included the legislation, a ploy most likely designed to blindside opponents of the closure by not giving them sufficient time to mount an organized opposition.

Judge Robert Downing said he made his ruling so that the matter would fast track a direct appeal to the State Supreme Court, which ultimately denied a stay order, thus allowing the closure. At the same time he sharply criticized Jindal for “turning down billions” of federal dollars through Medicaid Expansion—even as Jindal was (wink, wink) claiming the hospital closure would improve health care for the uninsured in the 16-parish area served by the hospital.

Smith filed his appeal with the First Circuit following the Civil Service Commission’s seven-page DENIAL of his civil service appeal issued on April 6.

State Civil Service Director Shannon Templet was quoted in the commission’s decision as saying a “lack of funds” was the reason for the layoff. That, of course, played directly into Jindal’s hands as he had been systematically starving health care for the indigent since long before he became governor—as Secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals under former Gov. Mike Foster.

In his appeal, Smith argues that the Civil Service Commission erred in approving the cooperative endeavor agreement (CEA) pertaining to the medical center by failing to comply with the rules set forth by the Louisiana Supreme Court in Civil Service Commission v. City of New Orleans. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/la-supreme-court/1274405.html

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How Louisiana funds the Catholic Church (an examination of one of the quirks of the LA. DOE’s flawed Voucher System)

Posted in Audit Reports, BESE, Boards, Budget, Education, Privatization, Public Records on April 17, 2016| 19 Comments »

Editor’s note: The following is a guest column written by James Finney, Ph.D., of Baton Rouge. This was first posted on his blog, Methodical, Musical Mathematician’s Musings, and we felt it was an important essay that addressed issues with the state’s flawed school voucher program. Rather than simply publishing a link to his post, Dr. Finney was gracious enough to allow us to re-post it in its entirety on LouisianaVoice. Dr. Finney is a math teacher with an interest in transparent and effective government.  He grew up in South Dakota but has lived in Baton Rouge for more than 20 years.

His observations should not be interpreted as a criticism of the Catholic Church but rather an objective look at how the state’s voucher program has been mismanaged and vouchers paid in disproportionate amounts to church-affiliated schools by the Louisiana Department of Education.

 

By James Finney, Ph.D.

Did the headline get your attention?  If so, that’s good. When I saw the details of voucher funding for 2014-15, I was startled at how much of the nearly $40 million in spending went to Catholic schools.

The total amount sent to the 131 voucher schools participating in the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence program in 2014-15 was $39,486,798.20. This figure is reported in a spreadsheet I received from the Department of Education in response to a public record request.  Of that, approximately two-thirds ($26,819,434.44) went to the 76 participating schools that are affiliated with the New Orleans Archdiocese and the Dioceses of Shreveport, Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Houma-Thibodaux, Lafayette, and Lake Charles.

A defender of the voucher program might suggest that most of the private schools in the state are Catholic, so it makes sense that most of the vouchers would be used in Catholic schools. The evidence says otherwise. There are 412 nonpublic schools listed in the state’s 2015-16 School Directory (which I received incidental to another public record request). Of those, 190 are identified by the state as being Catholic. So the Catholic schools are fewer than half the nonpublic schools, but they account for two-thirds of the vouchers. There is no easy way to compare total enrollment (Catholic vs. non-Catholic private schools) since the state does not appear to collect or report private-school enrollment data.

As mentioned earlier, 76 of the 131 voucher schools are Catholic. Of the remaining 55, nearly half (25) have a school name containing the word “Christian” and nine have a name containing “Lutheran”, “Living Word”, “Bishop”, “Baptist”, “Adventist” or “Bible”. And there’s Jewish Community Day School.  So that leaves roughly 20 of the voucher schools that might be secular.  So much for the separation of Church and State.

It’s interesting to rank the voucher schools by total amount paid in 2014-15:  The top six schools account for more than $10 million, and the next 14 for more than another $10 million:

  • St. Mary’s Academy (Girls) (C), Orleans (417): $2,606,160
  • Hosanna Christian Academy (AG), EBR (390): $2,265,944
  • Resurrection of Our Lord School (C), Orleans (466): $2,103,286
  • Our Lady of Prompt Succor (C), Jefferson (208): $1,045,417
  • St. Louis King of France School (C), EBR (182): $1,021,094
  • 506087 Leo the Great School (C), Orleans (191): $1,016,667

Five of the most expensive voucher schools, and 17 of the top 20, are Catholic.  The non-Catholic schools among the top 20 are Hosanna Christian Academy (No. 2 above), Evangel Christian Academy in Caddo Parish (No. 16) and Riverside Academy in St. John the Baptist Parish (No. 20).

One of the voucher schools appears to be a public school: Park Vista Elementary School in Opelousas (St. Landry Parish). It would be interesting to know the story on that school’s participation in the program, and where the students are coming from. The state sent the Parish an average of somewhere around $7,760 each for 19 students, contributing $150,000 to the local system’s bottom line.  Compare that to the $5,570 that the state sent to St. Landry Parish Schools in Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) funding for each student who actually lived in St. Landry Parish.

Two of the schools that received vouchers are not even on the state’s list of nonpublic schools:  Walford School of New Orleans received $17,717, and McKinney-Byrd Academy in Shreveport received $3,566. If they aren’t on the state’s list of nonpublic schools, why did they receive voucher payments? In 2015-16, the SIHAF K12 Learning Academy joined the ranks of voucher schools not on the list of nonpublic schools, and in 2016-17, Weatherford Academy in Westwego will be allowed to offer up to six vouchers and Children’s College in Slidell will be allowed to offer one or two vouchers. Go figure.

State Superintendent of Education John White would like us to believe that at an average of around $5,500 each the vouchers saves the state a lot of money. There’s a flaw in that argument. The average per child state share of the MFP in 2014-15 was only $5,185.  So there might be a savings to local school districts, if those local districts had to educate fewer students with the same amount of local tax revenue. Unfortunately, there’s a huge loophole in the voucher program that allows students who have never (and probably would never) have been enrolled in a public school to get their private educations funded by the state. Maybe that’s why I can’t get a meaningful response to my request to the Department of Education in which I seek the records of how many voucher students had actually “escaped” public schools.

As an example of the fallacy of the vouchers-as-a-bargain-for-the-state argument, consider East Baton Rouge Parish Schools. In 2014-15, the state share of MFP was $4,165 per student. Of the 20 voucher schools within the district’s boundaries, the only school with an average voucher amount below $4165 was St. Francis Xavier School at $4,103.  At least five voucher schools charged the state over $8,000 per student. For two schools, Most Blessed Sacrament and Country Day School of Baton Rouge, both the average tuition per student and the number of students each quarter were (illegally?) redacted from the records supplied by the state, so there’s no way to know how much each school charged the taxpayers per student.

The highest tuition rate ($9,000) was charged by Prevailing Faith Christian Academy in Ouachita Parish for its 31 voucher students. It appears that the schools get to set the rate the state pays for an education over which the state exercises no oversight, as long as there are at least a few families willing to pay that amount out of their own pockets. With no effective state oversight, there is no way to tell just how good (or more likely how bad) a bargain the state is getting by funding private education.

Meanwhile only 91 schools are accepting applications for new voucher students in 2016-17. Perhaps many of the private schools have realized that mixing public money and private education is a bad idea all around.

F 17 of February 20 (voucher school status for 2016-17, and Q1 enrollment for 2015-16)

11 of February 20 – 2014-15 SEE Enrollment and Funding (2014-15 voucher spending)

2014-15-circular-no-1156a—final-budget-letter—march-2015  (Look at “Table 3 Levels 1&2” tab, in columns AP and AT.)

 

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LouisianaVoice is 5 and we’ve learned we’ve failed to hold officials to high standards; we deserve government we get

Posted in Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, ORM, Office of Risk Management, PACs, Politicians, Privatization on March 29, 2016| 20 Comments »

LouisianaVoice is having a birthday. We are now five years old.

The onset of Bobby Jindal’s privatization crusade (employees of the Office of Risk Management were the first casualties) in 2011 was the defining moment that gave birth to this blog.

In the ensuing quinquennium, we have logged 1.5 million words, not counting the upcoming book Bobby Jindal: His Destiny and Obsession, which will be available in mid-April. We have made several elected officials and appointed officials angry and uncomfortable—angry and uncomfortable because in the past, they had been unaccustomed to having to account for their actions.

No agency has been exempt from scrutiny, from the governor’s office to various state agencies, boards and commissions, and sheriffs’ offices.

Along the way, our efforts were recognized by the Washington Post which, in 2014, named LouisianaVoice and Bob Mann’s Something Like the Truth as two of the top 100 political blogs in the nation.

But after all is said and done, we have an admission to make.

We should never have been necessary but sadly, we were and we are.

Like it or not, we get the kind of government we deserve. We have the power of the ballot but when only 40 percent of voters exercise that right, what does that tell us about our state, our country? And when that 40 percent responds by marching like so many robots into the voting booths to obediently choose who the lobbyists, PACs, the blaring TV ads and slick campaign mailers tell us without so much as an whimper of protest or an independent thought as to the actual merit of those for whom we are voting, then we have abdicated our right to expect good government.

That’s also why we are faced with dreadful choices in this year’s presidential fiasco. Contrary to most pundits, it’s not voter anger that has created the current political atmosphere.

It’s voter apathy and just take a look who those who have stepped into the leadership void to proclaim themselves as the protectors of democracy. And we did it to ourselves on a national level just as we did it to ourselves on the state level first in 2007 and again in 2011.

And don’t for a moment think this is limited to Bobby Jindal. He had enablers. They called themselves legislators. With few exceptions, we call them leeches.

Try this: Attend any House or Senate committee meeting and watch the members of the committee as witnesses testify. If more than two or three members are actually listening, I’ll eat my Louisiana Tech baseball cap. They’re sitting up there, elevated above the audience, laughing and talking, leaving the hearing room to take a call or get a cup of coffee—just going through the motions of hearing public concerns.

We (and this is a collective “we,” as in just about every citizen in this state) have done a lousy job of holding our elected officials to a high standard of ethical behavior.

And as they say, the sewage flows downhill because those elected officials in turn have failed just as miserably in holding their subordinates to any kind of standards at all.

And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

At first, it came as something of a surprise to learn that two members of the State Police Commission and eight members of the Board of Dentistry had never taken the annual one-hour online ethics course required by law of every public servant, elected or appointed, salaried or not.

It’s not as though they can claim ignorance. They are told of the requirements and they each sign an oath of office.

Franklin Kyle Oath of Office

Freddie Pitcher Oath of Office

William Goldring Oath of Office

Nor have six members of the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners (LSBME) bothered to take the simple one-hour course, according to records provided by the State Board of Ethics. They include Drs. Michael Burdine, Kenneth Farris, Kweli Amusa, Joseph Busby, Roderick Clark, and former Board President Mark Henry Dawson who said LouisianaVoice was being “played for a fool” by plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the board.

Informed of the Board of Medical Examiners members who have not taken the course, one reader said, “As a physician, if I didn’t complete my required 40 hours of CME for the previous year, the LABME would not allow me to renew my medical license. Shouldn’t the members of the LSBME be held to the same standards they hold us to? And if they profess ‘ignorance’ on this matter, shouldn’t that be even more of a reason to have them removed?”

But wait. There’s more.

Also failing to take the course are Auctioneer’s Licensing Board Chairman Tessa Steinkamp, Secretary-Treasurer Darlene Levy, and licensing board legal counsel Larry Bankston.

And you also get recently retired (following a State Police “investigation” that cleared him of any wrongdoing) Angola Warden Burl Cain. http://theadvocate.com/news/15271102-172/former-angola-warden-burl-cain-cleared-of-misconduct-allegations-reports-say

Those having contracts with the state also are required to take the online ethics training.

Wade Shows, senior partner of Shows, Cali, & Walsh, a Baton Rouge firm with more than $3.4 million in contracts, has never taken the course and another attorney who has profited greatly from contracts with the Jindal administration, Jimmy Faircloth, took the course in 2012, but has not taken it since.

It should be pointed out that physicians and attorneys are required to take their own ethics courses provided by their professions.

But that does not change the fact that the State of Louisiana since 2012 has required that all public servants (elected officials, appointed officials, board and commission members, and contractors) take the on-line, one-hour course on an annual basis.

From time to time, we will be taking looks at other officials and state contractors to check for compliance with the requirement.

It may seem like a small thing but it becomes a very big thing when these people are not held to the same standards that rank and file state employees must meet.

We have not held the politically powerful accountable and they have not held those answerable to them accountable.

But most of all, we have not held ourselves accountable.

 

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OGB sending out letters in attempt to recoup wrongfully paid claims; seeking to blame retirees, own workers for problems

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, Health Care, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, Public Records, Revenue, State Agencies on March 3, 2016| 12 Comments »

What happens when a former governor’s privatization plan goes terribly wrong?

Okay, perhaps we need to be a little more specific, given so many things have gone so terribly wrong with so many of Bobby Jindal’s half-baked privatization schemes.

In the case of the Office of Group Benefits, the answer is plenty and none of it is good.

As chronicled in several posts, LouisianaVoice told of then-Commissioner Paul Rainwater first saying OGB would be sold, then saying it would not be sold, and in the end, its operations were turned over to Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana, throwing about 150 OGB employees to the curb.

Tommy Teague, who had taken over the debt-ridden agency and transformed it into a smooth-running outfit which managed to build a $500 million fund balance from which it paid claims promptly, giving state employees and retirees and their dependents little cause for concern, is a case in point.

For his trouble, he was fired (teagued) because he didn’t fall immediately in line with Jindal’s Milton Friedman-inspired doctrine of privatization. Teague’s successor lasted barely six weeks before he threw in the towel and departed for another state.

Along the way, the administration went against the advice of its own expensive consulting firm and lowered premiums to OGB members. That looked good for the covered employees but what the move really accomplished was the state’s being obligated for a lowing matching amount. The state pays 75 percent of the employee premium and by lowering the premium, it simultaneously reduced the state’s obligation and the money saved was used to patch one of those gaping holes that appeared in the state budget every single year of the Jindal administration. It was, in short, a shell game run by a con artist with one eye on the big score—the presidency.

Of course, that also had the effect of creating a heavy drain on that $500 million reserve fund, since premiums could no longer keep up with the cost of claims.

Accordingly, the $500 million evaporated to something around $100 million and Rainwater’s successor Kristy Nichols tried to implement a plan to simultaneously raise premiums and lower benefits to build the reserve back up—a plan that was revealed first by LouisianaVoice and which met instant opposition from employees, retirees and legislators.

The administration backed off that plan somewhat but the final compromise version left some retirees who lived out of state without coverage.

It also drove other retirees to other plans like People’s Health where premiums were cheaper and benefits better.

And that’s where the latest snag rears its ugly head.

Because the agency has been gutted of those employees who made it into such an efficient operation, things—big things—are starting to fall between the cracks and the plan apparently is to blame retirees and OGB’s fiscal collection department.

What has happened, according to word received by LouisianaVoice, is that OGB has failed to cut off coverage for retirees who self-pay for their coverage (through other programs) and who are “delinquent” in their premium payments.

It seems that OGB has not put “stop flags” on self-pay accounts that are in arrears for months but continued to pay claims. “Group Benefits has dozens of people who are late and they (OGB) are still paying claims to doctors and hospitals for X-Rays, MRIs, surgeries and prescriptions,” our source told us, adding that OGB initially told its fiscal collection department to ignore the delinquencies.

Now, though, OGB is sending out letters demanding payments for unpaid premiums.

OGB LETTER

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

One such letter provided to LouisianaVoice demanded payment of $10,511 in premiums dating back to October 2014 and pharmacy benefits of $425.

The Feb. 18, 2016, letter to the retiree said coverage “on OGB-administered health plans will terminate in October 2014 for non-payment of the full premium. During this period our records show that you continued to use the health and pharmacy benefits of the plan.”

Notice that the letter was dated Feb. 18, 2016 but said coverage “will terminate” in October of 2014.

No reason was given for a 2016 letter warning of pending termination of coverage in 2014. But that is somehow typical of any holdover from the Jindal years.

The individual was told if the plan was to be retained, the retiree would owe $10,511.29. “Should you not wish to retain your coverage through OGB, any medical claims incurred by you since Nov. 1, 2014, will be re-adjudicated and you may receive bills from your providers for services rendered,” the letter said.

“Pharmacy benefits cannot be re-adjudicated; accordingly, OGB will recoup costs incurred…by you,” it said, adding that the cost of pharmacy benefits “wrongfully used by you” is $425.49.

“Please consider this as demand to pay the respective amounts in full to OGB by March 4, 2016,” the letter said. “Should we not receive full payment on or before March 4, 2016, we may initiate further action to collect this sum, including but not limited to referral of this matter to the Office of Debt Recovery, the Attorney General, and/or other collection means.”

Below that was an ominous warning in boldface and all capital letters that read, “THIS IS A DEMAND FOR PAYMENT OF MONIES DUE. PLEASE TAKE NOTICE AND GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.”

Our source said that OGB administrators plans to place the blame for the latest fiasco on retirees and its own fiscal collection department. “They have a plan to hide this because they are scared the public, the commissioner of administration (Jay Dardenne) and the governor will find out.” The collections department, the source said, has maintained a paper trail which will absolve it of any fault in the matter.

“OGB is trying to get money back on the sly,” the source added. “They (OGB) are mismanaged and there are a lot of people in this condition who were allowed to keep insurance and paid no premium for years.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: We would love to hear of any similar difficulties you may have had with OGB. Send your stories to:

louisianavoice@yahoo.com

 

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