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Archive for the ‘Public Records’ Category

DPS issues two contracts, hires contractor as state employee, pays her $437,000 to improve DMV & $13K in airfare to S.C.

Posted in Civil Service, Contract, Contracts, Public Records, State Police on August 19, 2014| 16 Comments »

In 2011, two agencies within the Louisiana Department of Public Safety (DPS) entered into a pair of contracts with a company called CTQ Consultants totaling $38,400 to eliminate waste and to increase efficiency in the Office of Motor Vehicles ($22,400) by employing a combination of a trendy management method and to decrease the average DNA purchasing process turn-around time ($16,000).

Taken at face value, $38,400 is not an exorbitant amount for two contracts given some of the contracts awarded by the state. The infamous $270 million CNSI contract comes to mind. So does that $7.4 million consulting contract the state awarded Alvarez & Marcel (A&M) Consultants to track down $500 million in savings.

But then DPS promptly placed CTQ’s only employee, Kathleen Sill, on the state payroll as a $140 per hour state employee and proceeded to pay her $437,000 in salary over the next 28 months.

That’s $437,000 for her personally, not for her company.

Additionally, DPS paid $12,900 in air travel for 21 flights for Sill between Baton Rouge and CTQ’s Columbia, S.C., home office between Jan. 6, 2012 and March 2014, according to records obtained by LouisianaVoice.

The first contract, for $16,000, was awarded to CTQ by the Office of State Police on Feb. 1, 2011. That contract expired three months later, on April 30, 2011.

On Aug. 1, 2011, the $22,400 contract was awarded by the Office of Management and Finance. That contract expired five months later, on Dec. 31. Among the objectives of that contract was one that called for CTQ to assist in “streamlining including the operations of the Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV).”

State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson heads DPS in his dual role as Deputy Secretary and oversees, besides State Police, the Office of Management and Finance, the Office of Motor Vehicles, the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission, the Office of State Fire Marshal, the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office and the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Commission. http://www.dps.louisiana.gov/deputy.html

On Jan. 1, 2012, one day after the second contract expired, Sill was placed on the state payroll as an employee/consultant and remained employed until May 1, 2014, records show.

So, what is CTQ and who is Kathleen Sill?

Well, if McKinsey & Co. is considered the world’s premier business consulting company, Alvarez & Marsal might best be considered Mac Lite and CTQ as something several rungs down in the consulting pecking order. It’s a typical touchy-feely out-of-state organization that makes suggestions on to how local administrators can best do their jobs—after waltzing in, analyzing, discussing and writing expensive reports—all in a matter of a few weeks or months, as in the case of CTQ. Or, in Sill’s case, 28 months.

Sill formed CTQ in 2009 after spending more than 30 years with Bank of America as a “quality and productivity executive.”

The CTQ web page has an about us feature but when we clicked on it, only Sill’s profile appeared on the screen. No other employees of the firm are identified anywhere on the web page. http://www.ctqconsultinggroup.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=5

CTQ and Sill specialize in something called Lean Six Sigma, which Sill says is an abbreviated form of Six Sigma that draws upon her Six Sigma training and hands-on experience “to identify and implement results-driven solutions for your business.”

Six Sigma is a set of techniques for process improvement that was developed by Motorola in 1986 and General Electric adopted the program for its business strategy in 1995.

The program attempts to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing causes of defects by employing a set of quality management methods and creates a special infrastructure of employees within an organization (“Champions,” Black Belts,” “Green Belts and “Yellow Belts”) who are experts in infrastructure methods.

Lean_Six_Sigma_Structure_Pyramid.svg[1]

The name Six Sigma originated from terminology tied to manufacturing, especially terms associated with statistical modeling of manufacturing processes.

Sigma indicates its yield or percentage of defect-free products it creates while a six sigma process is one in which 99.00066 percent of the manufactured products are statistically expected to be defect-free (3.4 defective parts per million).

According to Wikipedia.org, Six Sigma doctrine asserts:

  • Continuous efforts to achieve stable and predictable process results are of vital importance to business success.
  • Manufacturing and business processes have characteristics that can be measured, analyzed, controlled and improved.
  • Achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organization, particularly from top-level management.

Features that set Six Sigma apart from previous quality improvement initiatives include:

  • A clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable financial returns from any Six Sigma project.
  • An increased emphasis on strong and passionate management leadership and support.
  • A clear commitment to making decisions on the basis of verifiable data and statistical methods, rather than assumptions and guesswork.

Just how all this applies to the Department of Public Safety and how it justified an expenditure of $450,000 remains unclear.

Asked why Sill was placed on the state payroll as an unclassified employee instead of being retained as a contractor, DPS explained that the department “utilized a Civil Service hiring option to employ Ms. Sill as a WAE (when actually employed) due to the length of proposed projects underway or planned. This allowed her to perform projects across various state agencies as a state employee.”

One explanation might be the $50,000 plateau for contracts. Any contract of $50,000 or more must be approved by the Office of Contractual Review.

A better reason could be that contracts are easier for prying eyes to spot and more susceptible to prompting questions from nosy reporters than an otherwise low key state hire.

But if the results of “streamlining operations of OMV” can be used as a barometer, the efforts of CTQ and Sill are less than auspicious. One need only make a trip to one of the local DMV offices gutted by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s employee layoffs to witness the interminable delays brought on by his privatization obsession. And while you’re waiting, don’t take it out on the overworked, stressed-out employees. Just remember to thank Jindal—and Lean Six Sigma.

And bring a good book to read while you wait.

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State Treasurer Kennedy gets LouisianaVoice treatment; board denies request for Edmonson Amendment report

Posted in Boards, Civil Service, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, House, Lawsuits, Legislators, Legislature, Politicians, Public Records, Retirement, Senate, State Police on August 13, 2014| 14 Comments »

It’s the story that won’t die, no matter how the Runaway Governor (apologies to Julia Roberts) would like it to.

While Gov. Bobby Jindal may go running off to Iowa or New Hampshire or Washington, D.C., or wherever his latest odyssey takes him in his futile attempt at resuscitation of his moribund presidential aspirations while ducking his responsibilities at home, folks like political curmudgeon C.B. Forgotston and State Treasurer John Kennedy just won’t go away.

Instead, Kennedy is staying home and demanding answers to the nagging problem of the Edmonson Amendment that Jindal so obligingly signed into law as Act 859, giving State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson that $55,000 bump in retirement income.

Act 859, which began as a bland, nondescript bill by Sen. Jean-Paul Morrell (D-New Orleans) that addressed procedures in cases where law enforcement officers are under investigation, quietly turned into a retirement bonanza for Edmonson.

That happened when State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) inserted language into a Conference Committee amendment to the bill that allows Edmonson and one other state trooper in Houma to revoke their decisions of several years ago to enter into the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) which gave them higher take home pay but froze their retirements at their pay level at the time of their decision.

In Edmonson’s case, his payment was frozen at 100 percent of his $79,000 a year captain’s pay but Act 859 allows him a do-over and to act as though all that never happened so that he can retire at 100 percent of his $134,000 per year colonel’s pay instead.

Other state troopers, teachers and civil service employees who made similar decisions, meanwhile, are stuck with their decisions because….well, sorry, but this is special for Col. Mike Edmonson Esq. Swank. Riff raff need not apply.

The Louisiana State Police Retirement System (LSPRS) board is scheduled to receive a special report by Florida attorney Robert Klausner, an acknowledged authority on public retirement plans, and local attorney Denise Akers at its Sept. 4 meeting but Kennedy isn’t waiting that long.

As State Treasurer, Kennedy holds a seat on the LSPRS board and he has repeatedly voiced his concern over the amendment which he says could put enormous strain on LSPRS if other retired state police officers file suit to obtain similar consideration as Edmonson.

He has claimed the board has a fiduciary responsibility to file suit to overturn the new law that Jindal so hastily signed.

A group of retired state troopers also has signaled its willingness to enter into litigation to get the law overturned.

Both Kennedy and the retired troopers contend the law is unconstitutional because it was not properly advertised in advance of its passage.

“Talking points” originating in State Police headquarters by Capt. Jason Starnes and sent to Edmonson, his Chief of Staff Charles Dupuy, and—for whatever reason—Louisiana Gaming Control Board Chairman Ronnie Jones, said the bill was properly advertised but because the bill in its original form in no way addressed retirement issues, that claim appears rather weak, especially given the fact that state police should be more skilled in producing hard evidence to back their cases.

The additional fact that the amendment never made its appearance until the last day of the session even though it had been discussed weeks before adds to the cloud of suspicion and wholesale chicanery enveloping Jindal, Riser, Edmonson, and Dupuy.

And Kennedy, who already has fired off two previous letters to LSPRS Executive Director Irwin Felps demanding a full investigation of the rogue amendment, now has written a third.

That letter, dated today (Aug. 13), while much shorter than the others, loses no time in getting right to the point: Kennedy is demanding under the state’s public records statutes (La. R.S. 44:31, et seq.) that Felps provide him a copy of the report generated by Klausner and/or Akers.

“Please immediately email the document(s) requested to me,” he wrote. “If you cannot or will not email them, please immediately inform me, and I will send a representative to your office to pick them up right away.”

Here is the link to his letter: Treasurer Kennedy Public Records Request to Irwin Felps August 13 2014

His letter sets the stage for a probable showdown between Kennedy and the rest of the board given the fact that Felps has previously denied Kennedy’s informal request for the report.

Felps said following Kennedy’s initial request, he was advised by legal counsel (most probably Akers) to release the report to the board members but not to the general public. He added that he expected Kennedy will have the report Thursday morning.

“I don’t know why the big cloak and dagger that they won’t share with the board,” Kennedy told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/08/john_kennedy_demands_state_pol.html#incart_river

“I’m a board member and I’m entitled to it. They can’t tell me I can’t see it,” Kennedy said. “This is a very important issue and it’s not just limited to state police. We have thousands of employees in the retirement system (who) didn’t get this treatment.

“I just want to see a report that I asked for and the board asked for. It is a public document.”

Kennedy should know better. LouisianaVoice has already received its comeuppance from the House and Senate, both of which have refused to comply with our request for copies of emails and text messages between the six Conference Committee members who approved the amendment and Jindal, Edmonson or any of their staff members.

Even though such discussions would have fallen under the narrowest of definitions of public business, we were told the public has no business peeking over legislators’ shoulders to see what they’re doing and to please just butt out.

LSPRS board Chairman Frank Besson, president of the Louisiana State Troopers Association, told the Times-Picayune in a statement (prepared as talking points by Starnes, perhaps?) that he felt it would be “inappropriate and premature” for the board to take a position on Act 859 until it heard the attorneys’ report.

Uh, Trooper Besson, would that be more or less “inappropriate” than passing a secretive bill in the final hours of the session to benefit one person (well, two, since one other trooper fell within the strictly limited parameters of the bill’s language) while no one was looking?

Just as a reminder, it’s going to be difficult to get the board off dead center on this issue considering the board’s 11-person membership is comprised of four active troopers, Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols and one of Jindal’s legislative puppets, State Sen. Elbert Guillory (R/D/R-Opelousas), chairman of the Senate Retirement Committee (you can almost see Jindal’s lips move when he talks).

Just in case you lost count, that’s six members that Jindal and Edmonson control—and that’s a majority.

Folks, it’s looking more and more like that group of retired state troopers is going to have to make good on that threat to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the act.

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Advocate publisher protects video poker interests in suck up editorial; Sen. Alario’s daughter-in-law given cushy DPS job

Posted in Boards, Civil Service, Corruption, Ethics, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Public Records, Retirement, State Police, Transparency on August 12, 2014| 16 Comments »

Call it coincidence, but the Baton Rouge Advocate today had an interesting lead editorial thanking State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson and Gov. Bobby Jindal for assigning 100 state troopers to patrol the city of New Orleans through Labor Day in response to a Bourbon Street shooting spree on June 29 that left one dead and nine others injured. http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/9965586-123/our-views-thanks-to-state

Certainly the timing of the editorial had nothing to do with the controversy swirling around the secretive passage of an obscure Senate bill during the last day of the recent legislative session that proved financially beneficial to Edmonson.

And certainly it had nothing to do with the fact that Advocate publisher John Georges wants to keep Edmonson happy because Georges holds a majority ownership in seven firms which provide video gambling machines and other services to gambling establishments—and because Edmonson oversees gaming through the State Gaming Control Board chaired by Ronnie Jones who served as Edmonson’s confidential assistant prior to his appointment to the Gaming Control Board. He is still listed as Edmonson’s confidential assistant on the State Police web page even though Jones says he resigned from that position last August. http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/02/john_georges_gets_back_into_ga.html

Jones denies any knowledge of Georges’ video poker interests and says Edmonson is not his boss. “I wouldn’t know John Georges if he walked in the room right now and the fact that he has gaming interests doesn’t impress me,” he said, adding that Edmonson “has no control or influence over my board or its decisions.”

Jones’s denials notwithstanding, it appears we can dismiss any chance that the Advocate might delve into the murky political machinations behind the amendment especially tailored for Edmonson (though it did catch one other state trooper up in its generous net).

House Speaker Chuck Kleckley refused to open an investigation into the infamous Edmonson Amendment because he said the amendment was part of a bill that originated in the Senate. But one would expect no action from Kleckley. Otherwise, Jindal might remove his hand from his butt and Kleckley would then be rendered unable to speak—not that he’s ever said anything profound anyway.

The amendment, of course, tacked on an additional $55,000 per year to Edmonson’s retirement benefits and though Edmonson has since said he will not accept the extra income, he apparently overlooked the fact that the bill is now law, thanks to Executive Counsel Tom Enright’s stamp of approval and Jindal’s signing it as Act 859, which makes it impossible for him to arbitrarily refuse the financial windfall.

And it’s true enough that, Senate Bill 294 by Sen. Jean-Paul Morrell (D-New Orleans) did originate in the upper chamber and we now know that the amendment was added by Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) but Kleckley conveniently overlooked the fact that three members of the Conference Committee which tacked on the amendment were members of the House.

But what about Senate President John Alario, Jr. (R-Westwego)? Certainly the esteemed Senate President would never let such a furtive move stain the stellar reputation of the Louisiana upper chamber. Surely he will launch a thorough investigation of the amendment since the bill and the ensuing amendment were the works of members of the Senate.

Don’t count on it. It’s rare that an elected official will bite the hand that feeds him—or a family member.

In this case, we’re speaking of one Dionne Alario, also of Westwego, who just happens to hold the title of Administrative Program Manager 3 for the Louisiana Department of Public Safety at $56,300 per year. She was hired last November and somehow manages to pull off the unlikely logistics of supervising DPS employees in Baton Rouge while working from her home in Westwego.

Oh, did we mention that she also just happens to be Sen. John Alario’s daughter-in-law?

We attempted to contact her at the Baton Rouge headquarters through the DPS Human Resources Department but we were given a cell phone number with a 504 (New Orleans) area code.

So if you expect Alario to conduct an investigation into the Edmonson Amendment, you can fuggedaboutit. It ain’t happening. His nest has been sufficiently feathered as to guarantee there will be no questions on his part.

It’s beginning to look more and more like the ol’ Louisiana political science professor C.B. Forgotston is correct: This entire Edmonson Amendment affair is quickly being swept under a very big rug.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Boards, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, Public Records, Retirement, State Police on August 8, 2014| 2 Comments »

“Know this: we will support and protect the other retirees, surviving spouses and orphans as well as the citizens of this state, as we once took an oath to do, by any legal means at our disposal.”

—Excerpt from letter to State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson by retired state police officers objecting to the so-called Edmonson Amendment.

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Flurry of document shredding raises dust at DHH on heels of lawsuit filed against Medicaid claims processing contractor

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Courts, DHH, Health Care, Lawsuits, Public Records, State Agencies on August 6, 2014| 16 Comments »

The seventh floor of the Bienville Building on North 4th Street in Baton Rouge became a beehive of activity recently when employees of a temporary personnel service moved in to begin shredding “tons of documents,” according to an employee of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH).

DHH is headquartered in the Bienville Building and the source told LouisianaVoice that the shredding, undertaken “under the guise of being efficient and cleaning,” involves documents that date back as far as the 1980s.

“The significance of this is that this is occurring in the midst of a lawsuit (that) DHH is filing against Molina in relation to activities that go back to the ‘80s,” the employee said. “Everyone is questioning the timing. Westaff temporary people have been in the copy room of the seventh floor for approximately two weeks now, all day, every day, shredding documents.”

https://www.westaff.com/westaff/main.cfm?nlvl1=1

The employee said so many documents were being shredded “that the floor is full of dust and employees have been ordered to clean on designated cleaning days” and that locked garbage cans filled with shredded documents “are being hauled from the building daily.”

LouisianaVoice submitted an inquiry to DHH that requested an explanation “in light of the current litigation involving DHH, Molina and CNSI”—two companies the agency contracted with to process Medicaid claims.

CNSI (Client Network Services, Inc.), which replaced Molina as the contractor for those services in 2011, had its $200 million contract cancelled by the Jindal administration after allegations of contact between then-DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein and CNSI, his former employer, during the contract selection process. Investigations by the Louisiana Attorney General’s and the U.S. Attorney’s offices ensued but little has been heard since those investigations were initiated. Meanwhile, CNSI filed suit against the state in Baton Rouge state district court in May of 2013, alleging “bad faith breach of contract.” http://theadvocate.com/home/5906243-125/cnsi-files-lawsuit-against-state

Molina, meanwhile, was reinstated as the contractor to process the state’s Medicaid reimbursements but last month the state filed suit against Molina Healthcare and its subsidiary Molina Information Systems, alleging that the state paid Molina “grossly excessive amounts” for prescription drugs for more than two decades because the firm engaged in negligent and deceptive practices in processing Medicaid reimbursements for prescription drugs.

Prescription drugs account for about 17 percent of the state’s annual Medicaid budget, the lawsuit says.

The state’s lawsuit says that Molina has processed the state’s Medicaid pharmacy reimbursement claims for the past 30 years but from 1989 to 2012, Molina neglected to adhere to the state formula for payments and thereby committed fraud and negligence, violated the state’s consumer protection and Medical Assistance Programs Integrity laws. http://theadvocate.com/news/business/9579038-123/la-sues-medicaid-drug-payment

Olivia Watkins, director of communications for DHH, told LouisianaVoice by email on Wednesday that the Division of Administration maintains a contract with Westaff for temporary workers which can be used by different state departments. “DHH requested temporary workers through the existing contract to assist with various projects, including shredding,” she said.

A search of LaTrac, the state’s online directory of state contracts, failed to find either Westaff or Molina listed as contractors among either its active or expired contracts.

“With regard to the shredding,” Watkins said, “those documents that were shredded were old cost reports, statements and facility documents that were outside of their document retention period (anywhere from 5-10 years). The files being shredded were in no way related to the department’s previous contract with CNSI.”

Watkins, while denying any connection to the CNSI contract, failed to mention whether or not the shredded documents involved Molina’s contract or the state’s litigation against the company even though the LouisianaVoice inquiry specifically mentioned both companies.

In June of 2002, the nation’s largest accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, was found guilty of unlawfully destroying documents relating to the firm’s work for its biggest client, the failed energy giant, Enron.

And while that conviction was eventually overturned, the damage from its actions doomed the company and it ultimately shut its doors for good.

In the weeks leading up to the Enron collapse, Andersen’s Houston practice director Michael Odom presented a videotaped talk—that was played many times for Andersen employees—on the delicate subject of file destruction.

In that video, Odom said that under Andersen’s document retention policy, everything that was not an essential part of the audit file—drafts, notes, emails and internal memos—should be destroyed immediately. But, he added, once a lawsuit was filed, nothing could be destroyed. Anything could be lawfully destroyed, he advised Andersen employees, up to the point when legal proceedings were filed (emphasis ours). http://www.mybestdocs.com/hurley-c-rk-des-law-0309.htm

“If it’s destroyed in the course of the normal policy and litigation is filed the next day, that’s great,” he said, “because we’ve followed our own policy, and whatever there was that might have been of interest to somebody is gone and irretrievable.”

In a matter of days, Andersen’s Houston office began working overtime shredding documents, according to authors Bethany McLean and Peter Elkin in their book The Smartest Guys in the Room (The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron).

Perhaps the DHH shredding had nothing to do with the CNSI contract with DHH or with the litigation filed by CNSI over cancellation of its contract.

And it may be that the shredding was in no way connected to the Molina contract, even though Watkins failed to address that specific question by LouisianaVoice.

It could well be, as Watkins said, the document destruction was purely a matter of routine housekeeping.

But the timing of the shredding flurry, coming as it did only days following the July 10 filing of DHH’s lawsuit against Molina, and DHH’s murky and adversarial relationship with the two claims processing contractors do raise certain questions.

And Watkins’ assertion that the shredded records consisted of “old cost reports, statements and facility documents,” the dates of which fall within the time frame of the allegations against Molina, would seem to make those questions take on even greater relevance.

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