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Archive for the ‘Public Records’ Category

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in BESE, Contract, Contracts, Education, Notable Quotables, Public Records on March 31, 2013| 3 Comments »

“If the contract is 8(g) funded, all provisions of this ownership clause apply except that upon termination or at the completion of 8(g) funding for a project/program, (BESE) may approve a contractor’s (TFA) request to retain equipment purchased with 8(g) funds based on the contractor’s assurance that the equipment will be used for educational enhancement.”

—Clause in a Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) contract with Teach for America (TFA) that would appear to allow TFA to maintain possession of equipment purchased with state funds should its contract with DOE be cancelled for any reason—even though, with a contract cancellation, TFA would no longer be teaching in Louisiana.

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DHH contracts notwithstanding, many Department of Education contracts seem to be flying under the radar

Posted in BESE, Contract, Contracts, Education, Public Records, RSD on March 31, 2013| 7 Comments »

When it comes to finding ways to waste taxpayer money, the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) appears to own franchise rights.

It’s not enough that Superintendent of Education John White has loaded down the department with top-heavy, six-figure administrative positions filled largely by out-of-state modern-day carpetbaggers—some of whom had to be compelled by state law enforcement authorities to purchase Louisiana license plates for their vehicles.

But a peek at the three contracts totaling nearly $1.6 million awarded to Teach for America (TFA) reveals built-in hidden costs about which White most probably would just as soon the paying public did not know.

A few weeks ago we did a story about TFA’s request for a state allocation of $5 million this year. In that story we revealed that local school districts are required to pay TFA a negotiated fee that ranges from $2,000 to $5,000—and then pay the TFA teachers’ salaries over and above those fees. Louisiana school districts, in addition to the salaries, pay a fee of $3,000 per teacher recruited—unless they are recruited by the Recovery School District (RSD).

Because the RSD is overseen by White and a compliant Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), it is able to be more generous with its fees to TFA—a lot more generous.

Contract No. 718050, a $382,500 TFA contract that began on June 1, 2012 and continues through June 30, 2014, calls for TFA to recruit 40 new first-year teachers for RSD at a fee of $4,500 per teacher, or 50 percent higher than the rate paid by other Louisiana school districts.

But wait. The contract requires the $4,500 per teacher payment not only for the first year, but for the second year as well, or $9,000 per teacher—three times that paid by other school districts.

Moreover, the contract calls for a $4,500 per teacher fee for five second-year teachers, bringing the total fee payment to $382,500

That represents a healthy bump from the fees paid under contract no. 718049, which runs from July 1, 2012, to June 30, 2014 for a contract amount of $234,500. That contract calls for the recruitment fee payment of $3,000 each for 25 first-year teachers and $3,000 each for 26 second-year teachers. Additionally, it calls for a fee of $3,250 each for the second year of those 25 teachers.

And then there is contract no. 717968 in the amount of $968,468 that calls for the recruitment of 520 TFA teachers to work in the parishes of East Baton Rouge, Jefferson, St. James. St. John the Baptist, St. Bernard, Orleans, Plaquemines, East Feliciana, Pointe Coupee, Ascension, Avoyelles, East Carroll, Madison, Tensas, Concordia, St. Helena and RSD.

Besides the potential violation of federal equal employment opportunity laws by giving stated preference to TFA teachers over more qualified applicants holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees, Plus-30s and Ph.Ds., the contract, which runs from Sept. 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013, contains a rather unusual clause which says:

• “If the contract is 8(g) funded, all provisions of this ownership clause apply except that upon termination or at the completion of 8(g) funding for a project/program, (BESE) may approve a contractor’s (TFA) request to retain equipment purchased with 8(g) funds based on the contractor’s assurance that the equipment will be used for educational enhancement.”

In 1953, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act was passed to regulate offshore leasing and to determine state/federal participation. The act was amended in the late 1970s to give states greater control over offshore activities.

The amendment, numbered 8(g), is what gives coastal states a “fair and equitable” share of the money from offshore development. The 1986 settlement gives Louisiana 27 percent of the money made from the 8(g) area of the continental shelf.

Louisiana voters approved a constitutional amendment to establish a trust fund for education from the 8(g) funds. The Louisiana Education Quality Trust Fund requires that the money be spent for educational purposes.

BESE is constitutionally mandated to allocate funds for any of the following purposes:

• To provide compensation to city or parish school board professional instructional employees;

• To ensure an adequate supply of superior textbooks, library books, equipment and other instructional materials;

• To fund exemplary programs in elementary or secondary schools designed to improve elementary or secondary student academic achievement or vocational-technical skills;

• To fund carefully defined research efforts, including pilot programs, designed to improve elementary or secondary student academic achievement;

• To fund school remediation programs and preschool programs;

• To fund the teaching of foreign languages in elementary and secondary schools;

• To fund an adequate supply of teachers by providing scholarships or stipends to prospective teachers in academic or vocational-technical areas where there is a critical teacher shortage.

Nowhere in those stipulations does it say that BESE or DOE may arbitrarily give contractors educational equipment purchased with 8(g) (read: public) funds. But then, the wording is sufficiently ambiguous. Maybe they can.

Of course, there is that wording that the contractor (TFA) may retain equipment purchased with 8(g) funds in the event its contract with the state is terminated only so long as TFA provides assurances “that the equipment will be used for educational enhancement.” (Emphasis ours.)

But if the TFA contract is cancelled, TFA would no longer be teaching in Louisiana.

So where would equipment purchased with Louisiana funds be used “for educational purposes?”

Mississippi?

Texas?

With this administration and this Superintendent of Education, who knows?

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Kostelka says he is serious about elected superintendent; Jindal sends in the clown, gets comeuppence from Regents

Posted in BESE, Education, Governor's Office, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Politicians, Public Records, Regents, Retirement, Veto on March 28, 2013| 30 Comments »

Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, wants people to know he’s serious.

He has already pre-filed SB 41, which calls for a constitutional amendment to be placed on the ballot which, if approved, would make the state superintendent of education and elective position as opposed to the current appointive one.

Kostelka also wants it understood that he wants current Superintendent John White to go.

He says he has seen enough of bloated contracts granted to politically-connected firms. He has seen his fill of contracts like the one that teaches kids how to play at recess. He has heard quite enough about contracts awarded to PR hacks to work out of their homes in other states for outlandish figures like $12,000 per month.

Most of all though he has grown weary of trying to obtain information and records from the secretive Louisiana Department of Education—and repeatedly encountering a brick wall of resistance.

And he is more than a little concerned about the approval of vouchers for schools which have no classrooms, no teachers and no desks—like New Living Word in Ruston.

And while he didn’t say so, he seemed to take some bit of pleasure in knowing that his bill has come under fire from Gov. Bobby Jindal’s chief apologist, Jeff Sadow.

Kostelka claim that the bill would make the superintendent answerable to the people instead of a rubber-stamp Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) was described by Sadow as a “curious mix of ignorance and illogic.”

Sadow chose to fall back on the argument that most of the BESE members are already elected and “answerable to the people,” apparently choosing to ignore the fact that most of the elected members’ seats were bought by out of state contributions from such people as Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, the Walton family and K-12.

Sadow also says Kostelka seems to have forgotten the “policy-making mess” that existed under the elected superintendent structure that existed prior to 1988. In saying that, Sadow appears to be overlooking the ever-evolving “policy-making mess” that is indicative of today’s DOE under a superintendent who doesn’t seem to have a clue where he intends to go or what he intends to do when he gets there.

“People like Mr. Sadow say I want to return to old-time politics,” Kostelka said. “To that, I would have them look at the political contributions to the BESE members and then explain to me what has changed under the present system.”

“They say my bill would cost the state the expense of another election, but it wouldn’t. I’m calling for the election to be held in the fall of 2014 at the same time as the Congressional elections, so there would be no additional costs. If approved, the elected superintendent would take effect with the 2015 gubernatorial election and White could leave with Jindal,” he said.

Kostelka is well aware that he has run afoul of the petulant Jindal and is certain to incur the governor’s wrath. His punishment could range from a loss of committee assignments to vetoes of key projects in Kostelka’s senate district. All one has to do is harken back to last year’s session when Jindal vetoed a major construction project in Livingston Parish after Rep. Rogers Pope and Sen. Dale Erdy had the temerity to buck Jindal on legislative matters important to the governor.

If that isn’t old-time politics, we don’t know what is.

But Jindal has proved beyond any doubt that he is not above such tactics.

But, at long last, those tactics appear to be coming back to bit him in the backside.

He has demoted legislators, fired a BESE member, an LSU president, doctors, various department and agency heads, appointed legislator buddies (Noble Ellington, Troy Hebert, et al) to six-figure deadhead jobs and in at least one case—that of Hebert—that appointment appears to be a major embarrassment to the administration.

But even after all of that, nothing compares to the damage done to his political stock as the recent dust-up with the Board of Regents.

Send in the clowns

As is his M.O., Jindal attempted to distance himself from the action—perhaps as a means of attempting to maintain deniability, a ploy that has consistently served him badly—by dispatching an emissary to do his dirty work. In this case, it was Taylor Teepell, brother of Timmy Teepell who seems to be running his OnMessage political consulting operation from the governor’s fourth-floor offices in the State Capitol.

What was Taylor’s mission? Nothing less than to demand the firing of Commissioner of Higher Education Dr. James Purcell. Purcell, you see, committed the unpardonable sin of criticizing Jindal’s repeated cuts to higher education. There is no run for dissention on Team Jindal.

But Taylor Teepell got a major surprise. Regents Chairman W. Clinton “Bubba” Rasberry, Jr. sent Teepell back to Jindal with a message: “Dr. Purcell works for the Regents.”

Whoa. Herr Jindal is not accustomed to such spunk from his subordinates. The governor does, after all, appoint the Regents members and he expects all appointees to toe the line, not draw a line in the sand.

Of course, Jindal could fire the entire board and replace the recalcitrant members with more compliant sycophants. But his brazen attempt to oust Purcell for the sin of independent thinking probably did more harm to Jindal than anything else he has done in his five-plus years in office. This attempt, coming as it did on the heels of three major court reversals of his education and retirement reforms and the word last week of a federal investigation into a contract with the Department of Health and Human Resources, has left him politically crippled.

And his blatant, quixotic pursuit of the presidency would be laughable were it not such a pathetic sight to behold. It somehow makes him look even smaller, more the little boy, in his ill-fitting suits.

Seeing his presidential aspirations slip away raises yet another spectacle that he would probably rather no one would know about. When he encountered occasional crises during his tenure as head of the University of Louisiana System, rather than facing the problems head-on, his solution of choice was to retreat to his office where he is said to have played video games virtually non-stop.

One must be wondering what video games he prefers these days. League of Legends, perhaps?

As one observer recently said, the Jindal waters appear to be circling the drain.

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Greenstein: pay no attention to the man behind the curtain; Richard: CMS says DHH unresponsive to Medicaid questions which, if unanswered, could cost LA. another $800 million

Posted in Attorney General, Budget, Governor's Office, Grant, Grants, Health Care, Public Records on March 24, 2013| 17 Comments »

Gov. Bobby Jindal may be about to deliver another $800 million kick in the teeth to Louisiana’s working poor with the same tactic he employed in losing that $80 million broadband internet grant: doing nothing.

But then, doing nothing seems to be what he does best these days (see: Bayou Corne; see: gaining traction as a viable presidential candidate for 2016), although he was rather decisive in cancelling the CNSI contract once word of a federal investigation became public knowledge—nearly three months after Jindal became aware of it.

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH), already laboring under the cloud of a federal investigation, is running out of time to qualify for approval of the administration’s sweeping plan to privatize state-run hospitals or risk losing additional federal matching Medicaid funding.

That was the word contained in a letter of Jan. 30 from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to Ruth Kennedy, director of the DHH Bureau of Health Services Financing.

State Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard (I-Thibodaux) said Friday that DHH has never responded to a list of questions submitted by CMS in its letter to Kennedy.

“I just talked to the CMS representatives this week and they have received absolutely nothing from the state,” Richard said. “If they don’t respond to the questions and get approval before the budget is approved by the legislature, the state stands to lose another $800 million—and we’re already a billion dollars in the hole.”

Richard said he encountered DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein recently and Greenstein assured him that everything had been approved.

“Somebody’s lying,” Richard said, “and I don’t think its CMS.”

At the same time, LouisianaVoice has received a copy of a March 18 letter from State Rep. Regina Ashford Barrow (D-Baton Rouge) to the LSU Board of Supervisors “to express grave concerns” over what she described as the failure of the LSU Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) to receive necessary approval for certain elements of the cooperative endeavor agreement (CEA) facilitating the closure of Earl K. Long (EKL) Hospital in Baton Rouge.

“The clinics receive federal reimbursement for uninsured care, including payment of physicians and physicians in training who deliver that care,” she said. “CMS requires that the clinics be attached to a hospital for the funding stream to flow to cover outpatient care.

“While (DHH) has taken the position that CMS approval is not necessary and is moving forward with plans for Our Lady of the Lake (OLOL) Medical Center to operate the provider-based clinics, there remains the potential to lose significant federal funding for noncompliance with CMS requirements.”

Barrow said states “must meet certain requirements relative to decisions involving any provider, including outpatient clinics, of services under the Medicaid program. The failure to receive CMS approval for the transfer of the EKL attached outpatient clinics and the medical education program may result in loss of services to those most in need.”

Barrow then addressed several questions to the board:

• Has CMS approved the plan for OLOL to operate the clinics? If not, why?

• By proceeding forward without CMS approval, can this result in a disallowance that the state will have to repay?

• If CMS doesn’t approve this endeavor, how will the state satisfy its portion of the contract since the state is already facing a financial deficit?

• Who will provide care for uninsured women since the deal with Woman’s Hospital fell through?

• Who will monitor the entire CEA to ensure that it saves money and meets the benchmarks stated in the contract?

• Could there be any legal ramifications to LSU-HSC board members?

“It is imperative that all parties involved are fully apprised of all the details prior to moving forward with the CEA,” Barrow said. “The process continues to evolve and CMS has indicated that they have not been a part of any recent developments.

It turns out that CMS has a few questions of its own.

“The state plan must be comprehensive enough to determine the required level of federal financial participation (FFP) and to allow interested parties to understand the rate setting process and the items and services that are paid through these rates,” the six-CMS letter said.

Among the requests and questions submitted to the state by CMS were:

• No financial impact was noted due to the proposed revisions. Please provide a detailed analysis of how this determination was made and provide supporting documentation of the calculation;

• Please explain why the state proposed an effective date of Nov. 1, 2012, when no agreements have been signed (note that the CMS letter was written on Jan. 30, 2013).

• CMS must have copies of all signed standard cooperative endeavor agreements. In addition, please provide copies of all signed intergovernmental transfer (IGT), management agreements, MOUs (memorandums of understanding), management contracts, loan agreements and any other agreements that would present the possibility of a transfer of value between the two entities;

• Did the state receive any feedback or complaints from the public regarding the CEA? If so, what were the concerns and how were they addressed and resolved?

• Please provide information demonstrating that the changes proposed (in certain documents) comport with public process requirements. Please provide copies of the legislation authorizing the proposed changes.

• How many entities does the state anticipate will participate in this arrangement? Please submit a list of all participating hospitals, all transferring entities doing the IGT, and the dollar amount that the transferring entities will IGT. Please describe how the hospitals are related/affiliated to the transferring entity and provide the names of all owners of the participating hospitals.

• What is the source of all funds that will be transferred?

• What are the sources of IGT funds?

• Does the state agree to provide certification from the transferring entities that the IGTs are voluntary?

• The Social Security Act provides that the lack of adequate funds from local sources will not result in lowering the amount, duration, scope or quality of care and services available under the plan. Please explain how this proposal complies with this provision.

• Please provide an Upper Payment Limit demonstration applicable to the payments for the current rate period for all classes.

• Please include a detailed narrative description of the methodology for calculating the upper payment limit in the state plan language.

• Please clarify if the state or a hospital service district has issued any proposals or enacted any legislation to support the public-private partnerships. Please submit that documentation for our review.

• Are the hospitals required to provide a specific amount of health care service to low income and needy patients? Is this health care limited to hospital only or will health care be provided to the general public? What type of health care covered services will be provided?

• How did the state determine that the Medicaid provider payments are sufficient to enlist enough providers to assure access to care and services in Medicaid at least to the extent that care and services are available to the general population in the geographic area?

• How were providers, advocates and beneficiaries engaged in the discussion around rate modifications?

• Is the state modifying anything else in the state plan which will counterbalance impact on access that may be caused by the decrease in rates?

• Please provide a list of facility closings and services that are being cut by LSU.

• Please describe how the state share of each type of Medicaid payment is funded. Please provide an estimate of total expenditure and state share amounts for each type of Medicaid funding.

That’s quite a to-do list.

Keep in mind the CMS letter was written on Jan. 30. At that time, LSU and DHH were in negotiations with St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe and Willis-Knighten for their takeover of E.A. Conway Hospital and LSU Medical Center, respectively.

Subsequent to that letter, the state abruptly pulled out of the negotiations and is now on the verge of consummating a deal with Biomedical Research Foundation (BRF) of Shreveport whose incoming president and CEO, Dr. John George, also serves on the LSU Board of Supervisors.

Jindal said that George, who presently serves as vice president of BRF, is not being paid a salary by BRF, so there is no conflict of interest. Current President and CEO John Sharp, however, is paid $275,400 and it is assumed that when George ascends to that position, he will be paid as well.

Greenstein, you may remember, refused to tell a Senate Committee in June of 2011 that his old employer, CNSI, had won a contract with his agency worth more than $184 million.

Faced with not being confirmed as DHH Secretary, he finally relented and told the committee that CNSI was the winner of the contract but then said that he had built a “firewall” between him and the selection process and that he had no contact with CNSI representatives during the selection process.

The committee later learned that he had indeed had ongoing discussions with CNSI executives during the bid process and that Greenstein was even responsible for rewriting the request for proposal (RFP) that made CNSI eligible to submit a proposal.

The circumstances surrounding the awarding of that contract are now being investigated by a federal grand jury.

Now Greenstein tells Richard everything was already done and all is well with CMS.

CMS told Richard it had received nothing from Greenstein or DHH.

And now the FBI and Louisiana Attorney General are investigating Greenstein’s agency.

And the health care of hundreds of thousands of Louisiana’s poor hangs in the balance.

It all comes down to one simple question:

Who do you believe?

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ATC fails to do background check on Baton Rouge bar owner with ties to Atlanta Gold Club scandal and Gambino family

Posted in ATC, Public Records on March 22, 2013| 22 Comments »

The revelation earlier this week that the Louisiana Office of Alcohol Tobacco Control (ATC) was lax in allowing the issuance of alcohol licenses to the wife of a felon has led to disclosure of another license issued to a Baton Rouge individual caught up in a high profile trial in Atlanta involving a well-known strip club with ties to the Gambino crime family and which was frequented by several NBA basketball players and singer Madonna.

As in the case of the New Orleans licenses, the license for the new owners of the North Gate Tavern right outside the LSU gates on West Chimes Street in Baton Rouge was issued to the relative of a man with a felony record, which is against the law in Louisiana as well as several other states.

Such practice is officially known as interposing on behalf of another in an attempt to obtain licenses.

Records obtained from ATC show that Ralph Goodman, 83, applied for the North Gate Tavern on Dec. 27 but observers say in reality, the club is run by Ralph Goodman’s son, Lyle Goodman. Ralph Goodman, who has no background in running night clubs, was a tool salesman from Brooklyn.

Lyle Goodman was among 17 defendants in the Atlanta Gold Club trial, charged with credit card fraud. He eventually accepted a plea bargain on a felony count of failure to report credit card fraud and was sentenced to three years of federal probation.

Lyle Goodman worked for his cousin Steve Kaplan at the Atlanta Gold Club that federal prosecutors said was a moneymaking operation for the Gambino family. NBA stars Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers star Reggie Miller each were said to have accepted sexual favors from dancers at the club.

Kaplan pleaded guilty to racketeering and surrendered ownership of the Gold Club. Goodman next showed up in Philadelphia where he worked as a “consultant” for a new strip club in 2001. As with the Baton Rouge club, Lyle Goodman’s father Ralph Goodman was the applicant for the liquor license for that club, Philadelphia records show.

While it is not immediately clear what happened with the 12,000 square foot Philadelphia strip club, Lyle and Ralph Goodman have now popped up in Baton Rouge where Lyle Goodman now runs a much smaller club under his father’s license, issued by ATC.

ATC, it appears, conducted little to nothing in the way of a background check on the Goodmans before issuing the license.

On the questionnaire that Ralph Goodman completed for his application there was a question which asked, “Is this application being made by you to permit any person other than yourself to secure a beer/liquor permit in your name for his/her benefit?”

Ralph Goodman checked “No” to the question.

In the New Orleans cases in which the wife of a convicted felon applied—and got—licenses from ATC, the person who complained was told by ATC Commissioner Troy Hebert that his office did not conduct background investigations. Hebert told the complainant, the person from whom the felon, Omar Hamdan, purchased the stores and which businesses subsequently were granted licenses, that applications are accepted by ATC “on the honor system.”

Title 26:80 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes, however, says nothing about any such “honor system.”

Not only does the statute prohibit the issuance of a license to a convicted felon or his spouse, it also says that ATC “shall require a background investigation by means of fingerprint checks by the office of state police and the FBI of each applicant…”

It also says that all fingerprints “shall be available for use by the office of state police and for transmittal to the FBI for a national criminal history record check. The information obtained from the national criminal history record check conducted pursuant to this Section may be used by the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control to determine the applicant’s eligibility for an alcoholic beverage permit.”

One of the witnesses against Kaplan and Kyle Goodman was a former employee named John Givens who testified that he sliced off a man’s ear for the mob.

“”Yeah, Givens worked for me at the Gold Club,” Lyle Goodman said in an interview after his trial, “and he testified he cut a guy’s ear off. But how was I supposed to know what he did with his social time?”

Hebert never responded to an interview request by LouisianaVoice.

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