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π-yush takes a powder, ducks the issues…again but Vitter’s cowardice eclipses D.C. Madam scandal in pure sleaziness

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Politicians, Privatization, Revenue, Taxes, Transparency, Vitter, Vouchers on September 21, 2012| 11 Comments »

This is about arrogance. More specifically, it is about the arrogance of two men, both from Louisiana and each elected to represent his constituents to the best of his ability.

And to that end, each has failed miserably while taking his individual insolence to new levels—in very different ways. One we have written about extensively in the past. The other, not so much, though perhaps he may well warrant closer attention in the future.

We are talking about Gov. Piyush Jindal and U.S. Sen. David Vitter.

The first, Jindal, has repeatedly displayed his cowardice, his spinelessness, by taking actions to close state facilities without bothering to notify affected legislators of his plans in advance. He has consistently ignored the plight of hundreds of state employees he forced into unemployment by cutting services and corporate taxes, further exacerbating the state’s budgetary crisis.

Vitter’s vote on a Senate bill last week can only described as despicable and hypocritical.

We will get to him presently.

It was not enough that Jindal announced the closure of Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville and C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center in Dequincy without extending the courtesy of a heads up to the legislative delegation in southeast and southwest Louisiana, the two areas affected.

But in doing so, he appeared to give little regard to or concern for the hundreds of employees at the two facilities who will be adversely impacted by layoffs or, in a few cases, transfers.

Then, on the heels of the announcement of the C. Paul Phelps closure The Baton Rouge League of Women Voters held a panel discussion to discuss Jindal’s continued privatization of state agencies, including the Office of Risk Management, the Office of Group Benefits, charter schools, educational vouchers, state hospital privatization and Medicaid cutbacks.

Invited to attend were representatives of the Jindal administration and proponents of privatization as well as four opponents, including an education coalition representative and Dr. Fred Cerise, former head of the LSU Health Care System.

One end of the head table was fully represented. On the other end, not a single person appeared on behalf of the administration. Cowardice. If an administration cannot publicly defend its actions—and make no mistake, Jindal never does—then that can only be described as cowardly.

Oh, they all had excuses. Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater said he had to attend a State Bond Commission meeting. But that meeting was over before the panel forum began across town. Bottom line, no one from the administration could—or would—find the time to defend the governor’s program.

Of course, Jindal had plenty time to attend a Republican unity breakfast in New Hampshire a week before and agreed to participate in a Sept. 26 Leaders of Iowans for Freedom “No Wiggins” bus tour—a rally in opposition to the re-election of Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins who voted with the majority to rule the state’s one-man, one-woman marriage law unconstitutional.

We have to wonder how our governor, who, metaphorically speaking, has more snakes than he can kill right here at home, can find time to involve himself in a supreme court race in Iowa. Does the state Medicaid budget’s gaping budget hole not keep him sufficiently occupied without his having to traipse off to Iowa? Isn’t the fiscal plight of the state’s colleges and universities of enough concern to deter him from having breakfast in New Hampshire?

Or could it be more than mere coincidence that the first presidential primary and party caucus will be in New Hampshire and Iowa, respectively, in about three years? Could Jindal be that brazen, that disturbingly obvious? Well, yes. Could he really be that delusional, fooling himself into thinking he has a prayer? Yes again.

Piyush would be wise to awaken to the realization that Timmy Teepell is no Karl Rove.

LouisianaVoice has submitted a public records request to determine the cost of Jindal’s two trips including costs not only for Jindal, but for his security detail and any staff members who went along, including travel, lodging, meals and salaries—and including Jindal’s pro-rated salary for the days he is out of state.

Just for argument’s sake, let us say he made each trip in a single day. Giving his annual salary of $130,000, that would mean he should rebate the state a minimum $712 in salary while he was out of state attending to non-governor-type business—plus all the other expenses incurred on the trip for him and his entourage.

Now let’s talk about Vitter.

There was a bill up for a vote in the Senate last week. The Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012 would have made it easier for veterans in the future to transition to civilian life.

With veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars experiencing unemployment rates 3 percent higher than the general population, the bill would have put a lot of those veterans to work.

A majority (58-40) voted for the bill but that was two votes short of the three-fifths majority needed to overcome a budgetary point of order thrown up by Republicans.

Republicans said the bill violated the Budget Control Act by adding a program that would increase the deficit. Only five Republicans voted for the bill.

Vitter was one of 40 Republicans who voted no.

That’s correct. U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana), given a chance to vote up or down on a measure to help veterans, chose to vote down.

We’re talking about a $16 trillion deficit and the Republicans were quibbling over a budget item of $200 million per year over five years.

Given the propensity of Republicans to consistently vote for larger and larger appropriations for the Pentagon and military contractors and given Republicans’ support of two wars that have cost this country more than $4 trillion, a $1 billion appropriation to help our veterans re-enter the work force should not seem so unreasonable.

Given that most of these Republican chicken hawks have never experienced military service, it certainly is curious that they are so reluctant to lend a hand once these military personnel have sacrificed so much to defend the rhetoric of the pompous congressmen who while beating their collective breasts, are so quick, yea eager, to send them off to war.

It is heartless enough that military personnel with traumatic head injuries are unable to obtain adequate or timely medical treatment once they are no longer useful as fighters and as unwitting enablers of military contractors who milk the Pentagon budget of untold billions of dollars in unchecked cost overruns and outright fraud.

But when it came time to put his money where his patriotic, flag-waving mouth is, Vitter, rather than reaching out to the veterans, turns his back on them. What a coward.

And we thought his frequenting New Orleans prostitutes and cavorting with the D.C. Madam after all of his preaching about family values was hypocritical. That was child’s play, a victimless crime, as they say. His vote on the Veterans Jobs Corps Act dwarfed that transgression. There were thousands of victims of that callous action.

To demonstrate the Republican stance on American exceptionalism and righteous wars, one need look no further than to a statement made by Andrew Card, President George W. Bush’s chief of staff who, when asked about the timing of the March 2003 Iraqi invasion, dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom, said, “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”

There you have it. A half-century ago President Eisenhower said, “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

Despite that admonition, war—and the influence of that military-industrial complex—has become a marketing concept, a product to be introduced with the appropriately hyped mixture of patriotism, mom and apple pie, along with the oft-repeated need to defeat the newest threat to the American Way of Life, whatever that is.

And Vitter is right there with his fellow Republicans—until it’s time to help those who supported that policy—the men and women in uniform.

In 2003, he voted in favor of HR 1559, the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act. In 2008, he voted in favor of HR 2642 to approve funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan War—funding that has now exceeded the $4 trillion mark.

But in 2012, he and 39 other Republicans just could not bring themselves to waste a five-year, billion dollar expenditure to help military veterans return to the workforce.

We should be so very proud of our junior senator.

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First shot fired across bow of S.S. π-yush; legislator asking colleagues for special session to challenge administration

Posted in Boards, Budget, Economy, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, House, Senate, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Politicians, Prison, Privatization, Revenue, State Agencies on September 19, 2012| 15 Comments »

The first legislative salvo has been fired but it remains to be seen whether it will become merely an isolated sniper’s round or if it will escalate into an all-out battle between state lawmakers and Gov. Piyush Jindal.

Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard (I-Thibodaux) Wednesday morning sent an email to his fellow legislators in the Louisiana House and Senate asking for their support in calling a special session of the legislature to consider reversing what he describes as “a complete disregard of the Legislative branch’s powers by this administration.”

Richard’s email comes as a result to deep budget cuts to higher education and health care, as well as the announcement of hospital and prison closures—all announced by Jindal since the end of the regular legislative session and without prior notification to legislators in the areas affected by the cutbacks.

The Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center in Houma, part of the LSU Health System that is undergoing massive budget cuts, is in his area as is Nicholls State University in Thibodaux. “If they reduce Chabert to a clinic, it will cripple that facility,” he said.

Asked if he was concerned that Jindal might strip him of his committee assignments as he did with Rep. Harold Ritchie (D-Franklinton) and Rep. Jim Morris (R-Oil City) who voted against Jindal-backed bills in the last legislative session, Richard said, “The governor can do what he wants to do; I do what I have to do.”

Richard serves on the House committees on Education, Labor and Industrial Relations, and Transportation, Highways and Public Works.

He said he was not attempting to threaten the governor. “I just want the legislature more involved,” he said.

The procedure for legislators’ calling themselves into special session requires for one-third of each chamber’s membership (35 in the House and 13 in the Senate) to sign a petition which would then be delivered to the clerk of the House and secretary of the Senate.

They, in turn, would be required to send individual petitions within 48 hours to each member of the legislature for his or her signature. Lawmakers would then have 20 days in which to return their individual petitions and once a majority of each chamber concurs, the presiding officers (Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, and House Speaker Chuck Kleckley, R-Lake Charles) must issue the call for the special session.

Richard, like other members of the House and Senate, is also upset at Jindal’s habit of leaving legislators out of the loop so that they often find out about administrative decisions that affect their legislative districts only after announcements are made by the governor’s office.

Two cases in point are the recently-announced closures of Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville, scheduled for next month, and last Friday’s announced closure of the C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center in DeQuincy.

Lawmakers in both areas say they were not notified in advance of Jindal’s plans to close those facilities. One of those legislators is House Speaker Kleckley.

The Phelps closure will mean that some 940 prisoners will have to be moved to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel. But of even greater concern to lawmakers is the fate of more than 250 prison employees who will face layoffs in a rural community that is largely dependent on the facility for employment.

Likewise, the closure of the 174-bed Southeast Louisiana Hospital, slated to begin Oct. 1, will mean the loss of about 300 jobs. The closure of Southeast, along with the earlier closure of state mental health facilities in Orleans Parish, leaves the entire southeastern area of the state without access to state mental health treatment.

Following the 2009 closure of New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, Jindal said those patients would be able to receive treatment at Southeast. Now that Southeast is facing closure, one reader asked, “Where will they go now, to Mississippi?”

Rep. Dorothy Sue Hill (D-Dry Creek) said she learned of the closure of C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center about a half-hour before the announcement was made by Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc.

“I was devastated,” she said, adding that DeQuincy is in the rural northern part of Calcasieu Parish and that a large number of its residents are dependent on the facility. “I don’t understand why they (the administration) don’t realize that rural people need jobs also,” she said. “This is a good place for jobs. We can’t all move to Baton Rouge or New Orleans. They don’t want to live there.”

Rep. Brett Geymann (R-Lake Charles) called the abrupt announcement without advance notice to legislators “a lack of respect” for area legislators.

Rep. John Smith (R-Leesville) echoed the sentiments of Hill and Geymann when he said the secrecy of the move “perplexes me more than anything.”

Sticking to what has become an increasingly obvious policy of revealing as little as possible, the Department of Corrections did not respond to questions about why southwest Louisiana lawmakers were not included in the decision-making process.

“This is a good deal for Louisiana taxpayers and will result in significant savings while maintaining public safety,” was the only official response from the department. There was no further explanation as to where savings might be realized or how the closure was a good deal for the state—explanations that would seem easy enough to provide if the administration chose to do so.

Having provided the backdrop for the simmering resentment of Jindal that apparently has been building in the legislature, here is the content of Richard’s letter to his colleagues:

I respectfully ask that each of you read this email in its entirety and then ask yourself if you agree that we should immediately call ourselves in to special session. If you agree I ask that you respond to my legislative email address in order to begin the process of petitioning the body in order to reach a majority. While I acknowledge that this is not easy for each of us to decide I feel that it is time for us to get back into the process and our Constitution provides for that to happen.

Like many of you, I am passionate about the well-being of this state and its people and will continue to stand for the things that I believe in whether it be during session or while we are not in session. I believe that we are witnessing a complete disregard of the Legislative branch’s powers by this administration and must address this immediately or we shall find ourselves completely left out of the budget process. When we as a body are not convened in regular session, but have important matters to address, we do not have to wait until next year’s annual session. Our state Constitution provides a mechanism for us to meet in other times in order to enable the Legislature to continue the checks and balances of state government.

Extraordinary Sessions and the Need to Convene

As per Article III, Section 2(B) of the Constitution, the state “legislature may be convened at other times” in “Extraordinary Sessions,” (informally known as special sessions). It is during special sessions that legislators may address important items or “objects” as they are referred to in Article III.

Since our adjournment in June, there has been almost a billion dollars in reductions to the state budget without any input from the Legislature. And thanks to some media outlets we are now learning of still more cuts to healthcare without any input from the Legislature. And we know that mid-year cuts are approaching and these will be made with no input from the Legislature. We spent many hours during the past session debating the budget and trying to protect health care and higher ed and then after adjournment cuts were made with no input from legislators.

I believe it is time for us, as Legislators, to aggressively reinsert ourselves into the budget process by using the Constitutional rights given to us. We should not have to relinquish our legislative duties to the administration once we pass the budget at the end of regular session in times like this. I am tired of explaining to constituents and at civic gatherings that there is nothing we can do once the budget is passed.

There IS a PROCESS:

As stated earlier, Article III, Section (B) of the Constitution authorizes the Legislature to call itself into session for up to a maximum of 30 days. A majority of House members (53) and a majority of Senate members (20) must be in favor of convening and, if so, its members choose the time and the Call.

I would like to see the Call include the discussion of health care and higher ed and how we can determine just how reductions are made. The Constitution allows for us to set the agenda and each of you may have other interests to bring before the body.

Please understand that Louisiana Revised Statutes 24:11 sets forth the procedure for calling ourselves into special session. First, we will need a petition signed by 35 members of the House and by 13 members of the Senate, which would be delivered to the presiding officer in each. Within 48 hours of receipt of petition, the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House are then required to send individual petitions to each member for their signature. We, as Legislators, then have 20 days to return our individual petitions and once a majority of each house is reached, the presiding officers must call the Legislature into special session.

It is OUR CHOICE.

This is how I look at the situation: we can either continue to stand by and allow the administration (to) amend the budget; or we can do what we were elected to do; to represent our constituents. The Constitution gives us that right. The choice is up to each one of us.

In closing, I fully understand that convening and conducting a special session will not be easy but think about the cuts that our hospitals and universities are having to make and will continue to be forced to make while we, as local elected representatives, sit back and try to defend those cuts that we know nothing about. Please know that I respect each and every one of you, regardless of your decision to support or not to support a special session. I simply ask that you take the time to respond to this email to: richardj@legis.la.gov.
Respectfully,

Jerome “Dee” Richard
La. State House of Representatives
District 55, Lafourche Parish
Thibodaux, La. 70301

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Grading a ‘delusional’ governor: can we get a charter/virtual governor for ‘D’ or ‘F’ grade? How about a governor voucher?

Posted in BESE, Broadband, Internet, Charters, Computers, Contract, Contracts, Education, Governor's Office, Politicians, Privatization, Revenue, Vouchers on August 23, 2012| 21 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—From Shreveport to New Orleans, from Amite to Alexandria, they’re beginning to catch on to the smoke and mirrors act of snake oil salesman Piyush Jindal, masquerading as governor of Louisiana and wannabe shining star—but now a fading star—of the national Republican Party.

And the picture isn’t a pretty one, at least from Piyush’s perspective—if, that is, he is even aware of the growing tide of resentment over his failed programs. Those failures run the gamut: from the $250 million wash-away berms in the Gulf of Mexico to the rejection of more than $800 million in federal grants for broadband internet, early childhood development and a high-speed rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans to nightmarish cuts to higher education, state hospitals and Medicaid.

The question of his understanding of the depth and breadth of the problems is a matter of open speculation. One of his handlers recently described Jindal as “delusional.”

Definitions of the term vary somewhat in their wording but all say essentially the same thing:

• “A fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact;”

• “A false personal belief that is not subject to reason or contradictory evidence…”

• “A false belief or opinion;”

• “A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence…”

If Jindal doesn’t see and appreciate the looming consequences of his programs, i.e. school vouchers, budget cutbacks, privatization, hospital closures, then at least the readers of the Shreveport Times appear to understand and to come to grips with the dilemma of a disconnected governor.

A poll of Times readers this week asked one simple question: “How would you grade Jindal’s performance as governor?”

The term “grade” is significant here when one considers Jindal’s own penchant for “grading” Louisiana’s public schools in an apparent effort to categorize as many as possible as “D” and “F” schools to clear the way for new, mostly for-profit charter and online virtual schools and for his ill-conceived voucher/scholarship program, all of which rip money from local public school districts, leaving them in a deeper fiscal chasm than before.

The results of that poll late Friday afternoon showed, out of 866 votes cast, 593 (68.5 percent gave Jindal an F. Another 138 (15.0 percent) gave him a D. So, 83.5 percent of respondents gave him either a D or and F. Only 70 (8.1 percent) gave him an A while 33 (3.8 percent said he warranted a B and 32 (3.7 percent) gave him a C.

Jindal’s grading method for schools says that any school with a C, D, or F grade is considered failing and eligible for parents to move their kids out to a voucher school. Accordingly, 87.3 of respondents say he simply doesn’t measure up.

(Of course the poll is unscientific, but it certainly is interesting to know that he was re-elected with 66 percent of the vote of 20 percent of voters who went to the polls and now 68.5 percent see him as an utter failure.

Just to make sure there was no stuffing of the ballot box, we attempted to vote twice to see if we could. We could not, so the results, though unscientific, are significant because north Louisiana, along with the Florida parishes, is considered one of the areas of the state where he is strongest.

Taking the results of that poll into account, perhaps we should consider the implementation of a “charter” or “virtual” governor or perhaps vouchers could be issued for Louisiana’s citizens to select another governor if we are unhappy with the one we have.

Of course, like school vouchers, that would not preclude one over the other.

In other words, we would still have Jindal as the public governor, but we also would have a private governor of our choosing who would be accountable to no one.

Wait. We already have that.

The Monroe News-Star also has challenged the governor and his superintendent of education John White on the matter of what is and what is not public record. That publication has filed a lawsuit over records White has claimed are part of the “deliberative process,” a term that never existed before Jindal took office.

Gambit, a New Orleans publication, recently published a column with the headline: “Jindal’s got the job he wants? Prove it, Governor.”

The article asked the not-so-rhetorical question of why, if he truly had the “best job in the world,” would he spend so much time away from Louisiana?

Pointing out as others have recently that there are plenty of problems to occupy Jindal’s attention, Gambit submitted a “Bobby-do” list of tasks for the governor to tackle now that he has been officially eliminated from Mitt Romney’s vice presidential veepstakes:

• Keep Southeast Louisiana Hospital (SLH) open. In 2009, Jindal shut down the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital (NOAH), justifying the move by pointing out that its patients could receive the care they needed at SLH in Mandeville. Gambit asked where can those patients turn to now for treatment, Mississippi? With the closure of SLH scheduled for October, an entire region of the state—the most populous region of the state, it might be pointed out—will have no public mental health hospital.

• Address the catastrophic cuts to higher education with something more than your rhetorical “do more with less” mantra.

• Put real accountability into the public school voucher program. This program, passed by Jindal and now administered by his hand-picked superintendent of education (we’ll get to him presently), is an unmitigated disaster worthy of a Three Stooges or Marx Brothers comedy.

Except that this scenario is not funny.

Which brings us to White and his traveling dog and pony show which has played to less than enthusiastic reviews thus far.

First of all, White should have the good sense not to stroll late into a meeting with a parish school board (already a hostile audience) in open shirt with sleeves rolled up, dressed, in the words of one observer, “like he was attending a corn husking party,” complete with half-unzipped pants.

Is this really the image the leader of the state’s educational system wishes to convey in a public meeting of local elected officials? Apparently so.

Kevin Crovetto, a Ponchatoula High School teacher, got in what was possibly the best zinger of the night when he said if White and his staff were judged by the same standards proposed for teachers, they would be rated “ineffective.”

The Tangipahoa Parish School Board was, predictably, equally unimpressed.

Board member Al Link said that under the new teacher evaluation system, teachers will be held accountable for the academic progress of their students while the responsibilities of the student and parents are not addressed.

The state continues to put mandates on teachers, jumping from one mandate to another, to the point that teachers are finding it impossible to do their jobs, Link said, adding that the state now is saying some teachers are not meeting expectations so now their jobs are being given to persons who are not certified.

White responded by saying that he is “not keen” on certification and that anyone who is a college graduate and who is “proficient” should be allowed to teach.

Yet florists, plumbers and auctioneers are required to be licensed in Louisiana.

And just who is in charge of determining proficiency?

When Crovetto and others questioned White about the new voucher program that allows students who qualify to attend private schools and charter schools—at the expense of public school systems, White, incredibly, responded by indicating he cared little about the financial drain on public schools so long as voucher students get an education.

Let that sink in, folks. The head of Louisiana’s public education system says he is unconcerned about the financial hardships imposed on local school systems so long as voucher students get an education—at places like:

• Delhi Charter where, until public pressure forced a change in policy, a girl even suspected of being pregnant could be forced to submit to a physical by a doctor of the school’s choosing;

• Light City Christian Academy in New Orleans where the founder of the school calls himself “Apostle” and “Prophet;”

• New Living Word School in Ruston, which does not even have books, teachers, or classroom space and where the state recently circumvented the local building inspector to issue a building permit for a construction project to expand the facility (remember Willie Stark in All the King’s Men and the collapse of the school fire escape?);

• Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake that teaches that the Loch Ness Monster is real as a means of supporting the fundamentalist theory that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. It also uses textbooks that teach that American slave owners were benevolent, kind-hearted overlords, that the Ku Klux Klan was a “reform” organization that protected women and children, that the “Trail of Tears” was responsible for the conversion of many American Indians to Christianity;

• BeauVer Christian School in DeRidder that couldn’t grasp the proper spelling of “Scholarship” on its sign advertising free vouchers.

And, let us not forget, Rep. Valarie Hodges (R-Denham Springs), who says she is all about teaching the Christian beliefs of our forefathers in charter schools and vouchers for Christian schools but was opposed to vouchers for an Islamic school in New Orleans.

All these factors are part and parcel of the administration of a governor who more and more, exhibits signs of a growing disconnect with reality.

• Delusional: a false belief based upon a misinterpretation of reality.

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Notable quotables (in their own words)

Posted in BESE, Boards, Ethics, Governor's Office, Higher Education, LSU, Notable Quotables, Politicians, Revenue on August 17, 2012| 3 Comments »

“In terms of salary, we can’t pay what he was making in the private sector. We were able to get him for less.”

–Gov. Piyush Jindal, in a rare interview (by telephone), on the hiring of former executive director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission and former executive counsel Tim Barfield to be the new secretary of the Department of Revenue at a salary of $250,000 per year.

“This young lady does not have as much experience as other candidates in the packet that is in front of me.”

–Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) member Carolyn Hill, on the selection of Heather Cope of Seattle as the new BESE executive director–a candidate whose strength is the correct use of hyphens.

“This is a travesty.”

–BESE member Lottie Beebe, on the selection of Cope.

“I thought at the end of the day this was the best candidate.”

–BESE member Chas Roemer, sounding like Piyush Jindal with his “at the end of the day.”

“We are bringing forth who we think is the strongest candidate.”

–BESE President Penny Dastugue (of the BESE walking quorums), on the decision to hire Cope.

“That’s Nuts! There will be a national search. I have their (the LSU Board of Supervisors) commitment.”

–LSU Interim President Bill Jenkins, on speculation that the fix was in for the appointment of Department of Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret as the permanent successor to fired LSU President John Lombardi, leaving unanswered the question of whether or not a commitment from a board heavy with Jindal appointees carries any meaning.

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On-LSU-presidents-revenue-secretary-and-the-proper-use-of-hyphens: it’s-just-another-day-in-the-Piyush-World-of-Oz

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Boards, Governor's Office, Higher Education, LSU, Politicians, Regents, Revenue, Transparency, Vouchers on August 17, 2012| 12 Comments »

Baton Rouge has always been a city rife with favoritism and appointments bordering on the outrageous and absurd. But now, with a new level of exorbitant salaries pitted against wholesale layoffs of rank and file employees during Piyush Jindal’s administration, the intensity of rumors, hyphens, retreads and big salaries from the “do more with less” governor has been ramped up a notch.

You may wish to sit down to prepare yourself for what may well be the most astounding appointment in Jindal’s tenure—one that should have every LSU alumnus and every LSU professor and instructor, active and retired, metaphorically storming the Governor’s Mansion with torches and pitchforks.

The object of their outrage, however, won’t be there of course.

But before we get too far into the latest developments surrounding the world’s largest state monument to corruption and excess (that would be the 24-story State Capitol building), we are going to go out on a limb and predict that the latest boy genius, State Superintendent of Education John White, is going to realize just how inept and unqualified he is for his job and will be gone by this time next year.

He has quickly become Boy Blunder to Jindal’s Batty Man.

Meanwhile, the Jindalista continues to pillage the state with layoffs, cutbacks, sell-offs and closures, all the while continuing to add to the already top-heavy administrative payroll with more appointments at ever-dizzying salaries.

Jindal apparently is making his appointments these days by remote control because he is rarely in Louisiana to attend to pressing state business.

The latest example of Jindal’s spot-on imitation of Nero was the announcement on Thursday, Aug. 16, that Jindal has been given a speaking role at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, later this month.

It’s odd to the point of being downright bizarre that on the 35th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, the Republican Party would carry out such a public suicide attempt. The obvious question has to be: What the hell were they thinking? Doesn’t anyone in a decision-making position remember that dreadful 2009 response to President Obama’s State of the Union address?

Now Comedy Central and Youtube will have two separate clips to (pick one) amuse/embarrass/nauseate us.

We can almost hear him now as he blathers on to bored, drunk, or in at least one case, womanizing delegates: “Two things…,” “At the end of the day…,” “Three things…”

Meanwhile, Rome, aka Louisiana, continues to burn at the altar of spurned federal grants, Medicaid and higher education cutbacks and the tragicomedy now known as school vouchers…er, scholarships.

So, how has the state’s Émigré Executive addressed these problems?

For one, he dredges up former staff member Jim Barfield to appoint as the new Secretary of Revenue at more than double the salary of former Secretary Cynthia Bridges who was forced out for doing her job after Jindal signed an alternative fuel tax credit that threatened to break the bank even further.

Then, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), led by Wondering Woman Penny Dastugue and Chas Roemer, appointed Heather Cope, who appears to be even younger and, if possible, more unqualified than White, to the post of BESE executive director.

But more important than either of these is the rumored appointment of current Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Economic Development (LED) Steve Moret as LSU president/chancellor.

The fix is reportedly in already for Moret’s appointment to replace former LSU President John Lombardi who was fired in April at Jindal’s behest (despite any protestations to the contrary) after being openly critical of budgetary cutbacks to higher education.

Interim President Bill Jenkins, of course, denies the report, but what else could he be expected to do? He didn’t get the call to come back after Lombardi’s firing because of any independent streak of his own. Jindal, as is well known by now, simply does not tolerate independence, candor or free thinking on the part of subordinates.

Jindal already had a solid majority on the LSU Board of Supervisors—quite possibly one of the more politically-charged and possibly the most controversial board in state government—when it voted to fire Lombardi in April. Now he has solidified that majority with the appointments last month of Scott Ballard of Covington and Lee Mallett of Iowa to the board.

Ballard’s company, WOW Franchising, parent company of WOW Café & Winery, contributed $5,000 to Jindal’s campaign in 2007.

Mallett had separate contributions of $5,000 each in 2003 and 2006 and five of his companies contributed another $20,000 between 2007 and 2011.

Moret was appointed head of Economic Development when Jindal took office in January of 2008 and has presided over the giveaway of $5 billion a year in corporate tax incentives and exemptions that have been putting the state deeper into the fiscal abyss with each passing year.

Before coming to LED, Moret had a lackluster tenure as president and CEO of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, though at the time of Moret’s appointment, Jindal’s spindoctors lauded his accomplishments at the chamber.

Like Jindal, Moret is an alumnus of the McKinsey Group, a Washington, D.C., think tank that consults with governments and corporations worldwide.

One of McKinsey’s more notable contributions was working with Allstate Insurance to train the company in the best way to deny claims stemming from losses suffered by Gulf Coast residents in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

That should square up pretty well with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) anyway.

Other than those two entries on his curriculum vitae, Moret has little else to qualify him to lead the state’s flagship university. But hey, who needs an academic mind at the helm of a large university?

Such an appointment would further lower the school’s esteem, already pummeled by draconian budget cuts that forced tuition increases and threaten the very existence of the LSU School of Medicine and state teaching hospitals while reducing the position of president to nothing more than political puppet status—even more so than it already is—and heap ridicule on the state in general and LSU in particular.

Oh, well, there’s always football.

The LSU board will be on retreat Saturday (a legally-questionable procedure in that it appears to violate the state’s open meeting law—specific personnel matters certainly may discussed in executive session, but political bodies, including the LSU board, must first convene in public session and then vote to go into executive session) to discuss combining the jobs of president and chancellor.

Jenkins, responding to reports that the decision had already been made to select Moret, snapped, “That’s nuts!” he said, “irrational” that the board would pay a consultant and go through the motions of a national search if the decision were already made.

You could almost envision Jindal’s arm extending from Jenkins’ backside but you could still see Piyush’s lips moving.

Barfield worked as president and chief operating officer for the Shaw Group until becoming Jindal’s first secretary of the Louisiana Workforce Commission (formerly the Department of Labor) before being brought in to serve briefly as Jindal’s executive counsel.

While serving as secretary of the workforce commission, he helped Jindal to fight off legislators’ attempts to overturn Jindal’s rejection of $98 million in federal stimulus money for unemployment benefits–the first of hundreds of millions in federal dollars rejected by MIA Piyush.

Barfield left the administration in January of 2010 to become the chief development officer for Amedisys, a home health and hospice care company. Three months later, on March 17, he and Amedisys each contributed $5,000 to Jindal’s campaign and last December the company contributed another $1,000.

Barfield’s salary will be $250,000 a year, more than twice the $124,000 being paid Bridges and $83,000 more than the $167,000 per year he was earning in his last job in the administration. That $83,000 bump, by itself, could pay the salaries of a couple of laid-off state employees.

Because state law prohibits a cabinet member appointed while the legislature is not in session from making more than his or her predecessor, Jindal simply “created” through slick political subterfuge the position of executive counsel for the Department of Revenue and set the salary at $126,000 in addition to the $124,000 that was paid Bridges.

How’s that for transparency, openness and accountability?

But it does pose three intriguing questions:

• Since Barfield will now be his own legal counsel, does he have a fool for a client?

• Is the proposal to combine the positions of LSU president and chancellor being put on the table for the same reason as creating the position of executive counsel for Barfield—to double the salary for the new appointee to be named by Jindal’s rubber-stamp proxy, the LSU Board?

• And finally, is there any level to which this governor will not stoop to get what he wants, even to the point of circumventing the law?

BESE, meanwhile, apparently was unable to find anyone in Louisiana qualified for its executive director’s post despite Jindal’s oft-expressed desire to “keep the best and brightest in Louisiana.”

Heather Cope comes to us from Seattle, the same place where Jindal reached out and touched Bruce Greenstein for the position of secretary of Health and Hospitals.

Cope brings a boatload of qualifications, none of which would appear to apply to her new post. She reportedly has a desire to expose the problems in education, which led her to work for an education think tank, the prestigious League of Education Voters, which calls itself an advocate of systemic changes in public schools. Ever heard of it? Didn’t think so.

She also enjoys “immersing herself in foreign cultures (domestic and international).” So what, exactly would qualify as a “domestic” foreign culture? Other passions include watching historical dramas, quoting Monty Python sketches and giving lessons to co-workers on the proper use of hyphens.

The only thing missing to wrap up the Miss Congeniality title was world peace but there apparently was enough there to qualify her for a salary of $125,000 per year.

Most of the cabinet level positions pay more than the state’s top elected officials, including Jindal, receive in salary.

A quick review of a partial list of cabinet level salaries in the Piyush Jindal administration as reported by the Baton Rouge Advocate:

• Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret: $320,000;
• Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein: $236,000;
• Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater: $204,400;
• Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Peggy Hatch: $137,200;
• Louisiana Workforce Development Executive Director Curt Eysink: $137,000;
• Department of Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc: $136,700.
• Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham: $123,600.

And that doesn’t include the secretaries of Natural Resources, Department of Transportation and Development, Veterans Affairs, Commissioner of Higher Education, Superintendent of Education and all those former legislators (including two cabinet level positions—Veterans Affairs and Wildlife and Fisheries) appointed to all those six-figure income positions.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Laissez les bon temps rouler.

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