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Archive for the ‘RFP, Request for Proposals’ Category

DOA to issue RFP for contract to consolidate 20 Executive Department IT operations; hundreds of layoffs anticipated

Posted in Computers, Governor's Office, Layoffs, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals, Transparency on June 28, 2013| 48 Comments »

The Division of Administration (DOA) on Friday issued a new request for proposals (RFP) for the consolidation of the information technology (IT) departments of 20 departments within the state’s Executive Branch. http://wwwprd1.doa.louisiana.gov/OSP/LaPAC/agency/pdf/5479100.pdf

July 12 is the deadline for submissions and Aug. 16 is the target date to announce the awarding of the contract, tentatively set to begin on Aug. 30, according to the RFP.

This is sure to be yet another contract to be awarded to some company who will in all likelihood underbid the cost and come back later with expensive contract amendments like F.A. Richard and Associates (FARA) with the Office of Risk Management and CNSI with the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) to mention two that come quickly to mind.

But even more important, it appears that possibly hundreds—maybe more than 1,000—of state IT employees will be losing their jobs as a result of the new contract which probably will end up costing the state more money than the current in-house IT systems.

The Office of Information Services (OIS) is responsible for the development, implementation and support of the Integrated Statewide Information System (ISIS) application as well as the DOA programmatic and desktop application, including traditional application development of large complex systems run on the DOA mainframe, client service applications run on midrange computers and Web-based applications.

Remember when Carol Steckel tried to fire 69 IT employees and to contract out DHH’s Center for Health Care Innovation and Technology services to the University of New Orleans?

In that case, she got a little ahead of herself by holding a conference call with the IT employees last December to announce that their jobs would be gone in January. The employees returned to their work stations after that call only to find they had been locked out of their computers. These were the employees who, among other things, help other state employees with their computer problems.

After the Civil Service Commission, in a rare moment of lucidity, denied Steckel’s layoff plan because of insufficient information, UNO backed out of its agreement to take over the agency’s IT services.

An IT employee with DHH’s Center for Health Care Innovation and Technology wrote LouisianaVoice that employees had been misinformed on future employment by DHH executives on three separate occasions. “At each meeting, we felt as though we were being threatened with furlough without pay, having to pay 100 percent of COBRA to maintain our insurance, (and) being threatened (with) not receiving our 300 hours of saved annual leave,” the employee wrote.

In March, Jan Cassidy, sister-in-law of Congressman Bill Cassidy, was hired to head DOA’s Procurement and Technology section at a salary of $150,000 per year, prompting one observer to ask, “What is she going to procure? The state is broke and there’s an expenditure freeze.”

Apparently we will be getting the answer to that question when the proposals start coming in from vendors and a contract is awarded.

Jan Cassidy previously worked for Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) for 20 months, from June 2009 to January 2011 and for 23 months, from January 2011 to November 2012, for Xerox after Xerox purchased ACS.

As Xerox Vice President—State of Louisiana Client Executive, her tenure was during a time that the company held two large contracts with the state.

The first was a $20 million contract with DHH that ran from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2011 and paid Xerox $834,000 per month.

The second contract was for $74.5 million, 100 percent of which was funded by a federal community development block grant (remember how Jindal abhors federal money?) and which ran from March 27, 2009 to March 26, 2012 and required ACS/Xerox to administer a small rental property program to help hurricane damaged parishes recover rental units.

A state contract data base search by LouisianaVoice turned up four contracts with ACS totaling $45.55 million and campaign finance reports revealed three ACS political contributions totaling $10,000 to Gov. Bobby Jindal.

In Texas, an ACS contract awarded by the Rick Perry administration quadrupled to $1.4 billion as Texas Medicaid spent more on braces in 2010 ($184 million) than the other 49 states combined but which an audit found that 90 percent of the reimbursements were not covered by Medicaid.

The Wall Street Journal said statewide fraud reached hundreds of millions of dollars as ACS spent more than $6.9 million lobbying Texas politicians from 2002 to 2012.

In June of 2007, ACS agreed to pay the federal government $2.6 million to settle allegations that it had submitted inflated charges for services provided through the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Labor and Health and Human Services by submitted inflated claims to a local agency that delivered services to workers using funds provided by the three federal agencies.

http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2007/07/11/acs-settles-federal-fraud-case.aspx

In Washington, D.C. the Department of Motor Vehicles reimbursed $17.8 million to persons wrongly given parking tickets. The contract that operated the District’s ticket processing was ACS.

http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2007/07/11/acs-settles-federal-fraud-case.aspx
In 2010, ACS settled charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had backdated stock option grants to its officers and employees.

http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2010/lr21643.htm

In Alabama, Steckel, then director of the state Medicaid agency, awarded a $3.7 million contract to ACS in 2007 even though the ACS bid was $500,000 more than the next bid. ACS, of course, had a decided edge in getting that contract: it hired Alabama Gov. Bob Riley’s former chief of staff Toby Roth. And Steckel, of course came to Louisiana to work for DHH though she still maintained her residence—and, apparently, her vehicle registration—in Alabama. http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2007/8/22/Alabama-Contract-for-Medicaid-Database-Sparks-Controversy.aspx

http://harpers.org/blog/2007/09/the-inside-track-to-contracts-in-alabama/

Steckel first said the proposed contract with UNO would save DHH $2.1 million over three years but later revised that figure upward to $7 million, prompting members of the Civil Service Commission to express “zero confidence” in her figures and to reject her layoff plan.

Jan Cassidy also worked for 19 years, from 1986 to 2005, for Unisys Corp. where she led a team of sales professionals marketing hardware and systems applications, “as well as consulting services to Louisiana State Government,” according to her website.

Unisys had five separate state contracts from 2002 to 2009 totaling $53.9 million, the largest of which ($21 million) was with the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and which was originally signed to run from April 1, 2008, through Nov. 30, 2009, but which State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson cancelled in April of 2009, saying he was dissatisfied with the work and that his staff could complete the project.

That contract called for an upgrade to the state computer system that dealt with driver’s licenses, vehicle titles and other related issues within the Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles.
http://www.wafb.com/global/story.asp?s=10152623

Altogether, the 23 agencies account for 1,158 IT employees who stand to lose their jobs with the awarding of a contract for the consolidation.

The agencies and the number of filled positions to be affected are as follows:

• Executive: 275;

• Public Safety: 142;

• Children and Family Services: 120;

• Transportation and Development: 111;

• Health and Hospitals: 62;

• Revenue and Taxation: 88;

• Retirement Systems: 58;

• Workforce Commission (formerly Labor): 45;

• Civil Service: 8;

• Agriculture: 13;

• Corrections: 39;

• Economic Development: 3;

• Education: 44;

• Environmental Quality: 29;

• Insurance: 8;

• Natural Resources: 30;

• State: 25;

• Treasury: 3;

• Wildlife and Fisheries: 24;

• Culture, Recreation and Tourism: 14;

• Juvenile Justice 5;

• Public Service Commission; 7;

Given problems and cost overruns in other states, there have to be concerns over similar problems or questions whether there even is a company out there willing to submit a proposal that has not gotten contracts under questionable circumstances or which found it necessary to come back later for costly contract amendments.

In the movie Saving Private Ryan, the operative term was FUBAR. In administration Jindal, the concern should be whether or not we might be headed for another CNSI or ACS/Xerox scenario.

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Senate Education Committee vote was a foregone conclusion; charges of DOE test data fraud was huge political bombshell

Posted in BESE, Education, Ethics, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Recovery School District, RFP, Request for Proposals, RSD, Transparency, Vouchers on May 1, 2013| 17 Comments »

The vote was a foregone conclusion; the minds were made up long before the Senate Education Committee members cast their votes to kill SB 41 by Sen. Bob Kostelka (R-Monroe).

The vote that killed the bill was anti-climactic at best. The testimony of a band director and self-proclaimed “highly qualified” math teacher, however, provided the bombshell that Superintendent John White and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) would rather you not know.

His testimony evoked memories of Michelle Rhee’s tumultuous reign in Washington, D.C. and of more recent events in Atlanta.

It was purely academic that only two of the eight committee members would vote in favor of sending the bill to make the Louisiana Superintendent of Education position elective again after nearly two decades of having an appointive superintendent.

And one of those two votes in favor—that of Sen. Mike Walsworth (R-West Monroe) was purely for show because (a) he knew the result well in advance, so his vote would not affect the outcome and (b) about 75 percent of those attending the committee meeting were from Ouachita Parish—and they all supported the bill. Walsworth, if nothing else, is at least capable of reading a room.

Walsworth, you may remember, was the senator who last year made a complete ass of himself during a committee hearing on science vs. creationism. A teacher was testifying about how her science students were growing cultures in her classroom when Walsworth asked the stupefyingly inane question of whether the cultures could produce humans.

This is your senator, Ouachita Parish. Be proud.

But enough of Walworth’s political pandering and asinine questions; Herb Bassett of nearby Grayson was the real story because his testimony placed charges on the table that heretofore have only been whispered about in the halls of the Claiborne Building.

Where others within the Department of Education (DOE) have alluded privately to data suppression and manipulation of school performance scores that artificially inflated graduation rates, Bassett, a band director who said he was “highly qualified” to teach math, publicly charged White, BESE and DOE of misrepresenting test scores and then covering up the lie by removing the data from the Louisiana Believes website. “This is data suppression,” Bassett said.

He said he was asked by his principal last October to look into his school’s score so that it could be improved in the future. “My subsequent research revealed deceit, distortion, manipulation of scores and data suppression,” he said.

“In mid-December, I sent you a report documenting the gross inflation of the high school performance scores. The Department covered up the inflation by intentionally mislabeling an important column of data in the initial public release of the scores.”

Bassett clarified that statement later, saying he sent his findings to all 144 state legislators and every school district superintendent and that he received an acknowledgement from the legislative assistant to Sen. Conrad Appel (R-Metairie), chairman of the committee, that Appel had received his report.

“The data, the Transition Baselines, showed that the GEE (Graduation Exit Exam)—which was being phased out—and the new EOC (End of Course) tests were mis-calibrated by 7.5 points. That’s half a letter grade,” Bassett said. “Had it been correctly labeled, the inflation would have been obvious—at least to me.”

Meanwhile, he said, BESE was given a different version of the scores with the Transition Baselines correctly labeled. “This shows intent to deceive,” he said.

LouisianaVoice has received information from several sources inside DOE that corroborate Bassett’s claim but because of DOE’s refusal to provide requested records, little has been written about the claimed deception.

He later provided LouisianaVoice with a copy of the report that he sent to legislators and local school superintendents. We will be expanding on that report in subsequent posts.

Bassett further cited what he claimed was manipulation of scores.

“At Mr. White’s first BESE meeting as State Superintendent, the department recommended a graduation index formula change. The change ensured that scores would only go up or stay the same. This raised the average score another four points.

“Thanks to the Transition Baselines, the switching to the EOC did not affect the growth scores but this (the graduation index formula change) did. There are at least 20 schools that would not have earned top gains status without it. That’s over $160,000 in those big checks passed out in PR campaigns,” he said in reference to recent teacher bonuses passed out by DOE as performance awards.

“And the graduation rate data set that I used to compute this has been removed from the Louisiana Believes website (the DOE website). That is data suppression.”

Bassett said he made a five-minute video explaining the problems with the 2011 and 2012 DOE reports on the Value Added Model (VAM), also known as COMPASS, the department’s teacher evaluation program. He said the problems he found “clearly contradict DOE’s current claim that VAM is stable. “This inconvenient data have been suppressed,” he said.

He said LEAP and iLEAP data files that contain the actual numbers of students at each achievement level have been removed. “Only percentage data are given,” he said. “Meanwhile, the new School Assessment System will award bonus points based on the number or percent—whichever is greater—of non-proficient students who surpass their VAM targets. This biased system more generously awards points to schools with over 100 non-proficient students. Without the (actual) numbers, we will not know which schools disproportionately benefit from it.

“Most of the data I used are gone from the new website,” he said.

He said that White is asking “that we believe that VAM has miraculously become stable since the reports by its creators have disappeared.”

Though Bassett did not elaborate on the latter point, LouisianaVoice also has received information that the creators of VAM later became concerned at the direction the program was taking and sent several emails expressing that apprehension to superiors who ignored the messages.

BESE president Chas Roemer (R-Baton Rouge) was called to the witness table and asked about Bassett’s charges. Roemer said he had heard nothing about Bassett’s claims, but that he would “look into it.”

It would difficult to imagine that the president of BESE would know nothing of claims of manipulation of data by White and DOE in light of cheating scandals in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. In Atlanta, former superintendent Beverly Hall and several public school staff members were recently indicted in an alleged scheme to cheat on Georgia state tests, including the erasure of students’ incorrect answers and replacing them with correct answers.

A similar scandal brought down the administration of former Washington, D.C. superintendent Michelle Rhee, once the national poster child of school reform.

With the negative publicity those two cheating scandals have received, one would think that the president of a state education board would be aware of any hint of a similar event on his watch.

Roemer was asked to look into Bassett’s allegations and to report back to the committee.

If anyone reading this cares to wager that Roemer will ever report back to the committee members, that the committee will ever follow up on Bassett’s embarrassing charges, or that White or BESE will ever take corrective measures, we know several skeptics who will cover the bet—and give you odds.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Health Care, Notable Quotables, Public Records, RFP, Request for Proposals on March 21, 2013| 8 Comments »

“Are you refusing to tell this committee who is going to be recommended by DHH to receive the award? Yes or no.”

—Former Sen. Rob Marionneaux (D-Livonia) in June of 2011, to DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein in efforts to learn if Greenstein’s former employer CNSI won a $184 million, 10-year contract.

“I’m not going to be able to say today.”

—Greenstein, responding to Marionneaux.

“You are the department. Who is the person above you? Who is your boss?”

—Sen. Jody amedee (R-Gonzales), during the same hearing to confirm Greenstein’s appointment as DHH Secretary as he attempted to learn the name of the contractor.

“The Governor.”

—Greenstein, in response to Amedee.

“We have zero tolerance for wrongdoing.”

—Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols on Thursday, in announcing the cancellation of the CNSI contract hours after her office was served with a subpoena by the FBI in its investigation of the CNSI contract.

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Letter to U.S. Attorney, LouisianaVoice claims continuing pattern of RFP bid rigging, vendor favortism at OGB, DOA

Posted in Attorney General, Ethics, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals on March 9, 2013| 20 Comments »

New claims of possible bid rigging and unfair trade practices within the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) and the Division of Administration (DOA), have surfaced in a two-page letter sent to the U.S. Attorney’s office and to LouisianaVoice this week.

OGB is a multi-billion dollar agency which administers health benefit claims for state employees, retirees and their dependents.

If true, it would be the third time in less than two years that insider negotiations have been conducted between a potential bidder, OGB and DOA preparatory to DOA’s issuing a request for proposals (RFP).

A copy of the unsigned, undated letter also was addressed to State Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) and to Louisiana Inspector General (IG) Stephen Street, though the writer expressed skepticism over any anticipated action by the IG’s office.

“I am writing as a concerned citizen who has had enough,” the letter said. “I write out of concern that there is something fundamentally wrong with the operations of the Division of Administration. I included the Inspector General out of protocol, but not with the expectation that he will act.”

The letter accused DOA, through OGB of engaging “in a pattern of behavior that has to be, at the very least, unethical” in its dealings with a South Carolina company.

“Within the past few months, the staff of the Office of Group Benefits has been instructed to conduct multiple meetings with a business called BenefitFocus (which is in the business of group health eligibility activity).

“The problem with these meetings is that the blatantly expressed reason for the meetings is the preparation of an RFP on which the company will then bid.

“In fact, in the last meeting,” the writer said, “there was an open discussion on how to either construct an RFP that will yield the company an insurmountable advantage or (that would) make the company a ‘sole source’ vendor that will eliminate competition.”

BenefitFocus is headquartered in Charleston, S.C. and its web page describes it as “the country’s leading provider of benefits technology.” It claims more than 18 million members and 300,000 employers who manage “all types of benefits” through the company which “provides employers, insurance carriers, consumers and government entities with cloud-based technology to shop, enroll, manage and exchange benefits information.

“BenefitFocus clients include small, medium and large employers from all industries, as well as the nation’s top insurance companies,” the website says.

Among the clients listed were Blue Cross/Blue Shield in several states, including Louisiana.
The anonymous writer described the activity between OGB and BenefitFocus as a “pattern,” saying such events have occurred at least twice before.

“The first instance was when OGB (by order of DOA) was looking for a financial advisor. The eventual successful vendor was Goldman Sachs, who had participated in multiple OGB meetings before the bid process and who even had the audacity to help write the RFP,” the letter said.

On April 13, 2011, CNS learned that Goldman Sachs had been active in discussions about the planned privatization of OGB as far back as October or November of 2010. That was about the same time that the idea of privatizing OGB was first floated to then-OGB CEO Tommy Teague in a meeting between then-Deputy Commissioner of Administration Mark Brady, Teague and four representatives of Goldman Sachs.

Teague was fired two days after LouisianaVoice published that story.

When it came time to open the proposals for the project, Goldman Sachs was the only bidder and stood to receive $6 million in fees for its services, whether it was successful in finding a buyer for OGB or not.

Gov. Bobby Jindal eventually rejected the Goldman Sachs bid after details of the Wall Street banking firm’s involvement were made public and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana was ultimately awarded the contract to serve as a third party administrator over OGB’s preferred provider (PPO) organization. BCBS also administers other claims for OGB under a separate contract.

“Earlier in 2012, the letter said, “OGB staff was directed to have multiple meetings with Extend Health, a company in the Medicare Advantage exchange business. The staff attended the meetings and helped answer background questions.

“In later activity with the company, an RFP was drafted (a very narrow drafting) that gave Extend Health a nearly sickening advantage in the bidding,” the writer said. “Of course, Extend Health won.”

Extend Health, the largest private Medicare exchange in the U.S., offers access to multiple Medicare plans for 2013. Retirees who enroll in a Medicare plan through the Extend Health exchange are enrolled in a health reimbursement arrangement (HRA) and received HRA credits of $200 to $300 per month from the state up to a maximum of $2,400 per year for single coverage and $3,600 for family coverage.

The credits may be used to pay premiums for Medicare Advantage plans, Medicare Part B. Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, Medigap plans and dental and vision plans.

LouisianaVoice has made public records requests for copies of all correspondence between OGB, DOA and BenefitFocus.

Let’s see how long it takes DOA to invoke the ol’ “deliberative process” exemption.

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Attorney General opinion accuses π-yush of parliamentary chicanery in Office of Group Benefits privatization contract

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Attorney General, Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Contract, Contracts, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Prison, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals, Transparency on September 15, 2012| 5 Comments »

A Louisiana Attorney General’s opinion released Friday has accused the administration of Gov. Piyush Jindal of attempting an end run around the legislature in its efforts to privatize the Office of Group Benefits (OGB).

Meanwhile, another state prison is abruptly closed by Jindal.

The eight-page opinion, written by Assistant Attorney General Michael J. Vallan, says that the proposed privatization of the Office of Group Benefits and the ensuing contract with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana must be approved by the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, as well as the Office of Contractual Review.

But don’t expect Jindal to capitulate too easily, for while the opinion, which boiled down to a interpretation of under which state statute the privatization action was taken, is just that—an opinion. It has no force of law and the likely action to be taken by Jindal and the Division of Administration (DOA) is to simply ignore it and proceed as planned.

The only recourse in such a scenario, would be for the legislature to file suit against Jindal to get a determination of which statute should apply in the privatization process—one which effective bypasses legislative authority or one which specifically requires approval of the two committees.

The requirement for approval of the Office of Contractual Review may as well have been deleted from the opinion since the office is a part of DOA and answers directly to Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater, making that agency’s approval a virtual given.

The Division of Administration, through OGB issued a request for proposals (RFP) earlier this year and on April 30 issued a Notice of Intent to Contract (NIC) for Administrative Services Only (ASO), meaning for the awarding of a contract to a third party administrator (TPA) to take over the administrative duties for the state’s Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plan, the High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) with Health Savings Account (HAS), and the LaChip Affordable Health Plan (LaCHIP).

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana (BCBS) was already serving as third party administrator for the state’s HMO coverage for state employees and their dependents through OGB and on July 20, OGB issued a report and recommendation to the Evaluation Committee in which it proposed awarding the PPO, HDHP, HAS and LaCHIP business to BCBS as well.

That recommendation was approved by the State Civil Service Commission on Aug. 1.

State Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) two days later requested an expedited legal opinion from the attorney general’s office based on her belief that the legislature had to sign off on the awarding of such contracts.

Vallan, in his opinion, said that Louisiana Revised Statute 42:802(B)(8)(b) “clearly provides that any such contract shall be subject to review and final approval by the appropriate standing committees of the Legislature having jurisdiction over review of agency rules by OGB as designated by (statute), or the subcommittees on oversight of such standing committees, and the Office of Contractual Review of the Division of Administration.”

“It is our understanding that the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee are the appropriate standing committees having jurisdiction over OGB rules.

“Therefore, pursuant to the plain language of …42:802, it is the opinion of this office that any contract negotiated by OGB pursuant to the authority granted by …42:802(B)(8) shall be subject to review and final approval by the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.”

The entire issue hangs on which statute was used in the issuance of the NIC and the subsequent awarding of the contract to BCBS.

“According to OGB,” Vallan said, “the contract at issue was not negotiated pursuant to the provisions of …42:802(B), but was instead negotiated pursuant to the authority provided by Louisiana Revised Statute 42:851.”

While acknowledging that 42:851 does not require legislative approval of contracts, Vallan said, “Our reading of …42:851 is that it applies to situations where a particular state governmental or administrative subdivision, department, agency, school system, etc., intends to procure private contracts of insurance for its respective subdivision, department or agency.

“We do not believe that …42:851 provides OGB with the authority to enter into the proposed contract with BCBS. We are of the opinion that such authority is clearly granted by …42:802. An interpretation of both …42:802 and 42:851 authorize OGB to execute the proposed contract with BCBS would render the provisions of (the two statutes) duplicates of each other and their provisions superfluous and/or meaningless. Such an interpretation should be avoided.”

Vallan said that by enacting 42:802, it was clear that the legislature “has expressed its desire that contracts governing the provision of basic health care services, as well as certain other related contracts be subject to review and final approval by the legislature.

“To interpret …42:851 as offering some sort of alternative route to execute such contracts, thereby escaping legislative oversight, appears to be contrary to the logic and presumed fair purpose the legislature had in enacting …42:802.

“In summary, it is the opinion of this office that the proposed contract between OGB and BCBS is a contract negotiated pursuant to the provisions of …42:802. As such, the contract is subject to review and final approval by the appropriate standing committees of the legislature having jurisdiction over review of agency rules by the Office of Group Benefits.”

Almost lost in all the legalese is the fact that if Jindal’s privatization plan is ultimately approved—by the legislature or by the courts—121 state employees who show up each day to see to it that the medical claims of more than 100,000 state employees, retirees and their dependents are paid in a timely fashion will see their jobs vanish.

Jindal sees privatization through rose-colored glasses—provided him, no doubt, by generous corporate campaign contributors—despite the obvious pitfalls.

Take the Office of Risk Management (ORM), for example. It was the first state agency to be privatized and the company that the state paid $68 million to take over the TPA functions. The takeover was to occur in phases, with the worker’s compensation section one of the first to go and the road hazard section scheduled later this year as the last section to go over.

One of the conditions of the privatization contract was that the TPA absorb displaced ORM employees for a minimum of one year.

In only about eight months after taking over ORM in September of 2010, the contractor, F.A. Richard and Associates (FARA) of Mandeville, was back, asking for an amendment of a tad over $6.8 million to its contract, bring the total to just under $75 million.

Because the request was for an additional 10 percent, legislative approval was not necessary; there is a provision that contractors may get a one-time bump of 10 percent without legislative concurrence.

Legislators were not too happy to learn of that provision but in less than a month, FARA sold out to a company in Ohio which in a matter of only a few more months, sold out to a company in New York.

But here’s the clincher: the contract with FARA contains a clause which specifically says that its contract with ORM may not be transferred or reassigned without prior written approval. When DOA was asked for a copy of the written approval to transfer the contract to each of the out-of-state companies, the response was no such document existed.

So, because of not one, but two flagrant violations of its contract for privatization, ORM is being run by an out-of-state corporation even before all the ORM sections were phased into the contract.

And where are those former ORM employees today? Well, it seems, only a handful of former ORM employees remain there.

OGB remains on the privatization chopping block despite the encouraging legal opinion of the state’s highest legal office. It remains to be seen how it all will play out.

Meanwhile, Jindal, having failed to privatize state prisons as he wished, is simply closing facilities. J. Levy Dabadie Correctional Center was closed earlier this year with nary a word to area legislators of his intent.

On Friday, September 14, Jindal dropped another bombshell.

C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center in DeQuincy is being closed with its 700 medium security prisoners to be transferred to Angola State Penitentiary.

Again, state employees, about 150 of them, have had their livelihoods jerked from under them with no prior warning. About 70 of those will be given the opportunity to transfer to Angola. As for the rest?

Apparently they’re not Jindal’s problem. After all, he likes to say do more with less.

And now, with such a stellar record to back him up, Jindal is turning his attention to the privatization of the LSU Health System and its 10 affiliated hospitals statewide that treat the state’s poor and which train medical students.

Does anyone see a trend?

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