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State misses IT consolidation contract deadline; DOA met with 3 potential vendors before RFP release; legal eagles playing with semantics in effort to stall records requests

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Ethics, IT, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals, State Agencies on September 3, 2013| 11 Comments »

The Division of Administration (DOA) is more than two weeks late in announcing the awarding of a contract and nearly a week late on the effective date of a contract for the consolidation of the information technology (IT) departments of more than 20 departments within the state’s Executive Branch.

The Request for Proposals (RFP) for Information Technology Planning and Management Support Services was first issued on June 28 with a July 31 deadline for the submission of proposals.

Oral interviews were to be held on Aug. 14, according to the RFP, with the announcement of intent to award set for Aug. 16 and the contract work to begin on Aug. 30. The mere fact that the announcement of intent to award was set for only two days after oral interviews smacks of a done deal; how else could the administration make a decision of this magnitude (hundreds of millions of dollars) after only two days of interviews? How could an intelligent decision be made on such complex, complicated proposals in a mere two weeks’ time?

Interim Chief Information Officer Richard “Dickie” Howze, at a meeting of Council of Information Service Directors, stressed two main points, according to those in attendance. First, he said, IBM had not already been selected (strange how he would deny something before it had been alleged) and second, the consolidation goal was not to fire people. Yeah, right.

Howze also distributed a memorandum cautioning DOA section heads and Council of Information Services directors against any contact with vendors who are potential proposers or who may be part of a proposal as a subcontractor. “If you work with a contractor who is a potential proposer, there shall be no private communications, discussion of the upcoming process, timelines, RFP content, evaluation or award,” the memo said.

“Additionally, it is not appropriate for any current state employee to provide a reference for a vendor responding to this procurement.

“These restrictions will remain in effect until the contract(s) has been awarded and the protest period has past (sic). Anyone failing to follow this policy may face disciplinary action, up to and including termination.”

Amazing what the CNSI debacle can do in helping public officials find their moral compasses, isn’t it?

Those restrictions may have been in place with the awarding of the $200 million CNSI contract by the Department of Health and Hospitals but apparently someone neglected to get the word to then-DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein who maintained constant contact with his old bosses at CNSI right through the billing, selection and contract awarding process. Now the FBI is investigating that contract, Greenstein is gone, and the folks at DOA appear to have learned from that experience.

Or have they?

Howze, in laying out the ground rules for the current RFP, neglected to address a pre-RFP request by DOA for presentations from IBM, Deloitte and Northrop Grumman to discuss what those companies could do for the state.

Is it possible that these three players may have gained some insight and advantage in those meetings? Who attended from the state and should they now be terminated as per Howze’s memo?

We’re just sayin’….

Meanwhile, DOA’s legal staff appears to have gone into a stall mode over public records requests by LouisianaVoice, apparently preferring to bicker over semantics rather than providing public records.

On Monday, LouisianaVoice submitted the following request to DOA:

“Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

“According to the Request for Proposal (RFP# 107-28062013001) for Information Technology Planning and Management Support Services, under Section 1.6 (Calendar of Events), the ‘Announcement of Intent to Award’ was scheduled to be made on Aug. 16, 2013 and the ‘Contract Begin Date’ was Aug. 30, 2013.

“In accordance to that information and pursuant to the Public Records laws of the State of Louisiana, please provide me immediately with:

  • “The name and address of the winning bidder;
  • “The name of the company to whom the contract was awarded;
  • “The amount of the winning bid;
  • “The amount of the actual contract;
  • “Also, please provide me the opportunity to review all the proposals submitted in response to RFP#: 107-28062013001.

The response we received on Tuesday from attorney Joshua Paul Melder said:

“We have received your public records request regarding Request for Proposal No. 107-28062013001. You have requested information rather than documents, therefore the Public Records Act is inapplicable. Nevertheless, in an effort to be helpful we have identified some documents that may contain the information you seek, including the Notice of Intent to Award the Contract and the proposals submitted for the RFP.  Please advise if you would like to inspect these documents and we will collect them for copying or for your review.

“The contract has not been executed yet, however, we will be happy to provide a copy to you upon its final execution.”

At least he did extend an offer to provide a copy of the contract upon its execution, whenever that may be.

We fired off our response:

“You have a very narrow definition of what is public record and what is information, one which does not square with the law as set forth in RS 44:2 (a). The Public Records Act (RS 44:2 (a) is quite broad in its definition of public records. You should familiarize yourself with it. As a courtesy, I am attaching the definition below:”

RS 44: (2)(a)  All books, records, writings, accounts, letters and letter books, maps, drawings, photographs, cards, tapes, recordings, memoranda, and papers, and all copies, duplicates, photographs, including microfilm, or other reproductions thereof, or any other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, including information contained in electronic data processing equipment, having been used, being in use, or prepared, possessed, or retained for use in the conduct, transaction, or performance of any business, transaction, work, duty, or function which was conducted, transacted, or performed by or under the authority of the constitution or laws of this state, or by or under the authority of any ordinance, regulation, mandate, or order of any public body or concerning the receipt or payment of any money received or paid by or under the authority of the constitution or the laws of this state, are “public records”, except as otherwise provided in this Chapter or the Constitution of Louisiana.

“I’m reasonably certain what I am seeking will fall within the public records law as defined above.”

However, just to demonstrate that we can be flexible, we are altering the wording somewhat and re-submitting our request thus:

According to the Request for Proposal (RFP# 107-28062013001) for Information Technology Planning and Management Support Services, under Section 1.6 (Calendar of Events), the “Announcement of Intent to Award” was scheduled to be made on Aug. 16, 2013 and the “Contract Begin Date” was Aug. 30, 2013.

In accordance to that information and pursuant to the Public Records laws of the State of Louisiana, please provide me upon final execution with:

  • Documents containing the name and address of the winning bidder;
  • Documents containing the name of the company to whom the contract was awarded;
  • Documents containing the amount of the winning bid;
  • Documents containing the amount of the actual contract;
  • Also, please provide me the opportunity to review all documents containing the proposals submitted in response to RFP#: 107-28062013001.

If it’s semantics they want, it’s semantics they’ll get.

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Our random observations on freedom of expression, ATC, questionable meeting and action by Jindal’s LSU Board

Posted in ATC, Attorney General, Boards, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Politicians, Privatization, State Agencies, Transparency on August 26, 2013| 15 Comments »

We’ve come across a few odds and ends lying around that we feel might warrant a second look.

Another take on blood tests and one-vehicle accidents

First we would like to acknowledge that we initially wrote a piece based on erroneous information from certain people whose judgment we trusted but who were wrong. Because of their advice, we also were wrong in saying that blood alcohol tests are “routine procedure” in one vehicle accidents. It turns out that is not the case and we respectfully defer to the state trooper who investigated Attorney General Buddy Caldwell’s accident last week. The trooper said in his report that Caldwell did not appear to be impaired and accordingly, he did not take a blood sample for testing. We have been informed by State Police and others that it is not “routine procedure” to take blood tests in single-vehicle accidents.

ATC moves in with State Police, not so the ATC director

The Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control has been moved from its former headquarters at United Plaza on Essen Lane in Baton Rouge to the Louisiana State Police compound on Independence Boulevard, ostensibly to save money.

ATC Director Troy Hebert and his administrative assistant Jessica Starns, however, were allowed to remain at the United Plaza offices and to even rent additional space for Hebert’s office.

What’s with that? Shouldn’t an agency director be physically located at the same address as his employees and not several miles across town? That would be like having a governor who spends all his time in other states. Oh, wait. We already have that, don’t we?

Baton Rouge publisher opposes freedom of expression

Normally, a member of the Fourth Estate would be up in arms at any suggestion at muzzling a critic of government, a suggestion any publisher, editor of reporter would quickly point to as a threat to the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech.

Such is not the case of one Baton Rouge publisher, we’re told. Reports have it that this publisher, a staunch supporter of Gov. Bobby Jindal, has gone on rampages in his office, ranting to his subordinates and anyone else who will listen that he wants Robert Mann stripped of his tenure at LSU—and fired.

Mann, who has worked with three U.S. senators (Russell Long, Bennett Johnston and John Breaux) and former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, currently holds the Manship Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU.

A journalist and political historian, Mann also just happens to author a controversial political blog called Something Like the Truth http://bobmannblog.com/ in which he generally takes the Jindal administration to task for its roughshod trampling of all who dare disagree with him, be they state civil service employees, doctors, college presidents or legislators.

Mann is careful to feature a prominent disclaimer which says, “Opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the author, not LSU, the Manship School nor the Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs.”

But that apparently is not enough for this publisher, who dutifully prints every inane press release by the governor that purports to make the state look good despite reams of negative national surveys on poverty, obesity and health care.

So much for a fair and independent press serving as a watchdog on behalf of the citizenry. We’re just sayin’…

Cerise Memo: LSU Board quorum?

Remember our story last week about that July 2012 meeting in the LSU President’s conference room where former Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine pitched the privatization plan for LSU’s 10-hospital system?

There was a key sentence then-head of the LSU Health Care System Dr. Fred Cerise included in his memorialization of that meeting regarding Levine’s presentation:

“The LSU board members present indicated they want LSU’s management to pursue this strategy,” the Cerise Memo said.

But wait. The LSU Board of Supervisors consists of 15 voting members, all appointed by the governor, and one student member who has no vote.

The Louisiana Open Meetings Law, R.S. 42: 4.2, headed “Public policy for open meetings; liberal construction,” reads thusly:

  • “Meeting” means the convening of a quorum of a public body to deliberate or act on a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power. It shall also mean the convening of a quorum of a public body by the public body or by another public official to receive information regarding a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power.
  • “Public body” means village, town, and city governing authorities; parish governing authorities; school boards and boards of levee and port commissioners; boards of publicly operated utilities; planning, zoning, and airport commissions; and any other state, parish, municipal, or special district boards, commissions, or authorities, and those of any political subdivision thereof, where such body possesses policy making, advisory, or administrative functions, including any committee or subcommittee of any of these bodies enumerated in this paragraph.
  • “Quorum” means a simple majority of the total membership of a public body.

The statute further stipulates that “every meeting of any public body shall be open to the public unless closed pursuant to R.S. 42.6, R.S. 42:6.1 or R.S. 42:6.2.”

First of all, R.S. 42:6 clearly states that a public body “may hold executive session upon an affirmative vote …of two-thirds of its constituent members present.”

R.S. 42:6.1 simply lists the reasons an executive session may be held which you may explore in greater detail here: http://www.lawserver.com/law/state/louisiana/la-laws/louisiana_revised_statutes_42-6-1

R.S. 42:6.2, re-designated as R.S. 42:18 in 2010, applies only to the Legislature. http://www.legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=99494

But let’s return to R.S. 42:4.2, that pesky little law about quorums.

Remember, the Cerise Memo said that the “LSU board members present” indicated their desire for the LSU administration to move forward with the Levine proposal.

Remember also, the LSU Board of Supervisors is comprised of 15 voting members.

But there were only four members of the LSU board present at that meeting, according to Cerise’s notes. They included Rolfe McCollister, Bobby Yarborough, Dr. John George and Scott Ballard.

Hardly a quorum.

But then, it was the likely intent of those present to avoid having a quorum because a quorum (eight voting members, in this case) would necessitate public notices of such a meeting and making said meeting open to the public.

Obviously, that was not the wish of the board members who did attend. They wanted, above all else, to avoid a full quorum so that the meeting could be conducted in secret.

If you check out our masthead, we recently added an anonymous quote:

  • It is understandable when a child is afraid of the dark but unforgivable when a man fears the light.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (Nov. 13, 1856-Oct. 5, 1941) is credited with coining the phrase, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

But in avoiding the necessity of opening up that July 17, 2012, meeting to the public by purposely skirting the requirement of a quorum so as not to qualify as an official meeting, those four board members were legally barred from taking any official action.

Yet, that minor point of law did little to deter them from directing the LSU administration to pursue Levine’s plan.

Yes, we are fully aware that the four board members not only spoke for the entire board but for Gov. Bobby Jindal as well. As Elliott Stonecipher recently noted in his blog Forward Now, state ethic laws prohibited Levine from conducting business with the State for two years after his departure as DHH Secretary. http://forward-now.com/?p=8403

Levine’s last day at DHH was July 16, 2010. The meeting at which he presented his plan to LSU administrators and board members was on July 17, 2012.

And we don’t believe in coincidences. And anyone who doesn’t believe Levine was in constant contact with the administration in the days, weeks and months leading up to that July 17 meeting is…well, a fool.

Such is the Gold Standard of Ethics that Jindal has bestowed upon the people of Louisiana.

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Never let anyone say Gov. Jindal isn’t green; no one is better at recycling old politicians into cushy retirement positions

Posted in ATC, Congress, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, State Agencies on August 8, 2013| 19 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—Gov. Bobby Jindal is green and we can prove it.

He must have the welfare of the environment uppermost in his mind. He is all about recycling. The man was born to recycle. Just examine this list:

  • He recycled defeated State Rep. Jane Smith to Deputy Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue at $107,500.
  • He recycled former State Rep. Kay Katz to the Louisiana Tax Commission ($56,000).
  • He recycled former St. Tammany Parish President and defeated lieutenant governor candidate Kevin Davis to Director of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness ($165,000).
  • He recycled former Slidell police chief and mayor Ben Morris into a position at GOHSEP (unknown salary).
  • He recycled former House members Rickey Hardy, Tank Powell and Mert Smiley and former Grant Parish Sheriff Leonard Hataway to the State Pardon Board ($36,000 each).
  • He recycled former State Rep. Noble Ellington to Deputy Commissioner of Insurance ($150,000).
  • He recycled defeated St. Barnard Parish President Craig Taffaro as the new Director of Hazard Mitigation and Recovery ($150,000).
  • He recycled term-limited State Rep. Troy Hebert as Director of the Alcohol and Tobacco Control Board ($107,000).
  • He recycled former State Sen. Nick Gautreaux to Commissioner of the Office of Motor Vehicles (no salary available, but it doesn’t matter; he was forced out after a few months).
  • He has recycled former executive counselors Tim Barfield and Jimmy Fairchild more times than we can count and Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols has been recycled a few times in her own right.
  • He recycled former State Rep. Lane Carson to Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs ($130,000).
  • And now that Carson is retiring after four years on the job, we get word that Jindal is recycling Congressman Rodney Alexander to fill Carson’s post.

No sooner did Alexander announce on Wednesday that he was retiring from Congress because of his stated dissatisfaction with partisan gridlock than Jindal made the offer.

Major League Baseball’s managerial revolving door has nothing on Jindal when it comes to running the same tired old names through the system, allowing them to fatten their retirements even as Jindal is laying off state employees who need their jobs—and who actually perform work as opposed to these appointees who only occupy a desk and suck on the public teat.

It just seems to us that there are others out there who are equally—or more—qualified for these positions and it gets more disgusting with each appointment of the same fat cats to these six-figure jobs.

Of course, we know the underlying reason for recycling all these washed-up legislators: it’s to bump up their retirement benefits—at the expense of you, the taxpayer.

You see, legislators don’t really make that much in outright salary, so their retirement benefits aren’t that much—unless they can secure a six-figure job and remain in it for three years. Retirement is computed at 2.5 percent of one’s highest three years of average earnings times the number of years of service. Thus, 2.5 percent of $130,000 is considerably more than 2.5 percent of $16,000 or so.

Now with Alexander, it’s different: he already has a federal pension from his tenure as a congressman. But now, even though he cashed in his legislative retirement from his days in the legislature, he can buy all that time back and draw a state pension based on his $130,000 salary for the final three years of Jindal’s administration.

Nice gig if you happen to have the stroke to get it and of course there’s nothing like being governor and having the power to screw the taxpayers while running around preaching fiscal responsibility and laying off state workers.

Granted, we are a bit jaded and cynical from covering this administration, but if someone can convince me that fix wasn’t already in on this retirement/appointment, we’re willing to listen.

We can’t help but wonder what Alexander’s duties will entail, duties that someone else was not qualified to perform—especially since Jindal already gave out all those veterans’ medals before his 2011 re-election.

Thanks, Bobby and thanks, Rodney, for all that “good, ethical government.”

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IG report: GOHSEP pays $28 per 10-lb. bag for ice, stores it in unrefrigerated warehouse to melt at total cost of $7.5M

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency, Waste on August 3, 2013| 22 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—In anticipation of Hurricane Isaac a year ago, the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) purchased 33.9 million pounds of ice at a cost of more than $7.1 million, nearly half of which was allowed to melt in an unrefrigerated warehouse in Lacombe, according to a report just released by the Louisiana Inspector General’s (IG) office.

Lacombe is in St. Tammany Parish.

GOHSEP Director Kevin Davis was St. Tammany Parish President until his appointment by Jindal to head GOHSEP in December of 2011.

In addition to the cost of the ice, the state also paid Pelican Ice, Inc. of Kenner nearly $1.1 million for mileage and $9.2 million in “loitering” fees for Pelican drivers at $75 per hour, bring the total cost of the ice supply project to $17.4 million.

The reported noted that the Louisiana National Guard (LANG) claimed that 1.5 million bags of ice were distributed to the public.

Pelican, however, invoiced GOHSEP for the delivery of only 142 truckloads, or 624,800 bags. Pelican was the sole supplier of ice for the hurricane relief effort.

Based on all associated costs, GOHSEP paid $28 per bag of ice distributed.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reimbursed the state for 75 percent of the costs of the ice with GOHSEP paying the remaining 25 percent.

Certainly, had there been a widespread power outage caused by Isaac and had the administration not been prepared with sufficient supplies of ice, there would have been harsh criticism from those unable to obtain ice.

But at the same time, it would seem reasonable to assume that GOHSEP would have taken the necessary precautions to secure refrigerated storage facilities for the ice that was not distributed to storm victims.

Isaac made landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River on Aug. 28, 2012, and GOHSEP place three separate orders with Pelican for ice—on Aug. 29, Aug. 30 and Sept. 2. Each order was for 15,050,000 pounds of ice in 10-pound bags, or 45.15 million pounds total. The amount actually delivered was 33.9 million pounds for which Pelican invoiced the state $17.4 million.

The invoice amount included 268,856 miles at $4 per mile ($1,075,901), $9,207,692 “loitering time,” the time which Pelican’s drivers were required to wait to load or unload their trucks beyond a four-hour delay. The ice itself cost $7,124,000, according to Inspector General Stephen Street, Jr.

Additionally, GOHSEP agreed to pay Pelican a $315,000 “restocking charge” to take back some of the ice but the ice was taken to an unrefrigerated warehouse in Lacombe where it was allowed to melt. The warehouse rental was negotiated by Baron Property Management of Destrehan. The registered agent for Baron Property Management, Paul J. Murray, contributed $1,000 to Jindal in November of 2008.

The cost of the ill-fated Lacombe warehouse project came to more than $7.5 million, the report said. That included $3.2 million for the ice, $416,114 in mileage costs, $315,000 for the “restocking fee,” and $3.6 million in loitering costs.

Another sticking point noted in the IG report was that even though GOHSEP paid Pelican $4 per mile and the $75 per hour loitering fee, it also paid $238,819 to refuel the loitering ice trucks. This meant that taxpayer dollars paid mileage and purchased fuel for the trucks, in effect, a dual payment.

Among the IG’s findings and recommendations:

  • During hurricane Isaac, neither GOHSEP nor LANG had an inventory tracking system sufficient to accurately record the daily consumption of ice. Such a system should be implemented to ensure that the essential amounts of commodities are on hand or on order.
  • We found that LANG could not provide supporting documentation to show the amounts of ice consumed and requested during the hurricane. An inventory tracking system should include a feature that reliably memorializes the amount of commodities requested by each parish and the quantities ordered and delivered to fulfill those requests.
  • GOHSEP expended $7,536,314 to acquire, transport and restock ice that was allowed to melt in an unrefrigerated warehouse. To prevent such unnecessary expenditures of public funds in the future, GOHSEP should include a provision in its ice contracts for excess ice to be returned to the distributor along with a refund of the value of the returned product.
  • GOHSEP paid $238,819 to purchase fuel for refrigerated trucks that it was already paying $1800 per day to loiter. Future delivery contracts should be written to ensure that trucks receiving loitering and mileage payments be required to provide their own fuel. In the event that the trucks cannot leave their assigned location, arrangements should be made for fuel to be delivered to the trucks at their own expense.

Davis, in his response to Street’s report, said that all four of the report’s recommendations have since been implemented by GOHSEP.

In September of 2008, Jindal lost no time in making Department of Social Services Secretary Ann Williamson the scapegoat for the confusion that surrounded shelter conditions and the emergency food stamp program following Hurricane Gustav.

Though Williamson officially “resigned,” it is no secret that she was forced out, or “teagued” by Jindal—a tactic that seems to be his preferred method of jettisoning people he doesn’t want in his administration. Williamson had the misfortune of having served under former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, apparently an unpardonable sin in the Jindal administration.

In commenting on Williamson’s departure, Jindal, as is his custom, declined to say whether he leaned on her to resign, choosing to fall back on what would become a familiar line with subsequent departures: “We agreed it was time to go in a different direction.”

No word has been forthcoming from the governor’s office if any disciplinary action might be considered for Davis’s waste of $7.5 million in lost ice and transportation costs or if an agreement to “go in a different direction” might be in the works.

Of course Williamson was not the one who contributed $3,000 to Jindal’s campaigns.

That was Davis.

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Faircloth says his state income is a ‘pittance,’ but his $1.1 million is 11th highest among state’s top 50 legal contracts

Posted in Attorney General, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency on July 24, 2013| 4 Comments »

The Faircloth Law Firm doesn’t even show as a blip on the Louisiana Office of Contractual Review’s (OCR) Top 50 list of legal contractors with the State of Louisiana for the Fiscal Year July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011.

Altogether, the top 50 contracts represent a combined total of $81.4 million, according to OCR’s list.

The list ranks state contracts from the largest—the Department of Justice (Louisiana Attorney General) at $18 million to number 50—the $276,000 contract of the New Orleans law firm of Vezina & Gattuso, but does not include Faircloth.

That’s because the Faircloth Law Firm received its payments in fiscal years 2012 and 2013 and did not show up on the FY-2011 list.

Most attorney contracts, with the exception of the Attorney General and public defender contracts, are awarded over a three-year period.

It should be noted that simply because a firm is awarded a contract of, say, $1.5 million, it does not necessarily reflect the actual amount paid the firm. Often, cases conclude long before the contracts are exhausted and in other cases, they extend beyond the financial terms of the dates of the contracts and must be amended or renewed.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Faircloth has received more than $1.1 million in contract work from various state agencies, which would put the firm about midway on the list of top 50 firms. Records provided by the Office of Risk Management (ORM) through the Division of Administration (DOA) show that the Faircloth firm was actually paid $931,000 in 2012 and 2013.

Most contracts awarded through ORM are done so at set hourly rates which are generally uniform from firm to firm, though there are exceptions where a firm will receive a contract with a higher per hour representation fee. And while LouisianaVoice was not provided with Faircloth’s hourly fee, it is assumed that it is higher than customary simply because he represented the governor’s office in several court cases, many of which he lost in the lower courts and in the appeals process.

More recently, the attorney general’s office has contracted Faircloth’s firm to represent the state in litigation against BP for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill and is also represented the state in litigation by CNSI which was fired from its $200 million Medicaid contract with the Department of Health and Hospitals.

Those two cases alone are expected to reap an additional $675,000 in addition to the $1.1 million already paid but Faircloth downplays that amount as insignificant in the overall scheme of things.

“I know what we do is a pittance compared to how much gets contracted,” he said.

Oh, really?

Let’s compare.

With the $675,000 from CNSI and BP cases added to the $1.1 million already received, that’s almost $1.8 million total.

Of the 50 biggest legal contracts listed by OCR, only 10 were for more than $1.8 million and half of those were for either the attorney general’s office or four contracts of $5.1 million for the legal services for the defense of persons pursuing post-conviction relief of a capital conviction; $4 million for legal services for the Louisiana Public Defender Board and contracts for $2.1 million and $2 million for legal representation for capital cases where an ethical conflict in the representation of indigents is needed.

Faircloth denies that he is getting the lucrative contracts because of his ties to the governor as first his executive counsel and most recently as a member of the University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors.

Sean Lansing, a spokesman for Jindal first said the governor’s office doesn’t direct agencies to hire specific attorneys but later revised his statement when told that agency directors indicated that Jindal’s office had suggested hiring Faircloth in the past. “We have recommended Jimmy in certain circumstances because he is a great lawyer but at the end of the day, it is up to agency heads to decide on whom to hire.

“I don’t deny that I have the benefit of knowing all those folks,” Faircloth said of his connections to the governor’s office. “I would like to think that in my working with (state agencies), they would say, ‘Jimmy’s a very good lawyer. Let’s hire him.’

“I like to think I get the call because we give pretty good service,” he said.

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