Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Teague’ Category

How do you Teague a Legislator? Ask Jindal; to Teague a teacher, just change the committee rules for witnesses

Posted in Charters, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Teague, Vouchers on March 14, 2012| 7 Comments »

It was more of the same in Baton Rouge Wednesday: a legislator got Teagued, an attempt by a Republican House member to Teague—or at least out teachers for potential Teague-ing—failed, and new light was shed on the Teague-ing of an administration official by Jindal last week.

State Rep. Harold Ritchie (D-Bogalusa) got his comeuppance on Wednesday one day after he voted against legislation pushed by Jindal. Ritchie, was stripped of his vice chairmanship of the House Committee on Insurance after voting no on a tax rebate for those who donate money for scholarships to private and parochial schools.

He is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee that approved the legislation, HB 969, on Tuesday. Ritchie, during the committee meeting, asked about mechanics of the bill, including how many children might take advantage of it and how many private and parochial schools could accommodate transfer students.

He also posed questions about whether or not accountability standards would be required at the schools offer the scholarships created through the tax rebates.

HB 969 is one of the bills Jindal wants passed as a means of providing subsidized opportunities for children to attend private or parochial schools. Another bill would use taxpayer dollars for the same purpose.

True to form for Jindal, Ritchie was removed the next day by House Speaker Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles). Also true to form, Jindal never does the firing personally, leaving that task to subordinates. In this case, Kleckley is the only one who could have demoted Ritchie.

Rep. Ledricka Thierry (D-Opelousas) was named by Kleckley to replace Ritchie.

Also on Wednesday, State Rep. Nancy Landry (R-Lafayette), whose district includes Vermilion Parish, opened proceedings at the House Education Committee by introducing a new rule that has never existed in House committee hearings.

The committee was hearing testimony on HB 976 by committee Chairman Stephen Carter (R-Baton Rouge) that would impose sweeping changes, including providing student scholarships for Jindal’s Educational Excellence Program, allow for parent petitions for certain schools to be transferred to the Recovery School District (RSD) and charter school authorization criteria.

Before debate began on the bill, Landry said she had received calls from “concerned constituents” to the effect that some teachers from districts that did not close schools for the day had taken a sick day in order to attend a rally of teachers opposed to Jindal’s education reform.

She made a motion that in addition to the customary practice of witnesses providing their names, where they are from and whom they represent, they be required to state if they were appearing before the committee in a “professional capacity or if they were on annual or sick leave.”

Democrats on the committee were livid. John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) said he had never in his tenure in the House seen such a rule imposed on witnesses.

“This house (the Capitol) belongs to the people,” said Rep. Pat Smith (D-Baton Rouge) “and now we’re going to put them in a compromising position? This is an atrocity!”

Committee member Wesley Bishop (D-New Orleans) said, “I have one question: if we approve this motion and if a witness declines to provide that information, will that witness be prohibited from testifying?”

Carter, momentarily taken aback, held a hastily whispered conference before turning back to the microphone to say, “We cannot refuse anyone the opportunity to testify.”

That appeared to make Landry’s motion a moot point but she persisted and the committee ended up approving her motion by a 10-8 vote that was reflective of the 11-6 Republican-Democrat (with one Independent) makeup of the committee.

Edwards lost no time in getting in a parting shot on the passage of the new rule.

Gov. Bobby Jindal was the first to testify and upon completion of his testimony, Edwards observed that no one on the committee appeared overly concerned of whether or not the governor was on annual or sick leave.

Jindal, who had entered the committee room late and knew nothing of the debate and subsequent vote on Landry’s motion, bristled at Edwards, saying, “I’m here as governor.”

The committee, which convened around 9 a.m. Wednesday, was still considering Carter’s bill at midnight.

New Information on Manuel firing

Martha Manuel, former executive director of the Office of Elderly Affairs and who was Teagued last week after criticizing the administration’s decision to transfer her agency from the governor’s office to the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH), shed new light on her testimony this week.

Following her dismissal, some said Jindal had no choice since Manual was appointed to the position by Jindal as an unclassified employee at $88,000 per year. One critic said that Tammy Woods, director of Community Programs, who fired Manual by telephone, was correct in justifying the firing because Manuel “was not in line with the governor’s thinking.”

But in a recent radio interview, Manuel said she only testified because she was asked to do so by State Rep. John Berthelot (R-Gonzales) because, Berthelot said, he had been getting a lot of calls to his office about the transfer of the agency.

At that point, her options were somewhat limited. She could have refused, in which case she could have been subpoenaed. Once she testified, she was compelled to testify truthfully or commit perjury.

For his part, Berthelot has nothing to say about the matter.

Read Full Post »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, Layoffs, Notable Quotables, Teague on March 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

“I have had discussion with our attorneys concerning a citizens’ organization rally outside of the hospital. I am directing all employees and physicians not to attend this event either on or off the clock. There are potential serious legal issues with our participating in such an event. Violation of this directive may result in discipline (sic) action against you.”

–Larry Dorsey, administrator of University Medical Center in Lafayette, in a February 1 email to UMC employees directing them to not attend a public rally protesting the elimination of 130 positions at the hospital by the Jindal administration. (We suspect this directive actually came through Dorsey from higher up the food chain.)

Read Full Post »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Ethics, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables, Teague, Transparency on March 7, 2012| 4 Comments »

“I’m very disappointed in this administration. I really believed there would be transparency in government.”

–Martha Manuel, former executive director of the Louisiana Office of Elderly Affairs, after being fired for testifying against Gov. Jindal’s plan to move her former office into the Department of Health and Hospitals.

Read Full Post »

Administraton sends a message: another dissident employee ‘Teagued’ one day after Appropriations Committee testimony

Posted in Governor's Office, Layoffs, Teague on March 7, 2012| 15 Comments »

The Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) has been a state agency abuzz with commotion this week—commotion that more closely resembles Larry, Moe and Curly trying to shovel water with a pitchfork than productive activity.

And it’s all part of the Bobby Jindal School of Good Government.

Martha Manuel has been Teagued and DHH has retreated for the moment from its efforts to put 69 information technology (IT) employees out of work in favor of contracting its services to the University of New Orleans (UNO).

Manuel, 63, was fired from her position as executive director of the Office of Elderly Affairs on Wednesday just one day after testifying against the transfer of her agency to DHH.

What’s more, the firing was done by her supervisor Tammy Woods, Director of Community Programs—by telephone.

If the pattern seems familiar, that’s because it is—beginning back in October of 2009 when Melody Teague, a Social Services grant reviewer, was fired one day after testifying against Jindal’s program to streamline government.

It took her six months but she got her job back but then last April 15, her husband Tommy Teague was fired as executive director of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) when he didn’t jump on board the Jindal Privatization Bandwagon quickly enough, particularly when it came to the agency he had taken from a multi-million-dollar deficit to a $500 million surplus.

Thus the term Teagued.

Those were just two. Others included a Board of Elementary and Secondary member who didn’t kowtow to Jindal, the director of the Highway Safety Commission who opposed Jindal’s repeal of the state motorcycle helmet law.

Gone.

Jindal, through DHH Center for Health Care Innovation and Technology chief Carol Steckel, tried to fire the 69 IT employees last December in favor of handing off the contract for their work to UNO under the state’s Medicaid program.

The employees were called in for a teleconference at which time they were told they would be unemployed in January. Upon their return to their work stations, the employees found they were locked out of their computers.

But the State Civil Service Board vetoed Steckel’s proposal on Feb. 1. She first cited a savings of $2.1 million, then $7 million, prompting one member to say he had “zero confidence” in her numbers.

Steckel came to Louisiana from Alabama where she served as that state’s Medicaid Commissioner. In was in that capacity that she inferred that Alabama’s indigent amputees did not need artificial limbs. Her budget for 2008 cut programs that pay for prosthetics and orthotics (used to correct deformities) because, she said, the programs were optional, not mandatory.

The Civil Service Commission was scheduled to take the matter up again on Wednesday of this week but DHH withdrew from the agenda on Monday. One source said that UNO decided to opt out of the contract agreement. Another said that questions arose about the use of Medicaid funds for non-Medicaid costs in the contract, a practice that is strictly prohibited.

The fate of the IT employees, meanwhile, remains uncertain. “We have been misinformed on future employment by DHH executives on three occasions,” said one of the workers. “At each meeting we had, we felt as though we were being threatened with furlough without pay.”

If the administration felt it was punishing Manuel, however, it may have miscalculated. She had already retired once and when the directorship of the Office of Elderly Affairs opened a year ago, she applied and was appointed by Jindal. She now simply moves back into retirement, albeit involuntary.

She testified on Tuesday that senior citizens would be better served by leaving the Office of Elderly Affairs where it is.

Jindal’s executive budget calls for transferring the $45.3 million agency and its 51 positions to DHH where Manuel feels her agency will become lost in the DHH bureaucratic shuffle. “At no time was I asked for my input on this transfer,” she testified to the House Appropriations Committee.

Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater disagreed, saying that senior citizens would receive more, not fewer services. He said more federal funding can be generated through DHH’s guidance.

Manuel, contacted at home on Wednesday, said DHH plans to funnel Office of Elderly Affairs’ $45.3 million through nursing homes and hospitals in order to qualify DHH for additional federal funding.

“That almost sounds like money-laundering,” she said. “DHH calls this leveraging but there’s no guarantee that the dollars will keep coming back to the local councils on aging,” she said.

“They (the administration) said they have a vision, but when pressed by the committee, they admitted they had no real plan. Well, we (her former agency) have a vision and we have a five-year plan.”

She said she had her cell phone turned off during her testimony but when she turned it on after she spoke to the committee, “it was full of voice mails and each one was angrier than the last.” She said the messages were from Woods and her assistant.

“I took the rest of the afternoon off and they continued to barrage my office with calls, even though they were told I was not in. They apparently didn’t believe it, so they actually came to my office at 6 p.m. to check to see if I was in.”

Manuel said she called in sick the next day because she simply didn’t feel like facing all the hassle. “The general council (of the Office of Community Programs) called me at home today (Wednesday) and Tammy Woods was also on the line. She told me I was not in line with the governor’s thinking and she fired me over the phone.

“This (Woods) is a person who refuses to return telephone calls and who cancels meetings with no advance notice. She once had an appointment with people from New Orleans. They drove all the way into Baton Rouge only to be told the meeting was cancelled.”

Manuel said she has received flowers from several local councils on aging as a result of her dismissal. “I’m gratified at the response of the local councils but I have to say I’m very disappointed in our governor. I really believed there would be transparency in government.”

Jindal said simply that the administration had decided to “go in a different direction.”

Read Full Post »

Doing the two-step on one leg: it takes twice as long but if it’s doing more with less, it fits nicely into Jindal’s agenda

Posted in Civil Service, Layoffs, Privatization, Teague on February 28, 2012| 5 Comments »

The Department of Health and Hospitals apparently is moving forward with its plan to contract out its information technology (IT) services to the University of New Orleans, the State Civil Service’s objections notwithstanding.

That’s the word received by LouisianaVoice from one of the IT employees who is one of the 69 employees scheduled to lose their jobs in the move touted to the Civil Service Board on Feb. 1 by Carol Steckel, chief of DHH’s Center for Health Care Innovation and Technology.

More about her background later.

An email received on Monday from the IT employee announced, “I have already been Teagued,” a reference to Gov. Bobby Jindal’s firing of Social Services grant reviewer Melody Teague in October of 2009 a day after her legal testimony against Jindal’s proposed streamlining of state government and that of her husband, Tommy Teague, 18 months later.

Tommy Teague was the director of the Office of Group Benefits who took the agency from a multi-million dollar deficit to a $500 million surplus. But his hesitancy in jumping on board Jindal’s privatization “sold train” cost him his job last April.

“My last day is March 2,” the employee, whose identity is being protected by LouisianaVoice, said in his email. “We have been scrutinized so much since this has happened back in December.”

He was referring to the conference call in December during which the IT employees were told their jobs would be gone in January. The Civil Service Board, however, shot down Steckel’s proposal, saying she had done a poor job of showing there would be a true savings by laying off employees.

The State Civil Service Board must approve any proposed contract before it can be implemented. To get that approval, agencies must show that the contract work is a task that cannot be performed by state civil service personnel and that any layoffs are not the result of political decisions.

That regulation stems from a 2003 State Supreme Court decision that said the City of New Orleans could not contract out services which could be performed by existing employees and that the city could not lay employees off for political reasons.

Following that conference call, the IT employees returned to their work stations only to learn that they had already been locked out of their state computers, leaving them with nothing to do until the date of their terminations. They regained access to their computers a few weeks later, however.

“There is no security anywhere in DHH,” the employee said.

That is fairly evident across the board in agency after agency by now. The Civil Service Board, which voted unanimously on Feb. 1 to reject the contract proposal, is scheduled to meet March 7 at which time the IT contract is expected to be presented again.

Another IT employee also emailed LouisianaVoice earlier to say, “I am one of the 69 DHH Information Technology staff that is affected by the UNO contract.

“Basically, we have been misinformed on future employment by DHH executives on three 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.”

Steckel first said the proposed contract would save an estimated $2.1 million over the next three years but later revised that upward to $7 million. But member after member challenged her numbers with one saying he had “zero confidence” in the figures she provided.

While her proposal to contract the IT services would chop the legs out from under the 69 employees, that apparently is nothing new for her. In fact, it appears to be her style.

Before coming to DHH in November of 2010, she served as Alabama’s Medicaid Commissioner from 1988-1992 and again from December of 2003 until her departure for Louisiana.

It was in that capacity in Alabama that in 2008 she implied that poor residents of Alabama apparently did not need artificial limbs.

In January of that year, she submitted the state’s Medicaid budget that cut programs that pay for prosthetics and orthotics (an orthopedic apparatus used to provide support and alignment to prevent or correct deformities) because, she said, the programs were optional, not mandatory.

Saying she wanted to present a budget that was realistic in the face of state budgetary problems, she said, “Every day in the state of Alabama, people make tough decisions about what they can and cannot afford. State government must do the same.”

Rep. Barbara Boyd of Anniston sounded a chord that has come to have a familiar ring in Louisiana when she said Alabama is at a disadvantage because it does not appropriate the kind of money that would attract more than the bare bones federal matching funds.

“With the high rate of diabetes in this state (Alabama), cutting a program that pays for prosthesis could be devastating to amputees,” she said.

One Alabama observer described the move as a trifecta: “penny wise, pound foolish and heartless to boot.”

Well, folks, that’s the nature of compassionate conservatism. Or passionate, anyway.

And Louisiana, it would appear, has franchise rights.

In case you’ve ever wondered why Jindal keeps going out of state for these people who parrot his philosophy with such consistency, there’s a reason: they don’t have to live with us. They’ll be gone as soon as he leaves office.

But we’ll be stuck with the cleanup.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »