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Archive for the ‘Transparency’ Category

Employee harassment suits against Morgan City shipbuilder could put millions of dollars in federal contracts in jeopardy

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Courts, Ethics, Jobs, Judges, Lawsuits, Public Records, Transparency on March 18, 2018| 4 Comments »

A lawsuit making its way through U.S. District Court in Lafayette alleges that a female employee, Jordan Carter, was dismissed from her job at Swiftships, LLC in Morgan City because she was pregnant and management did not want to grant her maternity leave.

The lawsuit, which also says Carter was promoted prior to her pregnancy but never received a promised increase in pay that was supposed to go along with the promotion, carries far more significance that your normal discrimination lawsuit, however.

Between fiscal year 2007 through 2016, Swiftships held seven federal CONTRACTS totaling $386 million. Those included $103.4 million in contracts with the U.S. NAVY for non-nuclear ship repair. The duration of those contracts ran from Sept. 22, 2014, through March 20, 2018.

Carter was employed by Swiftships for nearly 21 months, from April 22, 2013, to Jan. 9, 2015.

Prior to her termination, she was demoted. She said her supervisor told her she was demoted because of her pregnancy.

One witness told Smith that she was aware of two other pregnant women who were terminated by Swiftships prior to giving birth.

Federal contracting regulations strictly prohibit employee discrimination in any form.

  • Last April 24, Swiftships was awarded a $27.4 million modification to a previously-awarded contract “for the accomplishment of continuous lifecycle support for the Iraqi Navy.” The shipbuilding firm is providing TECHNICAL EXPERTISE in preventative and planned maintenance, repairs and platform overhaul support services for Iraqi patrol boats, offshore vessels, and defender boats. Work under the contract, which was scheduled for completion this month, was performed on Umm Qasr Naval Base, Iraq.
  • In October 2015, the U.S. Navy EXTENDED Swiftship’s contract to operate and upgrade a repair facility for Iraqi patrol boats built in Morgan City. The one-year extension was worth almost $11 million for Swiftships.
  • Swiftships has delivered almost 300 vessels through Foreign Military Sales, (FMS) the preferred method for selling defense systems abroad.

Under FMS, the Department of Defense procures defense articles and services for the foreign customer using the same acquisition process used to procure for its own military needs.

Recent policy changes in the U.S. Government’s Federal Acquisition Regulations have opened the door to foreign governments, allowing them to participate in FMS procurement negotiations. In general, the government-to-government purchase agreements tend to ensure standardization with U.S. forces; provide contract administrative services that may not be available through the private sector; and help lower unit costs by consolidating purchases for FMS customers with those of DoD. DCS allows the foreign customer more direct involvement during the contract negotiation phase; may allow firm-fixed pricing and may be better suited to fulfilling non-standard requirements.

The President designates countries and international organizations eligible to participate in the FMS program. The Department of State makes recommendations and approves individual programs on a case-by-case basis. Currently, around 160 countries are eligible to participate in FMS.

The Carter lawsuit is not the first litigation in which Swiftships was named as a defendant.

  • In 2015, Swiftships found LIABLE for $2.1 million in unpaid fees owed to MTU America, plus more than $400,000 in legal fees.
  • Last month, Swiftships, with annual revenues of $50 million, was found liable for $689,000 plus legal interest and legal fees for BREACH OF CONTRACT.
  • In June 2015,Valerie Landreneau, a female employee of Swiftships’ Morgan City facilities, filed suit in state district court against Swiftships after claiming that a former co-worker attacked her after learning about her SEXUAL HARASSMENT complaints against him.

If Carter or Landreneau should prevail in either or both of their harassment lawsuits, an adverse decision could result in the cancellation of hundreds of millions of federal contracts currently held by Swiftships.

Carter is represented by attorney J. Arthur Smith of Baton Rouge who has also claimed (though not in the lawsuit itself) that he has been informed that Swiftships “raids employees’ 401K accounts in order to remain afloat (no pun intended) but has failed to repay the money. Smith says a witness has informed him that Swiftships employees have had their 401K funds “borrowed” and used “to run the company,” and that “many of the employees did not get their money reimbursed as promised.”

Federal law also prohibits companies from raiding employee retirement and/or insurance funds.

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DeSoto Parish Sheriff abruptly resigns four years after one critical audit, in anticipation of another over LACE abuses

Posted in Audit Reports, Auditor, Budget, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Politicians, Public Records, Revenue, Taxes, Transparency on March 16, 2018| 7 Comments »

Why would DeSoto Parish Sheriff Rodney Arbuckle abruptly resign less than midway through his fifth consecutive term in office?

Arbuckle, who stepped down, effective today (Friday, March 16), attributed his decision, which he said has been a year in the making, to HEALTH PROBLEMS being encountered by one of his grandchildren.

But could there have other overriding factors that prompted his decision? Possibly. There are several prior and ongoing questions involving the DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office which, taken together or separately, could have nudged him out the door prematurely.

The first, going back about four years to an investigative audit REPORT by the Legislative Auditor’s Office in Baton Rouge revealed a major issue involving a former deputy sheriff whose private company ran half-a-million dollars’ worth of private background checks through Arbuckle’s office.

The company, Lagniappe and Castillo Research and Investigations, ran 41,574 background checks through the sheriff’s office during the 11-month period between April 1, 2012, and February 28, 2013, the audit report said. That’s 41,574 background checks in a parish that has a population of only 27,000.

Lagniappe and Castillo charged its customers $12 for each background report but paid the sheriff’s office only $3 per report. That represents a profit of more than $372,000 on income of more than $498,000—and sheriff’s office employees actually ran the checks. Robert Jackson Davidson, who retired as chief investigator for the sheriff’s office in May 2013, is listed as 50 percent owner of the company by the Louisiana Secretary of State’s corporate filings.

And then there is the more recent problem of LACE. That’s an anacronym for Local Agency Compensation Enforcement whereby the district attorney’s office pays the salaries of law enforcement officers to beef up traffic patrol for the parish. LACE has been hit with similar problems in State Police Troops B and D when it was learned that troopers were reporting hours worked on LACE detail that were not actually worked.

In the case for DeSoto Parish, it was sheriff’s deputies who fudged the numbers on their timesheets and three of Arbuckle’s deputies have already left under a cloud.

A new investigative audit by the Legislative Auditor’s Office has been ongoing for some time now and that report is also expected to be highly critical of the LACE program and possibly other areas of operation.

Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera told LouisianaVoice on Thursday that he did not know just when that report would be released. The auditor’s office traditionally sends the head of the agency being audited a management letter in advance of the public release of the report in order to give management a chance to respond in writing. That response is usually included in the release of the audit report. There was no word from Purpera’s office as to whether or not that management letter had been sent to Arbuckle.

A check by LouisianaVoice of about 600 LACE tickets handed out by sheriff’s deputies revealed that not a single LACE ticket was issued to a resident of DeSoto Parish. Every single recipient checked was from other parishes or even from out of state.

Of course, I-49 cuts through DeSoto Parish which would explain at least a high number of out-of-parish motorists’ receiving tickets—but 100 percent would seem somewhat improbable.

Reports by local critics of Arbuckle cite him for purchasing vehicles for the sheriff’s office without going through the public bid process. But sheriffs offices are on a state vendor list that exempts many such purchases from public bid. But on those not exempt, critics claim there is mischief afoot in the way Arbuckle goes about his purchases.

Then there is Arbuckle’s annual budget which reflects revenues of $12.3 million, which is nearly double the $4.9 million of next-door neighbor Sabine Parish, which has a population of 24,200—only a little fewer than DeSoto.

But it’s the office expenditures that are the real eye-openers. Arbuckle’s office had expenditures of nearly $14.1 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017. That is $3.3 million more than the $10.8 million spent by the sheriff’s office in Natchitoches Parish, which has a population of 40,000—and a university. It also is more near three times the $5 million spent by the Sabine Parish Sheriff for the same year.

So, just what did Arbuckle spend all that money on? For starters, the bulk of that $15.2 million, $11.2 million to be exact, went for salaries. It would appear that Arbuckle hired deputies almost indiscriminately. Arbuckle himself was the second-highest-paid sheriff in the state (only the Beauregard Parish sheriff made more).

His department’s salary figures compare with salary expenditures of $3.7 million for Sabine and $7.9 million for Natchitoches.

Even more telling is a comparison of the year-end fund balances for the three sheriffs’ offices. Sabine Parish ended the fiscal year with a fund balance of $7.5 million and Natchitoches Parish had a fund balance of $8.2 million. Arbuckle’s DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office, however, finished the fiscal year with a whopping fund balance of $52.2 million.

Arbuckle apparently need not concern himself with the state law that a sheriff is responsible for any operating deficit at the end of his term of office.

DeSoto’s embarrassment of riches was due in large part to the Haynesville Shale and a couple of major facilities—eight energy companies, International Paper, and SWEPCO—in the parish which accounted for $256.5 in assessments and $3.5 million in property taxes (4.73 percent of total assessed valuation). Both figures would appear to be extremely low.

Arbuckle also is a principal in no fewer than six corporate entities, three of which are for-profit companies. One is a fence construction company and a second is a real estate development firm. The third, and possibly the most significant, is an outfit called Dirt Road Rentals, which rents or leases equipment to oil and gas field companies.

The company was chartered in July 2013, just about the time the Haynesville Shale boom kicked off. With so much activity taking place with the Haynesville Shale, it would seem to be a golden opportunity for a sheriff who, if he chose to do so, could lean on the oil and gas field companies to lease equipment from him lest their trucks get pulled over for traffic offenses.

Which could explain the need for all those extra deputies.

But a sheriff would never stoop to such tactics.

Would he?

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OIG 2017 Annual Report up for ‘Best Fiction of Year’ Award for way it tries to polish agency’s less than sparkling image

Posted in Crime, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Media, Public Records, Transparency on March 13, 2018| 11 Comments »

…And we thought that Attorney General Jeff Landry was a horn-tooting self-promoter, who loved to tout his prosecutorial “accomplishments” while conveniently ignoring more blatant wrongdoing.

Turns out Landry should be watching State Inspector General Stephen B. Street and taking notes on how to fool all the people all the time—or at least make a pretty decent effort at doing so.

Street has just released his 29-page 2017 ANNUAL REPORT and network television must already be poring over it as the possible basis for a weekly series on crime fighting. Or maybe a sitcom. Either way, with all the tax breaks for movie and television production being given away by the state, the show is certain to be profitable while making Street a star in the process.

Eleven photographs are included in the annual report and Street’s smiling face is included in every single one. Here’s what one observer said of the photos: “…only one other staff member, an investigator, gets in one. Boy he must have done something really special to merit being the single staff member to be picked to be in a picture with the boss in the annual report. I am sure this did wonders for office morale.

“Street couldn’t even see the way clear to have a group picture of the whole staff in what only can be considered his annual report? I guess he couldn’t get the, as described very limited, 14 staff members in the same room to have one taken (probably has a shortage of meeting space also).”

Street, who undoubtedly wears a large red “S” on his chest, chronicles how his office beat back efforts by legislators in 2012 and 2016 to shut his office down for ineffectiveness—although his office, like most other agencies, has endured appropriations cutbacks.

Of those efforts to shut him down, Street, somewhat smugly philosophizes: “The 2016 OIG funding fight in Louisiana was simply the latest reminder of what comes with the territory in the Inspector General business. If you do the job aggressively – and we have — folks will come after you. It’s absolutely guaranteed. It was also a great reminder that the public is overwhelmingly supportive of Inspectors General, and we should never forget this.”

So, let’s review just how he has done his job “aggressively” to see who it prompted to “come after” him.

Street’s office, in response to a November 2016 public records request from LouisianaVoice, provided a list of FUNDS RECOVERED totaling more than $5.3 million since July 1, 2013, for which he claimed credit. No one on that list who might “come after” street—just low-hanging fruit. Easy pickings don’t often “go after” anyone.

Of course, the recovery of funds is quite different from orders of restitution, which was what each of these cases was. An order of restitution means little if there are no funds to be recovered.

“We have no information regarding amounts collected by those office and we receive none of the funds,” said OIG General Counsel Joseph Lotwick in a letter to LouisianaVoice.

In the case of Deborah Loper, for example, most of the million dollars ordered repaid had long since disappeared into slot machines at area casinos so any real chance of restitution is, for all intents and purposes, non-existent. Still, Street listed that as a recovery of funds.

The LouisianaVoice request was made pursuant to Street’s claim for an accounting of public funds recovery stemming from OIG investigations.

Moreover, what Street’s office did not say, the difficulty of actually collecting notwithstanding, is that the OIG’s role in many of the above investigations was secondary to the U.S. Attorney’s role and restitution payments, if any, are made through either U.S. Probation or, in the case of the state’s being the lead prosecutor, to Louisiana Probation and Parole.

Nor did Street happen to mention the investigations by his office that either blew up in his face or simply did not occur. Even though most, if not all, actually occurred prior to 2017, they’re still worth mentioning:

  • The Murphy Painter fiasco, orchestrated by Bobby Jindal and Steve Waguespack, which resulted in the federal criminal trial of Painter who was cleared of all charges and the state had to pony up his legal fees of $474,000;
  • The illegal raid on the home and offices of Corey DelaHoussaye under the mistaken assumption (Street’s an attorney: attorneys should never “assume”) that DelaHoussaye was contracted to the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) when in fact, he was contracted to the Livingston Parish Council where he had no jurisdiction (embarrassing). DelaHoussaye was subsequently exonerated of all charges.
  • Likewise, it was Street’s office that investigated and found no wrongdoing in the case of two assistant district attorneys in CADDO PARISHwho applied for a grant to obtain eight automatic M-16 rifles from the Department of Defense’s Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO). The two claimed on their application that they, as part of a Special Investigations Section (SIS), “routinely participate in high-risk surveillance and arrests (sic) activities with the Shreveport Police and Caddo Sheriff.” Persons interviewed from both agencies, however, refuted the claim that SIS employees took part in such operations.
  • Street also failed to follow through on an investigation into widespread abuses by the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry. The board, with the aid of its investigator who employed questionable methods, was imposing excessively high fines against dentists for relative minor infractions and even bankrupted one dentist who blew the whistle on faulty jaw implants developed by a dentist at the LSU School of Dentistry.
  • Retired State Trooper Leon “Bucky” Millet said he filed a formal complaint on February 19 with Street’s office against the four State Troopers who drove the state vehicle to San Diego last October but never received an acknowledgement from Street. “I know he received because I sent the complaint by certified return receipt mail,” Millet said. Of course, it turned out that what Street’s office could not or would not do, the Baton Rouge Advocate’s Jim Mustian, New Orleans TV investigative reporter Lee Zurik and LouisianaVoice did—and we know the outcome of that.
  • Street said there was nothing to investigate when a gravity drainage district in Calcasieu Parish refused to pay contractor Billy Broussard a million dollars for work he did in dredging canals after hurricanes in 2005 and 2006. Broussard performed the work he was asked to do and the district refused to pay him, yet Street said there was nothing to investigate.
  • And he’s done nothing toward investigating possible human trafficking in the baby adoption racket in Louisiana, despite the persistent efforts of Craig Mills to get both Street and Landry involved in the investigation.

Of course, in listing the successful prosecutions (again, low-hanging fruit—people who are a lock not to “go after” him), Street is careful to see to it that his office is cited in all 10 reports—even if he had to insert the recognition himself, which he does in eight of the cases. Five of the reports were actually press releases from the U.S. Attorney’s office but Street piggy-backed them in his annual report.

But perhaps the best indicator of the effectiveness of Street’s office turns up in the report on 2017 travel expenses for his office.

That report shows that the office spent only $57.13 for in-state travel to conferences and just $509.11 on instate field travel (investigations).

But the office spent $2,564.46 on out-of-state travel to conventions and conferences.

Of 376 complaints received in 2017, OIG opened 60 investigations. The 2016 numbers showed 42 investigations opened on 401 complaints.

 

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State Ethics Board apparently taking its cue from Attorney General Jeff Landry: no action nine months post-complaint

Posted in Boards, Commissions, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Public Records, Taxes, Transparency on February 13, 2018| 7 Comments »

Gov. John Bel Edwards and the Louisiana Legislature could probably learn a thing or two about building budgetary surpluses from the St. Landry Parish Fire Protection District No. 2—except at least one St. Landry Parish citizens thinks the surplus may be the result of smoke and mirrors and a little voodoo tax millage assessment.

On the other hand, the State Ethics Board appears to be taking its cue from the Attorney General’s office in stonewalling tactics.

The district had a bank balance of more than three times its annual budget at the end of 2016, according to a state AUDIT of the its books. The audit showed nearly $8.4 million in the bank as of Dec. 31, 2016, after expenses of $2.6 million.

And a formal complaint made to the Louisiana State Board of Ethics last May against the district and its secretary-treasurer has produced only a letter of acknowledgement but no results after nine months.

Despite annual revenues of nearly $3.7 million for both 2015 and 2016, the district’s board seemingly felt it could not afford to hire a qualified employee to apply generally accepted accounting principles in recording the districts financial transactions or preparing its financial statements, the audit indicated.

“A material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the entity’s financial statements will not be prevented, or detected and corrected on a timely basis,” the audit said. “we identified certain deficiencies in internal control that we consider to be material weaknesses.”

Nor did the board seem to feel it was in a position to hire additional firefighters in order to cut back on more expensive overtime pay. Board members paid themselves nearly $16,600 in 2016 and paid out $1.2 million in salaries. An additional $329,677 was paid in overtime (listed as “extra shifts and call out time”).

Auditors recommended that the board examine the following options and implement policies and procedures in order to reduce excessive payroll expenditures:

  • Establish set annual/monthly salaries for management-level positions in order to eliminate overtime paid;
  • Hire additional firefighters in order to decrease overtime pay;
  • Better utilize volunteer firefighters in an effort to minimize costs.

While Edwards and the legislature might be scratching their heads if they knew of the district’s fiscal wizardry, a closer look at a curious tax millage might clear things up.

It seems that district voters may have once approved a 17.5 mill property tax but the district somehow managed to collect two identical millages of 17.5 mills each until January 2018, when one of the assessments expired.

St. Landry Parish resident and local taxpayer Charles Jagneaux, who filed the complaint with the state ethics board, which has been basically toothless since it was gutted by Bobby Jindal in one of his first acts as governor in 2008, has a theory about that dual tax millage.

“My understanding is that the second millage was passed by calling it a renewal when in fact, it was a second identical millage,” he said. “The board attempted to put the expiring millage on the ballot (for a renewal) this year but the parish council would not let them since there was a multi-million-dollar surplus.”

The ethics complaint was filed against Johnny Ardoin, secretary-treasurer of the district’s board. Ardoin, it turns out, is also a member of the Port Barre TOWN COUNCIL, which would appear to be a case of dual office-holding, illegal under Louisiana law.

As a point of clarification from a reader who is in a position to know, dual office holding falls under (drum roll, please…) the attorney general’s office, not the ethics board so the ethics board would not address that matter,

A second, more serious ethics violation, however, seems to arise from Ardoin’s membership on the fire district board.

The Port Barre Town Council appoints two members of the fire district’s board of commissioners.

That would seem to constitute a built-in conflict of interest for Ardoin. Given his position as a member of the town council, he is in the unique position to appoint himself to the fire district’s board of commissioners.

That ethics complaint, like most complaints to the state ethics board these days, is in all likelihood, a dead-end street, particularly as it regards dual office-holding. But even in cases when ethics fines are assessed, which is seldom, they often are ignored and never collected, thanks again to Bobby Jindal and his ethics reform agenda.

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Continued legal battles of Welsh mayor (the latest over recall petition) raises questions of whether city is paying legal bills

Posted in Boards, Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Fraud, Lawsuits, Media, Politicians, Public Records, Transparency on January 31, 2018| 1 Comment »

You have to give credit to Lake Charles attorney Ron Richard: he certainly knows how to milk a case for all it’s worth in order to keep the meter running.

It apparently wasn’t enough that his four SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) against Welsh Alderman Jacob Colby Perry were tossed by the presiding judge.

And no matter that a recall petition was initiated against Perry and that POSTCARDS were mailed to Welsh residents that DEPICTED Perry and fellow board of aldermen member Andrea King as “terrorists.”

And never mind that Mayor Carolyn Louviere desires to shut down a bar that just happens to be adjacent to a business owned by her son.

Now Richard, his four LAWSUITS against Perry—filed by him on behalf of the mayor, her son, her daughter, and Police Chief Marcus Crochet—having failed the smell test of 31st Judicial District Court Judge Steve Gunnel, who not only dismissed the four lawsuits aimed at silencing Perry’s criticism of Louviere’s administration but also awarded ATTORNEY FEES of $16,000 to Perry, is now challenging another RECALL PETITION, this one against his client, her honor the mayor.

So, it seems to boil down to the apparent belief that a recall against an alderman who seeks answers to budgetary questions is fine and dandy but to suggest a recall against the mayor who draws up that city budget constitutes a technical foul.

It’s all a sordid little mess punctuated by what appear to be excessive expenses of the police department, ($818,000 for nine months, form June 2016 through February 2017—for a town of 3,200 living, breathing souls), 18 police cars (again, for a town of 3,200), removal of Perry from the town’s Facebook page, and a mayor’s son (one of the four plaintiffs in lawsuits against Perry) who has a less than stellar past of his own.

Basically, with all that is going on there, it doesn’t really appear to be a town where most people would care to call home these days. That’s no dig on all the decent, minding-their-own-business residents living there, but a sorry commentary on the town’s leadership—if one wishes to be overly generous in calling it that.

Meanwhile, Richard manages to keep the meter running as the legal fees continue to mount for Madam Mayor. Of course, it has to be the client’s decision to retain him to pursue these objectives. He’s just a lawyer who ostensibly takes direction from his client. But often times, a client’s decision on a course of action is predicated upon the attorney’s advice, so in trying to determine who is actually calling the shots, we may just have the age-old chicken or egg question.

Still, it’s enough to make one wonder who is paying those legal bills: the client or the city?

Perhaps that’s another question for Mr. Perry to ask.

If he can get an answer, that is.

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

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