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Citizen input? We don’t need no stinkin’ citizen input. We have LABI, the chemical association and campaign cash

March 18, 2016 by tomaswell

Regular readers of this site know our disdain for the undue influence of lobbyists and special interests over lawmakers to the exclusion of the very voters who elected those same lawmakers to represent them and their best interests.

Our opposition to political decisions made with priority given to campaign contributions over what is best for the state is well-known—and uncompromising. Money should have no place—repeat, no place—in political decisions.

Unfortunately, we know that is not the case. Politicians for the most part, are basically prostitutes for campaign funds and those who choose to remain chaste usually find themselves at a serious disadvantage come election time.

To that end, you can probably look for State Rep. Jay Morris (R-Monroe) to attract strong opposition when he comes up for re-election in 2019. And that opposition, whoever it might be, is likely to have a campaign well-lubricated by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), the Louisiana Chemical Association, and the oil and gas industry.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, we have gone on record on numerous occasions as saying the voters are merely pawns to be moved about at will by big business in general and the banks, pharmaceutical companies, Wall Street and oil companies in particular. It is their money that inundates us with mind-numbing political ads that invade our living rooms every election year telling us why Candidate A is superior to Candidate B because B voted this way or that way and besides, good old Candidate A has always had the welfare of voters uppermost in mind.

The presence of that influence was never more clearly illustrated than in Tyler Bridges’ insightful story in Friday’s Baton Rouge Advocate. http://theadvocate.com/news/15225624-78/la-legislative-staffers-sort-out-changes-added-at-the-last-minute

In the very first paragraph of his story, Bridges wrote that a secret deal between Senate President John Alario (R-Westwego), House Speaker Taylor Barras (R-New Iberia) and lobbyists for LABI and the Louisiana Chemical Association.

We won’t bother to re-hash the details of that meeting and the agreement finally reached just before the closing minutes of the recent special session. You can read the details in the link to the Bridges story that we provided above.

But suffice it to say had it not been for Morris digging his heels in and threatening to kill his own bill when he learned of a manufacturing tax break that had been added to his bill, HB 61 that aimed at eliminating exemptions and exclusions on numerous sales tax breaks. Though a Republican, Morris feels that big business isn’t paying its fair share of taxes.

“I was not aware of the deal,” Bridges quoted Morris as saying. “I was not invited.”

Neither, apparently, were any spokespersons for consumers, organized labor, teachers, or the citizens of Louisiana.

Oh, but you can bet LABI President Steve Waguespack was invited to a meeting in Alario’s office earlier in the day, as was Louisiana Chemical Association chief lobbyist Greg Bowser.

Given that, we would like to ask Sen. Alario and Rep Barras why no one representing the people were invited to that little conclave. And don’t try to tell us that the Senate President and House Speaker were representing the people. You were not. You were representing the vested interests of the chemical industry and big business. Period.

Sen. Alario, Rep. Barras: the people of Louisiana are far more deserving of a place at the table in some furtive backroom meeting than LABI and the chemical association.

Either all factions are invited in or no one is. The playing field should be level.

By not excluding lobbyists or by not inviting those on whose shoulders are placed the greatest burden, the ones who placed you in office, you have not just failed at your job; you have failed miserably.

Our late friend C.B. Forgotston would have said of the meeting which produced that secret deal: “You can’t make this stuff up.”

Posted in Budget, Business, Corruption, Ethics, Exemptions, Incentives, Finances, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Louisiana Purchase, Media, Politicians, Revenue, Taxes | 12 Comments »

Like Dental Board, LSBME survives on licensing fees, incentive for fining doctors for perceived violations

March 18, 2016 by tomaswell

First it was the State Dental Board exposed by LouisianaVoice as serving in the multiple capacity of prosecutor, judge and jury in investigating complaints against dentists, filing charges and then judging on their guilt or innocence. https://louisianavoice.com/2014/03/07/state-board-employs-intimidation-harassment-to-generate-funds-to-pay-for-lucrative-contracts-worth-millions-of-dollars/

Then there was the Auctioneer Licensing Board and the manner in which it failed to defend an 84-year-old widow against a case of shill bidding (efforts to drive prices up by a  plant) or to protect her from unscrupulous actions by an auctioneer.

Now we have another board, the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners (LSBME) which, through its executive director, is being accused of tactics similar to those of the dental board. The result has been a spate of lawsuits, ethics complaints, and court hearings, all revolving around charges brought against a Baton Rouge doctor and encouraged, he says, by his competitor who sits on the board that brought the charges against him.

The one common thread running through each of the regulatory boards is that they receive no state funding. And with the dental and medical examiners boards, at least, there are expenses: staff, including attorneys, investigators and executive directors, and rent of nice, upscale offices in New Orleans central business district.

The lack of state funding coupled with the aforementioned high costs means the boards must necessarily generate funding—lots of it—through licensing fees and disciplinary actions against dentists and physicians. No dentist or physician in the state wants make waves because the boards literally hold the fate of their livelihoods, indeed their licenses to practice, in their hands.

In the legal profession, rainmakers are those within a firm who generate business by enlisting well-heeled clients who can afford expensive legal representation. Legal fees, after all, are the lifeblood of a law firm and the bigger the firm, the greater the pressure to bring clients through the door.

Taking the comparisons between the dental and the medical examiners board even further, the board acts in the capacity of investigator, accuser, and judge in disciplinary cases and, again like its counterpart, depends to a certain extent on penalties imposed on doctors for its operating revenue. Consequently, there is an undeniable incentive to generate revenue to ensure the boards’ survival.

So when it comes down to adding needed revenue to the coffers, it matters little whether the dentist or physician is guilty; if the need for revenue is present, as it usually is, then the boards, to paraphrase British politician and businessman Sir Eric Campbell-Geddes, “will squeeze the lemon until the pips squeak.” https://richardlangworth.com/pips

LouisianaVoice has previously documented strong-arm tactics by the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry whereby a dentist may first be assessed a modest fine for some supposed transgression. Should the dentist resist, he may quickly learn that that modest fine of a few thousand dollars somehow has run into six figures because he is also assessed the costs of the investigation of his practice—and because the board can. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/04/16/13976/

Sitting members of the dental board are allowed to initiate charges against a competing dentist in the same town—and often do just that.

And while physicians may not actually initiate charges against one of their peers, LouisianaVoice has learned that a board member who was a direct competitor with a doctor under investigation may have participated in the investigation, board discussions and votes affecting his competitor.

Baton Rouge pain management physician Dr. Michael Burdine, an LSBME member, has emerged as a key figure in the board’s investigation of Dr. Arnold Feldman, also of Baton Rouge because of his apparent reluctance to recuse himself from discussing Dr. Feldman’s case pending before the board.

The board’s legal counsel did produce somewhat belatedly a document that purported to recuse Dr. Burdine from participating in proceedings relative to Dr. Feldman’s case but board minutes indicate “unanimous” votes on matters pertaining to Dr. Feldman even as Dr. Burdine was supposedly recused. Moreover, Dr. Burdine repeatedly participated in executive session discussions when the subject of the closed session was Dr. Feldman’s case. Board member Dr. Mark Dawson, however, insists that Dr. Burdine did, in fact, recuse himself. “The pain management doctor’s attorneys are playing you for a fool,” he told LouisianaVoice.

The Dental Board until recently brought charges at the recommendation of a private investigator retained by the board whose offices were housed in the dental board’s suite on Canal Street in New Orleans. LSBME, on the other hand, employed its investigator as a full time employee. Following Dr. Burdine’s selection as vice president of the board, investigator Cecilia Mouton, a physician also, was appointed executive director of the board and immediately requested—and received—a 10 percent pay increase to $211,600.

Mouton, while still employed in 2010 as an investigator who looked into complaints about doctors, married attorney Jack Stolier who at the time represented physicians who were subjects of investigations and who had disciplinary action pending before the board and Mouton. Stolier ceased representing physicians before the board following his marriage to Mouton, Dawson said.

Taking the comparisons between the dental and the medical examiners board even further, LSBME acts in the capacity of investigator, accuser, and judge in disciplinary cases and, again like its counterpart, depends entirely on penalties imposed on doctors for its operating revenue.

Dr. Burdine’s Spine Diagnostics of Baton Rouge, one of the largest pain management clinics in the state, had annual receipts of slightly less than $9 million compared to Dr. Feldman’s $6 million in 2012. The two clinics are only about five miles apart. Dr. Feldman maintains that closure of his facility would necessarily mean that Dr. Burdine would inherit much of his caseload, thus enhancing the size of his clinic and providing an economic windfall for him.

The federal Healthcare Quality Improvement Act of 1986 provides that physicians are entitled to a professional review action “before a panel of individuals who are appointed by the entity and (who) are not indirect economic competition with the physician involved.”

Not only has the board, with the active participation of Dr. Burdine claimed by Dr. Feldman, plowed ahead with its prosecution of Dr. Feldman, Mouton, first as board investigator and later as executive director, denied Dr. Feldman access to his investigative file in order that he might formulate a defense, said Dr. Feldman in a 42-page complaint filed with the State Board of Ethics.

The specifics of the board’s complaint against Dr. Feldman have never been revealed but appear to stem from the death of a patient while in Dr. Feldman’s clinic even though the death was determined to be from natural causes and not connected to pain treatments being administered to the patient by Dr. Feldman.

The Ethics Board found no ethics violation in a decision that has become all too familiar since the ethics laws were amended in 2008, effectively gutting the ethics board. But that hasn’t stopped Feldman from seeking justice from what he feels is malicious prosecution, abuse of due process and violation of Louisiana commerce statutes.

He filed suit against Dr. Burdine in Civil District Court in New Orleans last August and the children of one of his patients has filed a separate suit in CDC naming LSBME, Mouton and board investigator Leslie Rye as defendants.

That lawsuit, filed by Alexia Senee James and Albert Lewis James of Baton Rouge, claims that Mouton and Rye intervened in Dr. Feldman’s treatment of their mother, Tonja Guitreau James.

After Tonja James was convinced by Mouton and Rye to leave the care of Dr. Feldman, she subsequently died from a prescription drug overdose, the petition says, adding that Mouton and Rye “violated the doctor-patient privilege, confidentiality and sacrosanct relationship between Tonja James and her physician.”

Posted in Boards, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Lawsuits, Public Records, Revenue | 8 Comments »

Son-in-law of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco appointed DNR Assistant Secretary days after mass layoff scenario predicted

March 16, 2016 by tomaswell

You just have to love Louisiana politics.

It’s kind of like having someone pee down your back while telling you it’s raining.

Or maybe trying to run a marathon with a rock in your shoe.

And to no one’s real surprise, it doesn’t seem to matter much which political party is in power.

Take Thomas Harris, the newly-appointed Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), for example.

On Feb. 19, not quite two weeks ago, Secretary Harris testified before the House Appropriations Committee about the agency’s fiscal year 2017 budget. In his testimony, Harris, who spent about a dozen years at the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) before his Jan. 26 appointment by Gov. John Bel Edwards, lamented the fact that his agency was so strapped for funding that up to 66 employees face layoffs come July 1.

While it may difficult for some to feel much compassion for DNR, given the historically cozy relationship between the oil and gas industry and the agency’s top brass. It was DNR and DEQ, after all, which conveniently looked the other way all these years as our coastal marshlands were raped by the industry that curtailed the so-called legacy lawsuits filed against oil companies that neglected to clean up after themselves. http://theadvocate.com/home/9183574-125/house-oks-legacy-lawsuit-legislation

http://legacy.wwltv.com/story/news/2014/12/10/tainted-legacy-legislatures-fixes-create-obstacles-to-oil-and-gas-cleanup/17671639/

Harris gave his testimony during the afternoon session of the Appropriations Committee that met during the recent special legislative session called to address major budget shortfalls.

To save you some time, open the link HERE and move to the 41-minute mark. That’s where Harris begins his address to committee members, most of whom were talking among themselves (as is the norm) and not really paying attention.

So just why are we making such a big deal of this? It’s no big secret, after all, that budgetary cuts are hitting just about every agency and employees are going to have to be laid off. It’s a fact of life for anyone working for the state these days.

Unless you happen to be named David Boulet or Ashlee McNeely

Harris hired Boulet as Assistant Secretary of DNR, effective March 10 (last Thursday), less than three weeks after his calamitous testimony about projected layoffs.

But get this: Ashlee McNeely, wife of our old friend Chance McNeely (we’ll get to him presently), worked in Bobby Jindal’s office from Feb. 3, 2014, until last Oct. 22 as a legislative analyst at $78,000. On Oct. 23, she was promoted to Director of Legislative Services at the same salary (someone please tell us why Jindal needed a director of legislative services when he had less than three months to go in his term—and with no legislative session on the immediate horizon). Of course, come Jan. 11, the date of John Bel Edwards’ inauguration, she was quietly terminated along with the rest of Jindal’s staff.

But wait. Harris decided he needed a “Confidential Assistant.” And just what is a “confidential assistant,” anyway? Well, we’re told that the term is loosely translated to “legislative liaison.” No matter. Harris did the only logical thing: he brought Ashlee McNeely on board on Feb. 10, just nine days before his cataclysmic budgetary predictions. What’s more, he bumped her salary up by eight thou a year, to $86,000.

But back to our friend Boulet: His salary is a cool $107,600—to fill a position that has been vacant for more than five years. So what was the urgency of filling a long-vacated slot that obviously is little more than window dressing for an agency unable to fill mission-critical classified positions?

Had Harris chosen instead to allocate the combined $193,000 the two are getting, he could have hired four classified employees at $46,750 each. Not the greatest salary, but certainly not bad if you’re out of work and trying to feed a family. And still higher than the state’s family median income

So, what, exactly are the qualifications of Boulet? Well, for openers, he’s the son-in-law of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco and that’s of no small consequence. In fact, that was probably enough.

In fact, it’s not the first time he has landed a cushy position that took on the appearances of having all the right connections. We take you back to 2001, when Blanco was Lieutenant Governor and Boulet was hired as the $120,000-a-year Director of Oil & Gas Cluster Development for the Louisiana Office of Economic Development, a move that did not sit well with the scribes at the Thibodaux Comet: http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20011108/NEWS/111080313?tc=ar

And then there’s our old friend Chance McNeely, another holdover from the Jindal disaster. McNeely, all of 27, has seen his star rise in meteoric fashion after obtaining a degree in agricultural business and working four years as a legislative assistant for the U.S House of Representatives. From there, he found his way into Jindal’s inner circle as an analyst at $68,000. He remained there less than a year (March 6, 2014, to Jan. 12, 2015) before moving over to DEQ where the special position of Assistant Secretary, Office of Environmental Compliance (in circumvention of Jindal’s hiring freeze in place at the time and despite having no qualifications for the position)—complete with a $37,000 raise to $102,000. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/01/13/if-you-think-chance-mcneelys-appointment-to-head-deq-compliance-was-an-insult-just-get-a-handle-on-his-salary/

He held onto that job recisely a year, exiting the same day as his wife got her pink slip, on Jan. 11 of this year. Unlike Ashlee, who remained unemployed for just over three months, Chance was out of work for exactly eight days before being named Assistant to the Secretary at the Department of Transportation and Development, albeit at a slight drop in salary, to $99,000.

But by combining his and his wife’s salaries, the $177,000 isn’t too shabby for a state with a median income of $42,406 per household, according to 2014 data. And how many 27-year-olds do you know who pull down $99,000 per year? http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Household-Incomes-by-State.php

So, Secretary Harris, as you struggle with balancing the high pay of your political appointees with cutbacks of the ones who do the real work, please know that we understand fully that we live in Louisiana where, no matter the rhetoric, things never change.

You will head an agency that will protect big oil from those of us with ruined pastureland and briny water. DNR will continue to shield big oil from those who would do whatever necessary to preserve our wetlands. And as those oil companies continue to fight back with whatever legal chicanery they can craft—including the buying of legislators.

And the merry-go-round of appointments to those with the right political connections will continue unabated—no matter what self-righteous rhetoric of freedom and justice for all is spewed by the pompous ass clowns we continue to elect.

Now ask me how I really feel.

 

Posted in Budget, Civil Service, Coastal Erosion, Corruption, DEQ, Economy, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Revenue, State Agencies | 17 Comments »

Haywire, er Hayride blog writer copies and pastes from us and we busted him with old trick from the late John Hays

March 14, 2016 by tomaswell

Note to The Hayride blog and its writer John Binder:

Make your links more easily visible and attribute what you post to the person or blog that you copied and pasted from.

Mr. Binder posted a story today (March 14) under the heading TROOPER-GATE: Board Members Tasked With Investigating State Troopers Money Funneling Scheme Also Funneled Money http://thehayride.com/2016/03/trooper-gate-board-members-tasked-with-investigating-state-troopers-money-funneling-scheme-also-funneled-money/

I accused Mr. Binder of failing to include links to our story. The fact is, he did have two links, but did not with the list of contributions. Instead, he simply copied and pasted without proper attribution.

Mr. Binder copied and pasted the list of campaign contributions that I had gone to the trouble of formatting to make them fit on our blogpost without losing their continuity. To do so, I had to squeeze the excel page by deleting several unnecessary columns that included addresses, home towns, and other data that added nothing to the content. https://louisianavoice.com/2016/03/10/state-police-commission-members-probing-lsta-appear-to-have-committed-similar-campaign-contribution-violations/

That, of course, may prompt the obvious question: how do I know Mr. Binder didn’t do his own formatting?

Good question. And there’s a simple answer.

In my listing of campaign contributions by State Police Commission member Freddie Pitcher, I deliberately left a blank line (between campaign recipients Edward James and Nicole Sheppard) with only “F102,” a special coding by the Ethics Commission, included in an otherwise blank space. FREDDIE PITCHER CONTRIBS

That was a deliberate trick I learned from John Hays, the late publisher of Ruston’s Morning Paper.

So while Mr. Binder apparently contacted the same source I had used for my story, he included links that were difficult to recognize and which were not obvious to the reader, he failed to provide links or credit for the list of contributions, which made it appear to his work. It wasn’t. We discussed that and agreed that it was a simple misunderstanding but one which should not have happened.

To his credit, he has edited his blog post to accurately reflect that we were the source of the list of campaign contributions and we appreciate his gesture.

Posted in Politics | 14 Comments »

DCFS funding slashed, necessitating ‘driveway visits,’ but overworked caseworker is arrested for falsifying records

March 13, 2016 by tomaswell

(You may enlarge the type by clicking on the plus (+) sign above the image and moving the bar at the bottom to the right to read the entire text.)

On Feb. 15, an arrest warrant was issued for a north Louisiana employee of the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) following an investigation of more than two months by the Office of Inspector General.

Kimberly D. Lee, 49, of Calhoun in Ouachita Parish, subsequently surrendered to authorities and was subjected to the indignity of being booked into East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on Feb. 17 after being accused of filing false reports about mandatory monthly in-home visits with children in foster care.

As is often the case, however, there is much more to this story.

A month earlier, on Jan. 10, LouisianaVoice received a confidential email from a retired DCFS supervisor who revealed an alarming trend in her former agency:

“I served in most programs within the agency, foster care, investigations, and adoptions,” she wrote. “Over my career I witnessed the eight years of (Bobby) Jindal’s ‘improvements.’

“Those ‘improvements’ endanger children’s lives daily. The blight is spread from the Secretary to the lowliest clerical worker in the agency. People are overworked and underpaid but it’s not just that. People are so distraught from the unrelenting stress that children are in danger. Add to that the inexperience of most front line workers and their supervisors’ inability to properly train new staff.”

She then dropped a bombshell that should serve as a wake-up call to everyone who cares or pretends to care about the welfare of children—from Gov. John Bel Edwards down to the most obscure freshman legislator:

“In the Shreveport Region, the regional administrator (recently) told workers that they may make ‘drive-by’ visits to foster homes, which means talking to the foster parents in their driveway. Policy says that workers will see both the child and the foster parent in the home, interviewing each separately (emphasis added). A lot of abuse goes on in foster homes. Some foster families are truly doing the best they can but they need counseling and guidance from their workers. The regional administrator’s answer to that one? Have the foster parent call their home development worker—another person who can’t get her job done now.”

She wrote that she had heard of two separate incidents “where a child new to foster care was taken to a foster home and left without paperwork, without contact information for the person in charge of the case and without knowing even the child’s name.”

Moreover, she said, vehicles used in the Shreveport Region “are old, run-down, and repairs are not allowed. The last time new tires were bought was in 2014. When one (of the vehicles) breaks down, they just tow it away. No replacement is ordered.”

Could those factors have pushed Lee to fudge on her reports? Did the actions attributed to her constitute payroll fraud or did budgetary cuts force her into cutting corners in order to keep up with an ever-increasing caseload? Lee says yes to the latter, that she was told by supervisors to get things done, “no matter what.” Child welfare experts said her actions and arrest shone a needed light on problems at DCFS: low morale, high turnover, fewer workers handing greater numbers of caseloads, and increasing numbers of children entering foster care.

http://theadvocate.com/news/14909284-31/louisianas-child-protection-system-understaffed-and-overburdened-after-years-of-cuts-child-advocates

To find our own answers, LouisianaVoice turned to a document published on Jan. 5 of this year by the Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group of Montgomery, Alabama.

The 77-page report, entitled A Review of Child Welfare, the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services, points to:

  • A growing turnover rate for DCFS over the past three years from 19.32 percent in calendar year 2012 to 24.26 percent in 2014;
  • A 33 percent reduction in the number of agency employees to respond to abuse reports;
  • A 27 percent cut in funding since fiscal 2009, Bobby Jindal’s first year in office;
  • An increase in the number of foster homes of 5 percent;
  • An increase of 120.5 percent in the number of valid substance exposed newborns, from 557 to 1,330;
  • A trend beginning in 2011 that shows 4,077 children entered foster care but only 3,767 exited in 2015;
  • A 19 percent decrease in the number of child welfare staff positions filled statewide from 1,389 in 2009 to 1,125 in 2015.
  • Of the 764 caseworkers, 291, or 38 percent had two years’ experience or less and 444 (58 percent) had five years or less experience.

Moreover, figures provided by the Department of Civil Service showed that of the agency’s 3,400 employees, 44.5 percent made less than $40,000 a year and 19 percent earned less than $30,000.

In 2014 (the latest year for which figures are available), the median income for Louisiana for a single-person household was $42,406, fourth-lowest in the nation, as compared to the national single-person median income of $53,657.

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Household-Incomes-by-State.php

“The stresses within the system are at risk of causing poorer outcomes for some children and families,” the report says in its executive summary. “…Recent falling outcome trends in some of the areas that have been an agency strength in the past are early warnings of future challengers.”

Despite years of budgetary cuts under the Jindal administration, Louisiana has maintained “a high level of performance in achieving permanency for children in past years and currently is ranked first among states in adoption performance,” the report said.

The budget cuts, however, “have negatively affected the work force, service providers, organizational capacity and increasingly risk significantly affecting child and family outcomes” which has produced a front-line workforce environment “constrained by high caseload, much of which is caused by high turnover and increasing administrative duties and barriers that compromise time spent with children and families.”

And it is that threat to “compromise time spent with children and families” that brings us back to the case of Kimberly Lee and to the email LouisianaVoice received from the retired DCFS supervisor who cited the directive for caseworkers to make “drive-by” visits to foster homes, leaving children with foster homes with no paperwork, contact information or without even knowing the children’s names, and of the state vehicles in disrepair.

It’s small wonder then, in a story about how Jindal wrecked the Louisiana economy, reporter Alan Pyke quoted DCFS Secretary Marketa Garner-Walters as telling the Washington Post if lawmakers can’t resolve the current budget crisis, many Louisiana state agencies will see budget cuts of 60 percent. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/03/07/3757416/jindal-louisiana-budget-crisis/

As ample illustration of Bobby Jindal’s commitment to social programs for the poor and sick, remember he yanked $4.5 million from the developmentally disadvantaged in 2014 and gave it to a Indy-type racetrack in Jefferson Parish run by a member of the Chouest family, one of the richest families in Louisiana—but a generous donor to Jindal’s gubernatorial campaigns and a $1 million contributor to his super PAC for his silly presidential run.

Well, thanks to the havoc wreaked by Jindal and his Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols, the legislature did find it necessary to pass the Nichols’ penny tax (not original with us but the contribution of one of our readers who requested anonymity) to help offset the $900 million-plus deficit facing the state just through the end of the current fiscal year which ends on June 30.

Were legislators successful? Not if you listen to Tyler Bridges, one of the more knowledgeable reporters on the Baton Rouge Advocate staff. “Legislators were neither willing to cut spending enough, nor raise taxes enough nor eliminate the long list of tax breaks that favor one politically connected business or industry over another,” he wrote in Sunday’s Advocate (emphasis added). http://theadvocate.com/news/15167974-77/a-louisiana-legislature-that-ducked-tough-budget-decisions-during-its-special-meeting-convenes-again

As is all too typical, most of the real “legislation” was done in the flurry of activity leading up the final hectic minutes of the special session, leaving even legislators to question what they had accomplished. In military parlance, it would be called a cluster—.

But that should be understandable. After all, 43, or fully 30 percent of the current crop of legislators, had to work their legislative duties around their busy schedules that called upon them to attend no fewer than 50 campaign fundraisers (that’s right, some like Neil Riser, Katrina Jackson, and Patrick Connick had more than one), courtesy of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, the Beer Industry League, CenturyLink and a few well-placed lobbyists. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/03/louisiana_special_session_fund.html

It is, after all, what many of them are best at. (Seven of those were held at the once-exclusive Camelot Club on the top floor of the Chase Bank South Tower. We say “once-exclusive” because last week the Camelot announced that it was closing its doors after 49 years. Restrictions on lobbyists’ expenditures on lunches for legislators was given as one cause for the drop in club membership from 900 to 400. Not mentioned was the fact that Ruth’s Chris and Sullivan’s steak restaurants in Baton Rouge have become favorite hangouts for legislators and lobbyists during legislative sessions. One waiter told LouisianaVoice during the 2015 session that one could almost find a quorum of either chamber on any given night during the session—accompanied, of course, by lobbyists who only wanted good government.) https://www.businessreport.com/article/camelot-club-closing-afternoon-can-no-longer-viable-club-owner-says

LEGISLATORS’ FUNDRAISERS

Bridges accurately called the new taxes that will expire in 2018 “the type of short-term fix” favored by Jindal and the previous legislature “that they had vowed not to repeat.”

Can we get an Amen?

In the meantime, he observed that Gov. John Bel Edwards and Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, because the legislature still left a $50 million hole in the current budget, will have to decide which state programs will be cut—again.

Emphasizing the risks to children, Garner-Walters told legislators in a committee hearing during the just-completed special session that state DCFS staff numbers 3,400, down a third from the 5,100 it had in 2008. “You can’t just not investigate child abuse,” she said.

Former Baton Rouge Juvenile Court Judge Kathleen Richey, now heading up Louisiana CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate), a child advocacy non-profit, has expressed her concern over the budgetary cuts that make DCFS caseworkers’ jobs so much more difficult.

“Our political leaders need to understand that while infrastructure represents a physical investment in our future, our children represent an intellectual investment in our future,” she said. “We have to protect innocent children who have no one else to stand up for them.”

Posted in Budget, Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, DHH, Ethics, Fraud, Governor's Office, Health Care, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, PACs, Politicians, Politics, Taxes | 21 Comments »

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