“Know this: we will support and protect the other retirees, surviving spouses and orphans as well as the citizens of this state, as we once took an oath to do, by any legal means at our disposal.”
—Excerpt from letter to State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson by retired state police officers objecting to the so-called Edmonson Amendment.
Posted in Boards, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, Public Records, Retirement, State Police | 2 Comments »
A group of retired state troopers has sent a letter to State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson pointing out inconsistencies in Edmonson’s version of events surrounding the amendment to a Senate bill that bumped his retirement income up by $55,000 per year while at the same time, calling on Edmonson to demand that the Louisiana State Police Retirement System (LSPRS) board take “immediate action to legally enjoin Act 859 and further seek a ruling on this unconstitutional law.”
In their letter, the retired troopers even dropped a thinly-veiled hint that they would file legal action to have the new law declared unconstitutional in the event that Edmonson and the LSPRS board do not take it upon themselves to have the new law stricken.
At the same time, LouisianaVoice has obtained records which reveal that four state police officers closely affiliated with Edmonson have enjoyed rapid advancement through the ranks and have been rewarded with combined pay raises totaling more than $115,000 (an average of $28,750 each) in the 6 ½ years since Edmonson was appointed superintendent on Jan. 14, 2007, the same day Bobby Jindal was sworn in as governor.
Those increases came during a time that covered a five-year span in which merit pay increases were suspended and state civil service employees had their salaries frozen.
The four state troopers’ pay raises, it should be pointed out, were for promotions and not merit increases and do not include the $42 million appropriated this year by the legislature for pay raises for all state troopers.
Senate Bill 294, which became Act 859 when Jindal signed the bill into law, was authored by Sen. Jean-Paul Morrell (D-New Orleans) and dealt specifically with disciplinary procedures to be taken in cases in which law enforcement officers came under investigation. The bill was never properly advertised as a retirement bill as required by the State Constitution.
That’s because the bill in its original form did not address retirement issues but when it was referred to a conference committee of three senators and three representatives, conference committee member Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) inserted what has come to be known as the “Edmonson Amendment” because it allowed Edmonson and one other trooper to rescind their decisions to enter the state’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) which had frozen Edmonson’s retirement at 100 percent of his captain’s pay grade of $79,000 and instead allows him to retire at 100 percent of his current colonel’s salary of $134,000.
All other troopers, teachers, and state employees who entered DROP years ago and subsequently received promotions or pay raises do not have that option available to them and still have their retirements frozen at the pay level at the time they entered DROP.
LouisianaVoice recently received a series of emails from State Police headquarters through a public records request that revealed that Capt. Jason Starnes, while questioning the motives of LouisianaVoice reporter Robert Burns in attending last month’s LSTRS board meeting, also issued a laundry list of talking points as a response to the controversy arising from the Edmonson Amendment.
Starnes was a state police sergeant in 2007 but on Feb. 3, 2009, he was promoted to lieutenant. Less than four years later, on Oct. 19, 2012, he was again promoted, this time to captain. Over that period of time, his salary has gone from $59,800 to $81,250, an increase of nearly 36 percent.
And then there is Paul Edmonson, Mike Edmonson’s brother. He has done even better than Starnes.
A state police sergeant when his brother was named superintendent, Paul Edmonson was promoted to lieutenant on July 25, 2008, just six months after his brother was appointed superintendent by Jindal. He was promoted again on Sept. 7, 2011, to captain and again just two years later, on Oct. 9, 2013, to major.
During his brother’s tenure as superintendent, Paul Edmonson has seen his salary jump from $63,500 per year to $93,000, an increase of 46 percent.
But even that pales in comparison to Edmonson’s Chief of Staff, Assistant Superintendent Charles Dupuy.
Dupuy was already a captain when Mike Edmonson was appointed superintendent and was promoted to major on Jan. 28, 2010—two years after Edmonson’s appointment. But less than a year later, on Jan. 10, 2011, Edmonson moved him up to Deputy Superintendent for Operations Planning and Training.
Edmonson kept Dupuy on the career fast track, promoting him again on April 9, 2012, to Assistant Superintendent and Chief of Staff.
Over that span, Dupuy’s salary went from $80,000 to $122,000, an increase of 52.5 percent.
Dupuy’s wife, Kelly Dupuy, even has gone along for the ride. A state police sergeant making $59,800 a year when Mike Edmonson was appointed superintendent, her acceleration through the ranks in a relative short time has been equally impressive. She was promoted to lieutenant on Oct. 27, 2009, just three months before her husband was promoted to major. She made captain last Oct. 25 and now earns $80,500, an overall salary increase of nearly 35 percent.
Moreover, the current positions held by Paul Edmonson and Kelly Dupuy did not exist before their respective promotions. The positions were created especially for them to be promoted into—which should go a long way in explaining why the state has nepotism regulations in place to govern such favoritism in the workplace.
Charles Dupuy, it should be noted, represents his boss on the LSPRS board and might seem predisposed to look the other way on the Edmonson Amendment issue. Others who might be expected to take a similar “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” approach to the amendment are Andrea Hubbard who represents Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols and State Sen. Elbert Guillory (R/D/R-Opelousas), chairman of the Senate Retirement Committee. State Rep. Kevin Pearson is chairman of the House Retirement Committee but has expressed surprise at the content of the Edmonson Amendment. Other unknown qualities on the board are board Chairman Frank Besson, president of the Louisiana State Troopers Association, Kevin Marcel, vice chairman, and Thurman Miller of the Central State Troopers Coalition.
The retired troopers, in their letter to Edmonson said the perceived reluctance on the part of the LSPRS board to act on the amendment is “seriously eroding the public’s confidence in the integrity of the state police.”
“That is unfortunate because Louisiana state police troopers are dedicated and professional men and women who risk their lives every day in service to the citizens. They deserve better than this and we demand better on their behalf,” the letter said.
“We look to you (Edmonson) to resolve this but make no mistake, we will not allow this unconstitutional and damaging law to stand until we have availed ourselves of all options and all avenues have been pursued. We feel it does no good to the long history of honor and integrity of the Louisiana state police for us to have to resolve this instead of the legislature, the LSPRS board, or you. But know this: we will support and protect the other retirees, surviving spouses and orphans as well as the citizens of this state, as we once took an oath to do, by any legal means at our disposal.”
Here is the complete text of the retired troopers’ letter to Edmonson:
Colonel:
There is much attention on and discussion of anticipated action by the LSPRS regarding legislation passed during the recent (2014) session of the Louisiana Legislature. We specifically refer to Senate Bill 294, now Act 859. While there are still unanswered questions regarding when and how the amendment evolved, and who the participants were, what is clear is this bill as amended provides for you and one other Trooper to now revoke a previously irrevocable decision to enter the Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP). The effect of this change increases substantially your retirement benefits, and most disturbing, the funding for it is from the same fund that provides cost of living adjustments (COLA) to state police retirees, surviving spouses, and orphans.
You have been quoted in various reports as saying you “didn’t ask for the change to state law” and you “didn’t know who initiated it.” Later that same day you revised your statement to say you “did not request the change”, but your “staff” told you there was legislation available that would ‘fix not only you but other members,” (We would find out two weeks later from State Senator Neil Riser, who had mounting pressure from media investigations that he “was asked by Louisiana State Police Deputy Superintendent Charlie Dupuy to offer the amendment, which became part of a bill to address rights of law enforcement officers. It was presented to me as addressing broad retirement issues”.) If, as you and Senator Riser have publicly stated, Dupuy provided false information, what he has done is at best unethical and possibly illegal.
You have also said, “Let’s let the board review it and make sure things are the way they should be, if not, let’s correct it.” A little over a week after your initial comments you issued a statement, “…regardless of what comes back from the review by the attorneys for the retirement committee, I’m going to follow my heart and not accept it…” noting that you want to let the legislature review it next session based on any proper protocol.” Contrary to erroneous briefing points provided to you by Captain Jason Starnes, as reported in the media, this bill was not advertised as a retirement bill. It does not meet constitutional requirements; the same Constitution you have sworn to uphold, therefore things ARE NOT “as they should be.”
Every legislator that has commented on this issue has said they were unaware of what they had voted for and expressed concern and outrage that the true facts and impacts of the bill were hidden from them. Some have vowed to introduce changes to ensure in the future, this process is transparent. Additionally, several attorneys familiar with federal and state retirement laws and court rulings have agreed this is blatantly unconstitutional and suggested that the unintended consequences of this bill as it remains today could likely lead to a class action suit by all other state retirees who had the same decision as you regarding DROP, under federal equal protection guidelines.
If they should prevail, the results would be catastrophic for all state retirement systems and detrimental to the state’s credit rating. This would in turn ensure significant impact on the citizens of Louisiana with most likely drastic cuts in public services and higher education along with tax increases. In the face of all this, Colonel, it is being reported, and we have been told that the LSPRS may not be planning to conduct a meeting to hear the results of the investigation and take action.
Other reports concern us in that board members who work for or contract with the department are purportedly being pressured by your “staff” to be loyal to you at all costs. In your statements, you encouraged an investigation, and further declared you would not accept the benefits provided for in this legislation. Therefore we don’t understand why action by the board would be of concern to you or your staff unless your intent is other than you’ve stated. In fact based on your previous statements it would appear that board action to challenge and enjoin legally this unconstitutional, ill-conceived and poorly thought out law is consistent with what you have said publicly and is in the best interests of the other state police retirees and all citizens of Louisiana.
This matter and the subsequent actions surrounding this law are seriously eroding the public’s confidence in the integrity of state police. This affects not only department trust from the legislators, essential to the future success of state police, but also the trust of the public that reflects on every trooper who puts on that uniform and badge each day. That is unfortunate because Louisiana state police troopers are dedicated and professional men and women who risk their lives every day in service to the citizens. They deserve better than this and we demand better on their behalf.
Colonel Edmonson, you have said this is a distraction to our troopers. We agree and therefore call on you to openly and publicly demand the Louisiana State Police Retirement System Board take immediate action to legally enjoin Act 859 and further seek a ruling on this unconstitutional law.
If your intent is to pursue this openly next year in the legislature, this action will clear the air for that to occur in an open forum without the hint of impropriety. You know that should Act 859 remain as law, the legislature could simply not act next year, or should some change occur (even not of your own making) to require you to retire before you plan, the law as passed is binding on the LSPRS and on you. To ignore this subjects the state to liability.
We look to you to resolve this but make no mistake, we will not allow this unconstitutional and damaging law to stand until we have availed ourselves of all options and all avenues have been pursued. We feel it does no good to the long history of honor and integrity of the Louisiana state police for us to have to resolve this instead of the legislature, the LSPRS board, or you. But know this: we will support and protect the other retirees, surviving spouses and orphans as well as the citizens of this state, as we once took an oath to do, by any legal means at our disposal.
Posted in Boards, Corruption, Ethics, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Lawsuits, Legislature, Legislators, Retirement, State Police | 16 Comments »
The seventh floor of the Bienville Building on North 4th Street in Baton Rouge became a beehive of activity recently when employees of a temporary personnel service moved in to begin shredding “tons of documents,” according to an employee of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH).
DHH is headquartered in the Bienville Building and the source told LouisianaVoice that the shredding, undertaken “under the guise of being efficient and cleaning,” involves documents that date back as far as the 1980s.
“The significance of this is that this is occurring in the midst of a lawsuit (that) DHH is filing against Molina in relation to activities that go back to the ‘80s,” the employee said. “Everyone is questioning the timing. Westaff temporary people have been in the copy room of the seventh floor for approximately two weeks now, all day, every day, shredding documents.”
https://www.westaff.com/westaff/main.cfm?nlvl1=1
The employee said so many documents were being shredded “that the floor is full of dust and employees have been ordered to clean on designated cleaning days” and that locked garbage cans filled with shredded documents “are being hauled from the building daily.”
LouisianaVoice submitted an inquiry to DHH that requested an explanation “in light of the current litigation involving DHH, Molina and CNSI”—two companies the agency contracted with to process Medicaid claims.
CNSI (Client Network Services, Inc.), which replaced Molina as the contractor for those services in 2011, had its $200 million contract cancelled by the Jindal administration after allegations of contact between then-DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein and CNSI, his former employer, during the contract selection process. Investigations by the Louisiana Attorney General’s and the U.S. Attorney’s offices ensued but little has been heard since those investigations were initiated. Meanwhile, CNSI filed suit against the state in Baton Rouge state district court in May of 2013, alleging “bad faith breach of contract.” http://theadvocate.com/home/5906243-125/cnsi-files-lawsuit-against-state
Molina, meanwhile, was reinstated as the contractor to process the state’s Medicaid reimbursements but last month the state filed suit against Molina Healthcare and its subsidiary Molina Information Systems, alleging that the state paid Molina “grossly excessive amounts” for prescription drugs for more than two decades because the firm engaged in negligent and deceptive practices in processing Medicaid reimbursements for prescription drugs.
Prescription drugs account for about 17 percent of the state’s annual Medicaid budget, the lawsuit says.
The state’s lawsuit says that Molina has processed the state’s Medicaid pharmacy reimbursement claims for the past 30 years but from 1989 to 2012, Molina neglected to adhere to the state formula for payments and thereby committed fraud and negligence, violated the state’s consumer protection and Medical Assistance Programs Integrity laws. http://theadvocate.com/news/business/9579038-123/la-sues-medicaid-drug-payment
Olivia Watkins, director of communications for DHH, told LouisianaVoice by email on Wednesday that the Division of Administration maintains a contract with Westaff for temporary workers which can be used by different state departments. “DHH requested temporary workers through the existing contract to assist with various projects, including shredding,” she said.
A search of LaTrac, the state’s online directory of state contracts, failed to find either Westaff or Molina listed as contractors among either its active or expired contracts.
“With regard to the shredding,” Watkins said, “those documents that were shredded were old cost reports, statements and facility documents that were outside of their document retention period (anywhere from 5-10 years). The files being shredded were in no way related to the department’s previous contract with CNSI.”
Watkins, while denying any connection to the CNSI contract, failed to mention whether or not the shredded documents involved Molina’s contract or the state’s litigation against the company even though the LouisianaVoice inquiry specifically mentioned both companies.
In June of 2002, the nation’s largest accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, was found guilty of unlawfully destroying documents relating to the firm’s work for its biggest client, the failed energy giant, Enron.
And while that conviction was eventually overturned, the damage from its actions doomed the company and it ultimately shut its doors for good.
In the weeks leading up to the Enron collapse, Andersen’s Houston practice director Michael Odom presented a videotaped talk—that was played many times for Andersen employees—on the delicate subject of file destruction.
In that video, Odom said that under Andersen’s document retention policy, everything that was not an essential part of the audit file—drafts, notes, emails and internal memos—should be destroyed immediately. But, he added, once a lawsuit was filed, nothing could be destroyed. Anything could be lawfully destroyed, he advised Andersen employees, up to the point when legal proceedings were filed (emphasis ours). http://www.mybestdocs.com/hurley-c-rk-des-law-0309.htm
“If it’s destroyed in the course of the normal policy and litigation is filed the next day, that’s great,” he said, “because we’ve followed our own policy, and whatever there was that might have been of interest to somebody is gone and irretrievable.”
In a matter of days, Andersen’s Houston office began working overtime shredding documents, according to authors Bethany McLean and Peter Elkin in their book The Smartest Guys in the Room (The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron).
Perhaps the DHH shredding had nothing to do with the CNSI contract with DHH or with the litigation filed by CNSI over cancellation of its contract.
And it may be that the shredding was in no way connected to the Molina contract, even though Watkins failed to address that specific question by LouisianaVoice.
It could well be, as Watkins said, the document destruction was purely a matter of routine housekeeping.
But the timing of the shredding flurry, coming as it did only days following the July 10 filing of DHH’s lawsuit against Molina, and DHH’s murky and adversarial relationship with the two claims processing contractors do raise certain questions.
And Watkins’ assertion that the shredded records consisted of “old cost reports, statements and facility documents,” the dates of which fall within the time frame of the allegations against Molina, would seem to make those questions take on even greater relevance.
Posted in Contract, Contracts, Courts, DHH, Health Care, Lawsuits, Public Records, State Agencies | 16 Comments »
When the Department of Health and Hospitals released its “Public-Private Partnership” financial report on nine state hospitals last month, it was pretty much assumed that the state media would accept the glowing report at face value and trumpet the Jindal administration’s brilliance in the privatization plan.
To no one’s surprise, Jindal cheerleader Scott McKay, curiously writing under the pseudonym “MacAoidh,” which he explained was the Gaelic spelling of his name, jumped out in front of the parade. Close behind were Lauren Guillot of the LSU Reveille and Chris LeBlanc of the Thibodaux Daily Comet.
http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20140724/ARTICLES/140729784
The latest to chime in is Quin Hillyer, an unsuccessful Alabama-congressional-candidate (he finished fourth in the Republican primary)-turned-columnist for the Baton Rouge Advocate who somehow purports to be an expert on Louisiana politics but who continues to live in Mobile.
The DHH report attempted to show that Jindal’s privatization plan—a plan, by the way, that has yet to be approved by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services(CMS)—has cost the state $51.8 million less than expected during the fiscal year ended June 30.
STATE HOSPITAL FINANCIAL REPORT
But those numbers are disingenuous at best.
The first column of the DHH spreadsheet contains the amounts budgeted for each of the nine hospitals for the fiscal year that ended on June 30.
That’s simple enough to comprehend but the second column is the key. That column lists the amounts actually spent as of June 30 while the third column reports the difference between the amounts appropriated and the amounts spent. That’s where DHH came up with the aggregate savings of $51.8 million.
But what the report neglects to say is that the books on those fiscal year 2013-2014 expenditures will not be closed until later this month, so any reported costs (Column 2) will necessarily increase, thereby negatively impacting Column 3. (Column 4 simply gives the appropriations for each hospital for the current (2014-2015) fiscal year.)
By way of explanation, “Public Claims” is the traditional Medicaid payments the state made to the public hospitals. “Public UCC” is the uncompensated care, or DSH payments the state made to the LSU hospitals. “Private Claims” are the Medicaid payments made to the new private hospital partners. These are the same payments as the “Public UCC” payments, only larger and fueled by the lease payments used by the state for match, thereby cutting state funds and giving the illusion of shrinking government.
“Private UPL” stands for “upper payment limit,” which is a supplemental Medicaid payment which the state must match—which is now done from the lease payments that CMS has yet to approve. “Private UCC” is DSH payments the state is also allowed to make to private hospitals.
It is not unusual for individual hospitals to vary from their original budgets because they have the flexibility to move money around, using savings in one area to cover expenditures in others. The bottom line is what is significant.
Even with that Enron-esque method of bookkeeping, several hospitals have already overspent their budgets even before the final numbers are in, the report shows. Those include Earl K. Long Medical Center in Baton Rouge ($12.2 million over budget), Interim LSU Hospital in New Orleans ($5.9 million), University Medical Center in Lafayette ($8.8 million) and W.O. Moss in Lake Charles ($1.2 million).
Others that were close to spending all of their appropriations included Chabert Medical Center in Houma and E.A. Conway in Monroe.
The total appropriations for all nine hospitals for the 2013-2014 fiscal year is $1.111 billion against $1.058 billion spent, a difference of $51.8 million, according to the report which again, does not reflect the final numbers.
The 2014-2015 appropriation for the nine facilities is $1.15 billion which means if nothing changes in expenditures for the current budget (a highly unlikely, almost impossible scenario), the state will still spend $91.5 million more on the hospitals in 2014-2015 than in the previous fiscal year.
And should the final numbers for 2013-2014 show that the hospitals spent the entire $1.111 billion appropriated, the state still will spend $39.7 million more this year than last.
Somehow, that just doesn’t support the $51.8 million “savings.”
Moreover, the report conveniently does not provide us with the means of finance so we have no concept of how much is state funding and how much is federal. No matter; the cold hard facts are that the partnerships between the state and private hospitals were supposed to save money and they clearly have not.
The 2013-2014 fiscal year was a hybrid between the old public model and the new private model in which the private hospitals lease the state hospitals and use those lease payments for matching funds that the state puts up to receive federal dollars to make “private” payments.
It is that arrangement that CMS has yet to approve because they involve largely inflated lease payments. While the arrangement may be counterintuitive, the private hospitals are more than happy to agree to the inflated lease payments because the state plans to use those payments as match and promptly draw down big federal matching dollars to then pay back to the private hospitals—if, that is, CMS approval is forthcoming.
None of this matters to Hillyer and McKay, though. Eager to thumb their noses at the skeptics and while taking a deliberate shot at “liberal” gubernatorial candidate State Rep. John Bel Edwards, Hillyer called the hospital privatization plan “good medicine,” adding that early critics “should be pulling out the salt and pepper” in preparation to “eat their earlier words.”
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/9878018-123/quin-hillyer-jindals-privatization-was
But even more egregious on Hillyer’s part, he claims (erroneously, it should be noted) that CMS “has not sent an official ‘disallowance’ notice” on the advance lease payments when in fact those have already been disallowed outright as being illegal. That, says Edwards, will likely result in future clawbacks of $507 million that the state will owe Medicaid.
He also quoted DHH Secretary Kathy Kliebert as saying negotiations with CMS have put the feds “in a position where, fairly shortly, they can approve our State Plan Amendments.”
Perhaps so, but we’ve heard that song and dance before so we’re going to withhold judgment on that optimistic report.
At least McKay (or MacAoidh if you will) had the good sense not to accept the DHH spreadsheet as the final numbers and at acknowledged a “fuller accounting” would be forthcoming. “And we’ll know next year, after the first full year of the implementation of Jindal’s idea to privatize the charity hospitals, exactly how much money is saved,” he added, making an apparent assumption there would be a savings despite the increased budget for the current fiscal year. http://thehayride.com/2014/07/surprise-the-privatized-charity-hospitals-come-in-52-million-under-budget/
But then McKay, as is his wont, became a bit melodramatic by pointing out observers “might be at a loss to summon up memories of dead bodies due to neglect as a result of the privatization. If there are oodles of corpses littering the roadsides outside of hospitals throughout Louisiana for lack of admittance, they’ve gone strangely unreported.”
We honestly don’t know where he came up with that wild scenario that he somehow implies was the claim of privatization opponents. “Nobody suffered from the leases of those hospitals,” he continued. “And the state is going to save a lot of money as a result, while likely delivering better services to the public.”
That, of course, remains to be seen. If he is right, he’s right. But it’s difficult to arrive at that conclusion when you look at the numbers on the DHH spreadsheet.
If, that is, you bothered to study the numbers closely which some obviously did not—just as the administration counted on.
(With appreciation to two regular readers who helped us interpret the numbers and their meaning.)
Posted in DHH, Governor's Office, Health Care, Media, Privatization, Revenue, Transparency | 5 Comments »
“Please let the Board Members know how you feel about this unconstitutional attack on the State Police Retirement System. Also, please call or share with your Legislators, those on your email lists and through Social Media such as Facebook so we may all let the Board Members know we won’t accept this. They need to hear not only from retirees who will be adversely affected by this, but also by all citizens, who will bear the cost and suffer the negative effects from possible weakening of the credit rating of the state. It is important to encourage as many people as possible to contact them to let them know you are watching and expect them to defend the system and members. The State Police Retirees and the People of Louisiana deserve better.”
—Excerpt from letter to the citizens of the State of Louisiana by retired Louisiana state police officers who are opposed to the last minute amendment to a bill that gave State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson a $55,000 per year raise in his retirement income. The raise would be funded from a fund intended to provide cost of living adjustments for state police retirees and their families.
Posted in Politics | Leave a Comment »
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