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Lawsuit seeking to block OGB benefits, premium changes also names Governor, who may be served in Iowa or N.H.

April 22, 2015 by tomaswell

The absentee Jindal administration, already under fire for its fiscal train wreck that has legislators scrambling in attempts to cover a projected $1.6 billion budgetary shortfall, had a grenade dropped into its lap on Wednesday in the form of a LAWSUIT against the administration and the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) over the method in which OGB attempted to implement adverse changes in benefits and premiums for 230,000 state employees, retirees and dependents.

Baton Rouge attorney J. Arthur Smith filed the petition for declaratory and injunctive relief in Baton Rouge District Court on behalf of six plaintiffs who are either current state employees or state retirees.

At issue is the way that OGB attempted to increase premiums and reduce benefits for members of OGB last August without complying with the state’s Administrative Procedures Act (APA) which requires promulgation (a formal declaration of intent and public hearings) of any rule changes.

Listed as plaintiffs are Marilee Cash and Aileen Hendricks of East Baton Rouge Parish, Nancy Dickie and Debra Thornton of Lafourche Parish, Rebecca McCarter of Ascension Parish and Dayne Sherman of Tangipahoa Parish. Named as defendants were the State of Louisiana, the Office of the Governor, the Division of Administration (DOA), and OGB.

They claim to be members of an organization called Louisiana Voices of Employees and Retirees for Insurance Truth and Equity, (LA VERITE). They say they chose the name because La verite is French for Truth.

The petition tracks the record of the Jindal administration and chronicles the manner in which the plaintiffs claim that the administration, abetted by the legislature, frittered away a surplus of nearly $2 million at the time Jindal took office, repeatedly used one-time revenue to cover recurring expenses, repealed the popular Stelly tax plan, passed numerous business tax breaks totaling some $367 million, approved $20 million in private school tuition and home schooling tax credits and scrapped the sales tax that businesses previously paid on utility bills.

The rollback of the Stelly plan took place despite warnings from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) that the move would cost the state more than $1.8 billion in lost revenue over a three-year period from fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2012, the petition says.

The lawsuit says that the repeal of the Stelly plan provided a “substantial tax savings for upper income Louisiana” and accounted for about 75 percent of the state’s budget shortfall during those three years. “This does not take into account the billions of dollars the State of Louisiana hands out in business tax exemptions and incentives ever year that have gone unexamined by lawmakers to determine if they serve legitimate public objectives or are simply wasteful luxuries that the state can no longer afford,” it says.

Citing further examples of what it describes as fiscal mismanagement, the petition notes that from July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010, the administration spent $2.4 billion in private consulting contracts. The following year, it said, that amount increased to $4 billion. The suit cited the Office of Contractual Review’s annual reports for 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 as its source.

Plaintiffs, in their petition, say that the administration announced in January of 2011 its intention to explore the privatization of OGB’s Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) even though a Legislative Auditor’s report predicted that premiums would increase because of marketing costs for a private provider, the necessity of a private provider’s turning a profit, the requirement that private health insurance companies pay premium taxes and the requirement that private companies must purchase reinsurance.

Despite that, the lawsuit says, then-Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater promised that in the event of privatization, benefits would remain the same and premiums would not be increased.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana won the contract to administer the PPO and the new plan went into effect on Jan. 1, 2013. That same year, the administration actually reduced rates by 7.11 percent and the next year another reduction of 1.77 percent went into effect.

“While this saved money for the employees,” the plaintiffs said, “it reduced the state’s required premium (matching) payments by about twice as much, thereby reducing the state’s obligation to pay into the system even though medical expenses were increasing by about 6 percent. The rate reductions, while saving the state money it could then apply to the budgetary shortfall, it meant that OGB could no longer cover expenses from current revenue and had to dip into its reserve fund, which was about $500 million when BCBS took over operations.

OGB has been spending millions per month more than it has been taking in in premiums and the Legislative Fiscal Office has said there is a risk that the reserve fund balance could be zero by the end of the current fiscal year (June 30).

“Gov. Jindal adamantly opposed every attempt on the part of legislators to deal with the financial crisis through tax increases,” the petition says, and he “capitalized on the financial crisis of the state to advance an ideological agenda that called into question the rationale for government to perform basic services on a wide range of issues.”

In listing three causes of action, Smith said the state and OGB violated the state’s APA by attempting to make “substantial unilateral modifications to both benefits and costs under the OGB health plan.”

Some of the changes included:

  • Significantly increasing out-of-pocket maximums for all health plan options;
  • Increasing deductibles for all health plan options;
  • Increased co-pays 100 percent for plans with co-pays;
  • Increasing the out-of-pocket maximums for prescription drug benefits by $300 (from $1,200 to $1,500, a 20 percent increase);
  • Eliminating out-of-network benefits for some plan options;
  • Requiring prior authorizations for certain medical procedures;
  • Removing all vision coverage from health plan options.

The plaintiffs point out that on Sept. 30, 2014, only seven days after an attorney general’s opinion said OGB had violated the APA with its unilateral modifications of benefits, OGB issued a press release “stating its intention to publish an emergency rule reinstating the legally insufficient Aug. 1 changes.”

OGB’s emergency rule, the petition says, “was an apparent effort to retroactively ‘cure’ the illegalities found by the Attorney General in his Sept. 23 opinion. Moreover, the fact (that) the changes would not become effective until March 1, 2015, belies the claim that (there) was an ‘emergency’ which necessitated less than full compliance with the APA.”

OGB did finally comply with the APA by conducting a public hearing on Dec. 29, 2014, in the middle of the Christmas and New Year’s holiday season and after the enrollment period had already been closed, causing the plaintiffs to call the hearing a “sham.”

“With all of the proposed changes, including significant changes (made) during the enrollment period, the haste in which they were handled, and the timing of the Dec. 29, 2014, public hearing, it was very difficult for state employees and retirees to intelligently evaluate their options under these proposed plans and (to) make informed choices,” the plaintiffs said.

The petition also claims the state violated due process and contract clauses.

It claims that state agencies can only change promulgated regulations by the process of the promulgation of a new rule or regulation and that if a change is not properly promulgated in accordance with the APA, “it is not a legally effective pronouncement by the agency (not a law), and therefore, none of the abortive attempts in August, September, October and thereafter should be viewed as having changed the existing law.

“Since the contracts clauses prohibit the state from passing a ‘law’ that retroactively impairs the obligations of contract, OGB can only legally change the benefits program when it adopts through proper procedure and final rule to that effect, and that final rule cannot constitutionally be given retroactive effect.”

The petition is seeking declaratory judgments that:

  • OGB’s health care plans are in violation of the Louisiana APA;
  • Defendants have violated the Constitution of the State of Louisiana;
  • OGB has violated its fiduciary duties as prudent administrators.

It also seeks injunctive relief enjoining the applications of the OGB health care plan modifications.

The lawsuit was assigned to 19th JDC Judge Janice Clark.

Posted in Contract, Contracts, DOA, Finances, Governor's Office, Health Care, Lawsuits, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization | 19 Comments »

Higher education budget crisis could be part of deliberate pattern to force privatization of state colleges, universities

April 22, 2015 by tomaswell

Bobby Jindal has promised to find money to address the funding crisis facing Louisiana’s public colleges and universities but besides the obvious dire financial straits in which the state currently finds itself, two important obstacles must be overcome by our absentee governor: the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Grover Norquist.

The odds of appeasing just one in efforts to raise needed funding for higher education will be difficult enough, given Jindal’s allegiance to the two. Obtaining the blessings of both while simultaneously distracted by the siren’s call of the Republican presidential nomination will be virtually impossible.

Higher education, already hit with repeated cuts by the Jindal administration, is facing additional cuts of up to $600 million, or 82 percent of its current budget, according to news coming out of the House Appropriations Committee earlier this month. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/04/louisianas_higher_education_bu.html

Such a fiscal scenario could result in the closure of some schools and across the board discontinuation of programs.

Moody’s, the bond-rating service, has warned that Louisiana higher education cannot absorb any further cuts. http://www.treasury.state.la.us/Lists/SiteArticlesByCat/DispForm_Single.aspx?List=c023d63e%2Dac65%2D439d%2Daf97%2Dda71d8688dff&ID=884

Louisiana has already cut per student spending by 42 percent since fiscal year 2008 (compared to the national average of 6 percent), fourth highest in the nation behind Arizona, New Hampshire and Oregon. The actual cut in dollars, $4,715 per student, is second only to the $4,775 per student cut by New Mexico. To help offset those cuts, Louisiana colleges and universities have bumped tuition by 38 percent, 10th highest in the nation but still a shade less than half the 78.4 percent increase for Arizona students. http://www.cbpp.org/research/recent-deep-state-higher-education-cuts-may-harm-students-and-the-economy-for-years-to-come?fa=view&id=3927

But that’s all part of the game plan for ALEC, the “model legislation” alliance of state legislators heavily funded by the Koch brothers which has as its overall objective the privatization of nearly all public services now taken for granted: prisons, pension plans, medical insurance, and education, to name but a few. http://www.cbpp.org/research/alec-tax-and-budget-proposals-would-slash-public-services-and-jeopardize-economic-growth?fa=view&id=3901

Jindal has already incorporated some of ALEC’s privatization proposals, namely state employee medical insurance and elementary and secondary education. He met with less success in attempts to initiate prison privatization and state retirement reform.

ALEC also proposes abolishing state income taxes, another proposal floated and then quickly abandoned by Jindal but pushed successfully by Kansas Gov. Brownback. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/21/vwelfap/

And then there is Norquist, the anti-tax Republican operative who founded Americans for Tax Reform and who somehow survived the Jack Abramoff scandal and thrived. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff_Indian_lobbying_scandal

What strange hold does he have over Jindal?

The pledge.

Jindal, as did a couple dozen Louisiana legislators, signed onto Norquist’s “no-tax” pledge—a promise not to raise taxes under any circumstances. The pledge even prompted Jindal to veto a 4-cent cigarette tax renewal in 2011 because in his twisted logic, it was somehow a new tax. The legislature had to adopt a last-minute constitutional amendment to make the tax permanent.

Undeterred, Jindal, through communications director Mike Reed, has said he would support a cigarette tax increase this year only if it is offset with a tax cut elsewhere. This despite estimates that a higher tax would not only generate needed income for the state, but would, by encouraging smokes to quit and teens to not start smoking, create long-term health care savings for the state. His veto also flew in the face of a 1997 article that Jindal authored while secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals in which he said, “Society must recover those costs which could have been avoided had the individual not chosen the risky behavior only to prevent others from having to bear the costs.” http://theadvocate.com/news/11930951-123/lawmaker-proposes-154-state-cigarette

Not to be confused with the “no-go” zones of Jindal’s vivid imagination, the “no-tax” pledge apparently is a good thing for Republicans and tea partiers and is considered sacrosanct to those who have taken the oath even if it locks politicians into the impossible situation of trying to resolve a $1.6 billion budgetary crisis while not increasing revenue.

Jindal routinely runs proposed legislation by Norquist for his blessings, according to Jindal spokesperson Reed who admitted as much. http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2015/03/in_jindals_world_tax_is_a_tax.html

Even U.S. Sen. David Vitter signed the pledge but has assured voters it won’t be binding on him as governor—a dubious promise that would make him unique among signers. After all, a pledge is a pledge and when one signs it, so what difference would it make which office he holds?

So, how does all this figure into the budget crisis for higher education in Louisiana?

In a word, privatization. Or, taking the “state” out of “state universities.”

While neither Jindal nor any legislator has dared breathe the word privatization as it regards the state’s colleges and universities, at least one Jindal appointee, Board of Regents Chairman Roy Martin of Alexandria, has broached the subject, speaking he said, strictly as an individual. http://theadvocate.com/news/11716059-123/regents-look-at-privatizing-public

The slashing of higher education budgets appears to be a pattern as governors attempt to wean colleges and universities from dependence on state funding, transitioning their status from state-supported to state-assisted to state-located. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/02/27/scott-walker-bobby-jindal-aim-to-slash-higher-ed-funding

Privatization of state colleges and universities would, of course, push tuition rates even higher, making a college education cost prohibitive for many. But that dovetails nicely with the ALEC agenda as income disparity continues to widen with ever more generous tax laws that benefit the super-rich while placing growing burdens on lower-income taxpayers. By winnowing out those who can least afford college, privatization necessarily enhances the selection process to serve the elite and at the same time, opens up additional revenue opportunities for those in position to take advantage of privatized services such as book stores, printing, food services, and general maintenance. http://gse.buffalo.edu/FAS/Johnston/privatization.html

There is already a backlog of nearly $2 billion in maintenance projects on state college and university campuses just waiting for some lucky entrepreneur with the right connections.

http://theadvocate.com/home/5997316-125/backlog-of-maintenance

States like Louisiana, by such actions as simply increasing our cigarette tax (third lowest in the nation) and being less generous with corporate tax breaks and initiatives, could have reduced the size of the spending cuts or avoided them altogether. Sadly, that was not done and those looking at someone to blame cannot point the finger only at Jindal; legislators have been complicit from the beginning and must shoulder the responsibility for the present mess.

As a result, state colleges and universities have already cut staff and eliminated entire programs to such a degree that Louisiana’s high school seniors already are considering options out of state and other states are obliging. https://lahigheredconfessions.wordpress.com/

Should the legislature adopt any measures to raise revenue for higher education, such measures likely would be vetoed by Jindal if he gets the message from Norquist to do so.

If that occurs, his palpable disregard for the welfare of this state as evidenced by his growing absence will be dwarfed by the affront of taking his cue of governance from a Washington, D.C. lobbyist as opposed to listening to his constituents who want real solutions and not political grandstanding.

But that certainly would be nothing new for Bobby Jindal.

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, American Legislative Exchange Council, Budget, Economy, Education, Exemptions, Incentives, Finances, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Incentives, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Politicians, Privatization, Revenue, Taxes, Veto | 12 Comments »

Frederick Tombar, a key Jindal appointee, resigns $260K job at LHC following internal investigation of sexual harassment

April 21, 2015 by tomaswell

The executive director of the Louisiana Housing Corporation (LHC) has resigned abruptly from his $260,000 a year job following an internal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment, LouisianaVoice has learned.

Frederick Tombar, III was appointed to head LHC after passage of Senate Bill 269 by State Sen. Neil Riser in 2011. SB 269, which became Act 408 upon the signature of Bobby Jindal, consolidated three former agencies into one: the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency, the Road Home Corporation, and Louisiana Land Trust. That consolidation became effective on Jan. 1, 2012.

Emails and telephone calls to LHC Tuesday by LouisianaVoice got no response but sources said that LHC Chairman and former Hammond Mayor Mayson Foster http://www.lhfa.state.la.us/index.cfm/page/117 had conducted an investigation into the allegations at the behest of the agency’s board of directors. http://www.lhfa.state.la.us/page/board-of-directors.

It was not immediately clear whether Tombar resigned voluntarily or was asked to step down. Nor did LHC respond to questions about whether or not Tombar’s resignation was effective immediately or when his last day on the job was.

Neither was it immediately clear as to the nature of the allegations or whether they involved an agency employee or employees.

He was appointed by Jindal in 2012 to execute the LHC strategic plan, to advise the board of directors on matters of policy and to manage day-to-day operations of the corporation. His $260,000 salary is twice what Jindal makes.

The LHC web page which is found under the heading of the Housing Finance Agency, which no longer exists, says that during fiscal year 2014, LHC built or rehabilitated 1,770 units of affordable housing and assisted 539 Louisiana residents in becoming first-time homeowners through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Soft Second Mortgage (SSM) and First-Time Homebuyers (FTHB) programs. LHC also assisted 1,130 Louisiana households in becoming more energy efficient through the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) and provided $33.5 million to ensure that more than 87,000 utility payments were made on behalf of distressed households, the web page says. http://lhc.la.gov/index.cfm/page/93

Prior to joining LHC, Tombar, a founding member and trustee of Advance Church of Silver Spring, Maryland, was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as Senior Advisor to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan. In that capacity, he was responsible for leading the strategic direction, policy development, and assisting in the coordination of operations of HUD’s disaster and recovery programs.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government from Notre Dame University and later attended Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where he earned a Master in Public Policy degree.

He directed the Road Home Program following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Road Home served as the largest single housing recovery program in U.S. history.

LHC has 125 employees and a payroll of more than $7.9 million. Besides Tombar, eight other employees make more than $100,000 per year. http://doa.louisiana.gov/boardsandcommissions/viewEmployees.cfm?board=273

Posted in Boards, Commissions, DOA, Ethics, Governor's Office | 9 Comments »

Tomorrow’s selection of EBR Parish Attorney described as a public show but a private quid pro quo sham as ‘the fix is in’

April 21, 2015 by tomaswell

By Robert Burns (Special to LouisianaVoice)

Last May, a political firestorm surfaced on the EBR Parish Metro Council over then-Parish Attorney Mary Roper. Some council members asked Baton Rouge attorney Jack Whitehead to gather evidence. Later, in early September 2014, the Metro Council called a special meeting to discuss Ms. Roper’s termination. That meeting exposed what some leaders described as the complete dysfunction within the parish attorney’s office.

After the council’s special counsel, Murphy Foster, presented the case for Roper’s termination and Roper’s attorney, Wade Shows (Roper’s predecessor as Parish Attorney), presented her defense, EBRP Mayor Pro-Tem Chandler Loupe provided a laundry list of alleged wrongdoing by Roper. In the preceding video link, Loupe goes into great detail. A few of Loupe’s allegations against Roper include:

  • Often working no or very minimal hours even though she was paid as a full-time employee;
  • Failing to ensure that basic functions of the office were being performed, resulting in thousands of DWIs being dismissed and adjudicated properties experiencing a huge backlog;
  • Improperly providing an internally-developed software code to her husband, an information technology expert.

Another employee with the EBR Department of Public Works, Kyle Jones, subsequently attempted to sell the Parish its own software back to it for $500,000 which led to the discovery of Roper’s husband’s actions.

After Loupe made his presentation, a hostile and bitter exchange took place between Loupe and Councilwoman Chauna Banks-Daniel, with two of Banks-Daniel’s colleagues, Donna Collins-Lewis and C. Denise Marcell, becoming so furious with her over remarks she directed at Loupe that they exited the meeting. The council ultimately voted 8-3 to terminate Roper’s employment. Roper’s first lieutenant, Lee Anne Batson, assumed the position on an interim basis.

Several sources have expressed their concerns to LouisianaVoice that the selection process for the council naming Roper’s replacement is a sham. They claim the “fix has been in from day one” for Batson to obtain the position on a permanent basis. These sources have indicated that the process will become “Mary Roper, Chapter Two,” and they say morale within the parish attorney’s office is worse under Batson than it was under Roper. Further, these sources have said that the few dedicated attorneys serving in the office are frustrated that Batson has even worse supervisory skills than Roper and permits the majority of attorneys who work under her to “goof off most of the days on their iPHONEs and iPADs looking at new cooking recipes and other mindless activities.” These attorneys also have private practices and spend their time between “two masters,” thus placing the public in an inherent conflict.

It was that very office management style that permitted the huge backlog of DWIs to pile up which went unprosecuted and which had to be dismissed. Loupe, in the video clip, said one of the things that frustrated him most was for Shows, with whom he used to practice, to assert that no harm was done by Roper’s managerial style. Loupe countered that, beyond the stockpile of DWIs and adjudicated properties, in one instance which was particularly galling, the City of Baton Rouge was sued. The parish attorney’s office never provided a defense for the suit, refused a $20,000 settlement offer, and the result was a $550,000 judgment. Several attorneys said they felt that even a token defense would have resulted in the City not having been found liable. The attorney responsible for that case, Rick Nevels, recently retired.

Another indication of inadequate oversight occurred when Assistant Parish Attorney James Hilburn, failed to file an answer in Federal Court. Federal Court Judge Brian Jackson, who presided over the case, was livid at Hilburn’s failure and Hilburn was also reprimanded by the Louisiana State Supreme Court for filing a lawsuit for defamation against a party who had filed a complaint against him with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel.

The private-practice attorneys with whom LouisianaVoice has consulted for this article agree that, of the Parish Attorney’s $7.37 million budget, around $800,000 – $1 million of taxpayer funds could be saved simply by insisting that attorneys in the office perform their jobs. One source familiar with the Parish Attorney’s operations said, “The problem is most of them simply want free money with health insurance and a lucrative retirement as they engage in their private practice. They want the check, but they don’t want to work for it. Taxpayers have a right to expect that people are paid to perform a job and not to let things fall through the cracks while cookbook recipes are discussed all day.”

Loupe’s investigation revealed that one attorney was paid $89,000 for a year yet worked only eight files during that year. Another was found to be part-time yet paid $127,000 for working 23 active files. Additionally, Batson is permitting her sister-in-law, Gwen Brown to collect $85,000 as a full-time Assistant Parish Attorney while simultaneously earing $96,000 a year as a supervising attorney for another public agency, the Louisiana Appellate Project, which represents indigent criminal defendants who file appeals to the Louisiana Courts of Appeal and Louisiana Supreme Court. Roper never raised any concern because Roper, who supervised Brown, also earned $56,000 annually as a brief writer for the Louisiana Appellate Project. Similarly, Batson is not expected to interfere with her sister-in-law’s collecting $181,000 a year from the two positions, plus retirement benefits and health insurance. Moreover, all inquiries of whether these setups entail dual office holding have been summarily brushed aside.

It’s not as if these arrangements haven’t been reported. In this July, 2014 Advocate article, Assistant Parish Attorney Tedrick Kinghtshead is cited as maintaining a demanding criminal defense practice, while working full-time with the parish attorney’s office. These arrangements have raised the obvious question of potential conflicts of interest.

Each private-practice attorney consulted for this article said that maintaining an accurate tabulation of hours worked on a given client’s casefile is critical and that it would be unthinkable for any attorney to practice and not maintain such an accurate log. Nevertheless, there appears to be zero accounting for time on cases within the Parish Attorney’s Office. One private attorney described the present operations of the office as being nothing short of “irresponsible and a slap in the face to the taxpayers.” Another said that the parish attorney’s office should maintain a bank of briefs, but no such bank is maintained by the office.

Several sources have predicted that the process for choosing Roper’s successor is a mere formality and that Batson has the position locked up and that Batson has fired attorneys on her staff and replaced them with friends of members of the selection committee (the composition of which is outlined in these minutes of their April 6, 2015 meeting) who have indicated their quid pro quo support of Batson.

Roper and Hilburn, meanwhile, seemed to have landed on their feet. Both are now employed by Shows’ office. Shows serves as Attorney General Buddy Caldwell’s campaign treasurer for this fall’s AG race. Further, in a report by WWL in New Orleans, Shows was identified as a huge beneficiary of Caldwell’s propensity to award lucrative multi-million-dollar contracts to his close friends and associates. LouisianaVoice readers may also recall Shows Cali attorneys, including Shows himself, came within an inch of receiving sanctions in the Angola prisoner lawsuit for a “lack of candor” (a polite phrase for lying) to Federal Judge Brian Jackson.

The EBR Parish Council is set to discuss the status of the selection of Roper’s replacement at Wednesday’s (April 22) meeting; however, if LouisianaVoice sources are accurate, the two other finalists, Lon Norris and Michael Adams, are only in the mix for public consumption purposes. Further, the selection committee deemed “unqualified” two private-practice attorneys, Jack Whitehead and Jerry Pepper, who received the highest possible rating (AV) from Martindale-Hubble, an attorney peer review rating agency. Whitehead and Pepper’s piers have placed their legal ability in the top ½ of 1% of attorneys in the United States. The votes are reportedly in and accounted for to anoint Batson as the new Parish Attorney and thereby continue the time-honored style of “good ol’ boy” politics that got the office in the position in which it finds itself today.

 

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Judges, Lawsuits, Public Records, Transparency | 6 Comments »

Bobby Jindal’s underwhelming State of the State ramblings comparable to 2009 response to Obama’s State of the Union

April 17, 2015 by tomaswell

JINDAL STATE OF THE STATE ADDRESS(FROM OUR ANONYMOUS CARTOONIST: CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

If there was any lingering doubt that Bobby Jindal has been committing payroll fraud, that doubt was erased in last Monday’s State of the State address to legislators at the opening of the 2015 legislative which, thankfully, will be his last such address.

Fraud is defined as:

  • The wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain;
  • Deceit, trickery, or breach of confidence perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage;
  • A person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities.

Payroll fraud is further defined as the unauthorized altering of payroll or benefits systems in order for an employee to gain funds which are not due. The person making financial gain could be the employee or could be an associate who is using the employee to commit the fraud while taking the funds for himself.

There are generally three types of payroll fraud but for our purposes we are interested in only one:

  • Ghost employees—A person, fictional or real, who is being paid for work he does not perform. In order for the fraud to work the ghost employee must be added to the payroll register. If the individual is paid a monthly salary this is easier for the fraudster, as once this has been set up there is little or no paperwork required. In order for the fraud to work, the ghost employee must be added elected to the payroll register. Once this has been set up, there is little or no paperwork required.

Under that definition, Jindal could certainly be considered a ghost employee. One person even suggested that it was not really Jindal speaking to legislators, that Jindal was actually in Iowa and they were being addressed by a hologram.

We maintain that Jindal is committing payroll fraud by vacating the state so often and leaving the details of running the state to appointed subordinates as inexperienced and naïve as he. The point here is this: No one on his staff was elected; he was. And he has not been at the helm of the ship of state and by absenting himself so frequently and so consistently as he gins up his presidential candidacy, he is committing payroll fraud, theft, and malfeasance. Others, like former Desoto Parish School Superintendent and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education member Walter Lee have been indicted and been prosecuted for payroll fraud.

Before we really get into his speech to legislators, JINDAL ADDRESS TO LEGISLATURE we simply must call attention to the feeble effort at humor he (or someone) injected into the third line of his speech:

“Well, here we are…at the moment that some of you have been waiting for a long time—my last state of the state speech.”

After an apparently appropriate pause, he continued: “No, that was not supposed to be an applause line…and I do appreciate your restraint.”

Seriously? You actually wrote that line in your speech? If you have to write that in, if you are incapable of ad-libbing that simple line, then we now understand that idiotic response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address in 2009.

Before getting to the real meat of his legislative agenda for this year (if you can call it that), he touched ever-so-lightly on a few other points he generously referred to as his administration’s accomplishments. Our responses to each point are drawn directly from statistics provided by 24/7 Wall Street, a service that provides a steady stream of statistical data on business and government:

  • “We cleaned up our ethics laws so that now what you know is more important than who you know.” (A quick look at the appointment of Troy Hebert as director of the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control after the baseless firing of Murphy Painter could quickly debunk that bogus claim. So could several appointments to the LSU Board of Supervisors and the equally egregious firing of key personnel like Tommy Teague who did their jobs well but made the fatal mistake of crossing Mr. Egomaniac.)
  • “We reformed our education system…” (Louisiana is the fifth-worst educated state and we are the third-worst state for children who struggle to read);
  • “We reformed our health care system…” (Really? Is that why the privatization of our state hospitals remain in turmoil? That same reform ultimately forced the closure of Baton Rouge General Mid-City’s emergency room because of the overload brought on by the closure of Earl K. Long Hospital? Can we thank your “reform” for the fact that Louisiana still has the nation’s third-lowest life expectancy rate or that we enjoy the nation’s third-most unhealthy rating, that we are fifth-highest in cardiovascular deaths or that we have the highest obesity rate in the nation?);
  • “…Our economy is booming.” (Seriously? Louisiana is rated as the worst state for business in the U.S.; we rank sixth-highest among states where the middle class is dying; we remain the eighth-poorest state in the nation with a poverty rate that is third-highest, and we’re saddled with the fourth-worst income disparity in the nation and we’re rated the 10th-worst state in which to be unemployed.);
  • “We have balanced our budget every year…and have received eight credit upgrades.” (This one of those claims so preposterous one doesn’t know how to respond, but we’ll give it our best. Jindal has repeatedly patched budget holes by skimming funds from other agencies, like more than $400 million from the Office of Group Benefits reserve fund, from the sale of the tobacco settlement, from ripping funds for the developmentally disadvantaged (to fund a race track tied a political donor—what was that line again about “what you know, not who you know”?), by cutting health care and higher education, by selling state property, and now he’s trying to cover the current $1.6 billion budget hole by selling the State Lottery. As for those credit upgrades, we can only point to the February action by Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s bond rating agencies to move the state’s credit outlook from stable to negative—and to threaten the more severe action of a downgrade.);
  • “The end result is a stronger, more prosperous Louisiana for our children. I measure Louisiana’s prosperity not by the prosperity of our government, but by the prosperity of our people.” (So, why are the fifth-most dangerous state in the nation? The 10th-most miserable state? Why do we have the eighth-worst quality of life? And the 11th-worst run state in the nation? And why have you never once addressed in your seven-plus years in office our ranking as the number-one state in the nation for gun violence or our ranking as first in the world for our prison incarceration rate?)
  • “We don’t live by Washington’s rules of kicking our debts down the road.” (For the love of God…);
  • “We have laid out a budget proposal that seeks to protect higher education, health care and other important government functions.” (And that’s why higher education and health care have been cut each of your years in office and why more cuts are anticipated that could conceivably shut down some of our universities. You really call cuts of up to 80 percent “protecting” higher education?);
  • “We have a system of corporate welfare in this state.” (Wow. After more than seven years of giving away the store to the tune of billions of dollars in corporate tax breaks, you finally come the realization that perhaps your generosity to the Wal-Marts, chicken processing plants and movie production companies may have been a bit much—that those policies may have actually hurt the state? What brought about this sudden epiphany? Bob Mann, in his Something Like the Truth blog, was all over that when he called attention to Jindal’s latest comment in the face of his claim a couple of years ago that we were “crushing businesses” with oppressive taxes. We’ll let him take this one.) http://bobmannblog.com/2015/04/17/bobby-jindal-is-now-against-corporate-welfare/
  • “We have identified over $500 million of corporate welfare spending that we think should be cut…” (Why the hell did it take you seven years?)

After all was said and done, after his hit-and-run sideswipes at all his purported “accomplishments,” Jindal devoted the bulk of his address to only two issues: Common Core and religious liberty. Of the latter issue, he said, “I absolutely intend to fight for passage of this legislation.”

Jindal was referring to Bossier City Republican State Rep. Mike Johnson’s HB 707 which would waste an enormous amount of time and energy—time that could be better spent on far more pressing matters, like a $1.6 billion deficit—on preventing the state from taking “any adverse action” against a person or business on the basis of a “moral conviction about marriage.”

Despite claims by Jindal and Johnson to the contrary, the bill is nothing more than a clone of the Indiana law that constitutes a not-so-subtle attack on gays or anyone else with whom any businessman deems a threat to his or her definition of marriage.

So, after eight addresses to the legislature, Jindal has yet to address any of the issues like inadequate health care, violence, poverty, pay disparity or equal pay for women, increasing the minimum wage, poor business climate (his rosy claims notwithstanding), our highway system (we didn’t mention that, but we are the seventh-worst state in which to drive, with the 15th-highest auto fatality rate), or our having the highest incarceration rate in the world.

Instead, the thrust of his address is aimed at Common Core—he called it federal control even though Common Core was devised by the nation’s governors and not the federal government—and something called the “Marriage and Conscience Act.”

And he expects those two issues, along with something he calls “American Exceptionalism,” to thrust him into the White House as leader of the free world.

And, of course, attacking national Democrats like Obama and just today, Hillary Clinton, on her claim of having immigrant grandparents. Jindal, of course, wants exclusive rights to that claim and says so with his oft-repeated platitude: “My parents came to this country over 40 years ago with nothing but the belief that America is the land of freedom and opportunity. They were right. The sad truth is that the Left no longer believes in American Exceptionalism.”

Well, to tell the truth, if Bobby Jindal is the example—the standard-bearer, if you will—for what is considered “American Exceptionalism,” then frankly, we don’t believe in it either.

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