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PAC money outstrips individual contributions by 2.5 to 1 for Congressman Cedric Richmond, fed. campaign records show

October 3, 2014 by tomaswell

Between U.S. Mary Landrieu and U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy, the man who wants to replace her, incumbents in five of the state’s six November congressional races have received more than $21.5 million in campaign contributions, of which more than $6.5 million has come from political action committees, or PACs, according to figures provided by the Federal Elections Commission.

The number of corporate dollars that have flowed into the races is somewhat deceptive, however, because money given by corporate officers and board members are listed as individual contributions and is not counted with the PAC money.

LouisianaVoice has always maintained that political clout no longer belongs to the citizenry, but to special interest groups like corporations and corporate officers who pour money into political campaigns, in the process drowning out the voice of individual voters.

In two of the congressional races, PAC contributions to incumbents actually outpace those of individuals—Reps. Charles Boustany of the 3rd District ($984,000 to $769,000) and Cedric Richmond of the 2nd District ($723,000 to $278,000).

Even more alarming, each candidate we’ve reported on thus far has accepted money from PACs connected to corporations that have serious legal and ethical issues. Those issues include, among others, insider trading, influence peddling, environmental pollution, and fraud.

It might be of no real consequence if these were isolated occurrences, but they’re not. The same companies keep turning up in report after report is what has become a dangerous trend of corporate control of the entire Congress as the welfare of the American people has been all but crowded out of the picture and excluded from the national dialog.

Following is a partial list of some of Richmond’s PAC contributions:

ALTRIA GROUP PAC: $1,500

  • Altria Group, Inc. (previously named Philip Morris Companies Inc.) The name change alternative offers the possibility of masking the negatives associated with the tobacco business,” thus enabling the company to improve its image and raise its profile without sacrificing tobacco profits,
  • According to the Center for Public Integrity, Altria spent around $101 million on lobbying the U.S. government between 1998 and 2004, making it the second most active organization in the nation.
  • Altria also funded The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition which lobbied against the scientific consensus on climate change.
  • Daniel Smith, representing Altria, sits on the Private Enterprise Board of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND CO.: $1,000

  • On December 20, 2013 the SEC announced that it had charged ADM for failing to prevent illicit payments (bribes) made by its foreign subsidiaries to Ukrainian government officials in violation of federal statutes. ADM agreed to pay more than $36 million to settle the SEC’s charges.
  • In 1993, the company was the subject of a lysine price-fixing investigation. Senior ADM executives were indicted on criminal charges. Three of ADM’s top officials, including vice chairman Michael Andreas were eventually sentenced to federal prison in 1999. Moreover, in 1997, the company was fined $100 million, the largest antitrust fine in U.S. history at the time.
  • One hundred percent or more of overcharges resulting from price fixing are passed through to consumers.
  • The company has been the subject of several major federal lawsuits related to air pollution. In 2001, it agreed to pay a $1.46 million fine for violating federal and Illinois clean-air regulations at its Decatur feed plant and to spend $1.6 million to reduce air pollution there.
  • The company paid $4.5 million in penalties and more than $6 million to support environmental projects. In addition, ADM agreed to eliminate more than 60,000 tons of emissions of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, organic volatile chemicals and other pollutants from 42 plants in 17 states at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

AT&T PAC: $6,000

  • AT&T is the second-largest donor to United States political campaigns, and the top American corporate donor, having contributed more than US$47.7 million since 1990, 56% and 44% of which went to Republican and Democratic recipients, respectively. Also, during the period of 1998 to 2010, the company expended US$130 million on lobbying in the United States. A key political issue for AT&T has been the question of which businesses win the right to profit by providing broadband internet access in the United States.
  • Bobby Jindal rejected an $80 million federal grant for the expansion of broadband internet service in rural Louisiana even as AT&T was contributing $250,000 to the Foundation run by Jindal’s wife Supriya after Gov. Jindal signed SB- 807 into law (Act 433) in 2008 over the objections of the Louisiana Municipal and the State Police Jury associations. The bill, the Consumer Choice for Television Act removed from local and parish governments their authority and responsibility to negotiate cable franchise agreements with companies that relied largely on locally-owned public infrastructure such as utility poles. The bill also allows AT&T to sell cable television service without the necessity of obtaining local franchises.
  • Bill Leahy, representing AT&T, sits on the Private Enterprise Board of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP. PAC: $2,000

  • Former Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon borrowed $1.1 billion against his stake in thousands of company wells. The loans, undisclosed to shareholders, were used to fund McClendon’s operating costs for the Founders Well Participation Program, which offered him a chance to invest in a 2.5 percent interest in every well the company drills. McClendon in turn used the 2.5 percent stakes as collateral on those same loans. Analysts, academics and attorneys who reviewed the loan documents said the structure raised the potential for conflicts of interest and raised questions on the corporate governance and business ethics of Chesapeake Energy’s senior management. The company disagreed that this is a conflict of interest or a violation of business ethics.
  • Current CEO Doug Lawler was responsible for laying off over 800 employees—roughly 16 percent of the workforce—within a few months of taking the position. Lawler released waves of employees over the course of a few months. All of the layoffs culminated in October of 2013 when Lawler released a staggering 800 employees nationwide, 640 of whom were from the corporate office in Oklahoma City.
  • In June of 2014, the state of Michigan filed felony fraud and racketeering charges against Chesapeake Energy, alleging that the company canceled hundreds of land leases on false pretenses after it sought to obtain oil and gas rights. Chesapeake Energy disputed all charges.

CHEVRON EMPLOYEES PAC: $4,500

  • In 2003 a class action lawsuit against Chevron was sued in Ecuadorian court for $28 billion for making residents ill and damaging forests and rivers by discharging 18 billion US gallons of formation water into the Amazon. Chevron claimed that agreements with the Ecuadorian Government exempted the company from any liabilities.
  • In 2011, Ecuadorian residents were awarded $8.6 billion, based on claims of loss of crops and farm animals as well as increased local cancer rates. The award was later revised to $19 billion on appeals, which was then appealed to the Ecuadorean National Court of Justice. Chevron described the lawsuit as an “extortion scheme” and refused to pay the fine.
  • Chevron’s activities at its century-old Richmond refinery have been the subject of ongoing controversy. The project generated over 11 million pounds of toxic materials and caused more than 304 accidents. The Richmond refinery paid $540,000 in 1998 for illegally bypassing waste water treatments and failing to notify the public about toxic releases. Overall, Chevron is listed as potentially liable for 95 Superfund sites, with funds set aside by the EPA for clean-up.
  • Chevron’s operations in Africa have also been criticized as environmentally unsound. In 2002, Angola became the first country in Africa to levy a fine on a major multinational corporation operating within its borders when it demanded $2 million in compensation for oil spills allegedly caused by Chevron.
  • On October 16, 2003, Chevron U.S.A. settled a charge under the Clean Air Act, which reduced harmful air emissions by about 10,000 tons a year. In San Francisco, Chevron was ordered to spend almost $275 million to install and utilize innovative technology to reduce nitrogen and sulfur dioxide emissions at its refineries. In 2000, after violating the Clean Air Act at an offline loading terminal in El Segundo, California, Chevron paid a $6 million penalty as well as $1 million for environmental improvement projects.

CH2M HILL COMPANIES: $1,000

  • CH2M HILL used nearly $10 million in stimulus funding to design the elaborate Solyndra solar panel facility in Fremont, California. While CH2M HILL is in no danger of suffering the same bankruptcy plight, they also languish in a pool of mismanaged taxpayer funds. The firm has a history of fraud, kickbacks, violations, and cover-ups, not to mention one particular parallel with the Solyndra scandal—layoffs. This, despite receiving almost $2 billion in stimulus funding.
  • CH2M Hill has agreed to pay a total of $18.5 million in 2013 after admitting to defrauding the public by engaging in years of widespread time card fraud in its contract with the Department of Energy.

COMCAST: $5,000

  • Comcast’s customer satisfaction often ranks among the lowest in the cable industry.
  • With $18.8 million spent in 2013, Comcast has the seventh largest lobbying budget of any individual company or organization in the United States. Comcast employs multiple former U.S. congressmen as lobbyists.
  • Comcast also supports lobbying and PACs on a regional level, backing organizations such as the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association and the Broadband Communications Association of Washington PAC. Comcast and other cable companies have lobbied state governments to pass legislation restricting or banning individual cities from offering public broadband service. Municipal broadband restrictions of varying scope have been passed in a total of 20 US States, including Louisiana.

DELOITTE & TOUCHE PAC: $5,000

  • Deloitte has delayed payments to hundreds of thousands of unemployed in the State of California.
  • The firm has been working on a statewide case management system for California courts which originally had a budget of around $260 million. Almost $500 million has already been spent and costs are expected to run as high as $2 billion. No single court is yet fully operational. California’s Judicial Council terminated the project in 2012 citing actual deployment costs associated with the project and California’s budget concerns

DUKE ENERGY: $5,000

  • In 1999 the EPA initiated an enforcement action against Duke Energy for making modifications to old and deteriorating coal-burning power plants without getting permits under the Clean Air Act.
  • In 2002, researchers identified Duke Energy as the 46th-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, with roughly 36 million pounds of toxic chemicals released into the air annually. Major pollutants included sulfuric and hydrochloric acid, chromium compounds, and hydrogen fluoride. The Political Economy Research Institute ranks Duke Energy 13th among corporations emitting airborne pollutants in the United States.

EMPLOYEES OF NORTHROP GRUMMAN PAC: $5,000

  • From 1990-2002, Northrop Grumman contributed $8.5 million to federal campaigns. The company gave more than $1 million to federal candidates in 2005-2006 election cycle, compared to $10.6 million given by all defense contractors in the same cycle. This was behind only General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin in the defense industry. Former Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems chief James Roche served as Secretary of the Air Force for two years under George W. Bush. Roche was eventually nominated to head the Army, but was forced to withdraw his nomination among accusations of mismanaging a contract with Boeing and of failing to properly handle the Air Force sexual assault scandals of 2003. At least seven former officials, consultants, or shareholders of Northrop Grumman held posts in the Bush administration.
  • Northrop Grumman has dealt with multiple scandals during its history. In 1995, Robert Ferro, an employee for TRW, a company acquired by Northrop Grumman, discovered that satellite components manufactured for the U.S. Air Force were faulty and likely to fail in operation. TRW allegedly suppressed Ferro’s report and hid the information from the Air Force, even after a satellite in space equipped with the faulty components experienced serious anomalies. Ferro later sued Northrop Grumman in federal court under the federal whistle-blower law. In April 2009 Northrop Grumman agreed to pay $325 million to settle the suit. Ferro was awarded $48.8 million of the settlement.
  • The company was sued in 1999 for allegedly knowingly giving the Navy defective aircraft. This suit sought $210 million in damages. Then in 2003, the company was sued for allegedly overcharging the U.S. government for space projects in the 1990s. Northrop Grumman paid $111.2 million to settle out of court.
  • In 2010, Virginia’s computer operations experienced a week-long computer outage. Northrop Grumman operated these systems under a $2.4 billion contract. As a result, as many as 45,000 citizens could not renew their driver’s licenses prior to their expiration. Computer systems for 26 of the state’s 89 agencies were affected and some data may have been permanently lost.

EXXON MOBIL CORP. PAC: $2,500

  • ExxonMobil has drawn criticism from scientists, science organizations and the environmental lobby for funding organizations critical of the Kyoto Protocol and seeking to undermine public opinion about the scientific conclusion that global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Mother Jones Magazine said the company channeled more than $8 million to 40 different organizations that have employed disinformation campaigns including “skeptical propaganda masquerading as journalism” to influence opinion of the public and of political leaders about global warming and that the company was a member of one of the first such groups, the Global Climate Coalition, founded in 1989. ExxonMobil’s support for these organizations has drawn criticism from the Royal Society, the academy of sciences of the United Kingdom. The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report in 2007 accusing ExxonMobil of spending $16 million, between 1998 and 2005, towards 43 advocacy organizations which dispute the impact of global warming. The report argued that ExxonMobil used disinformation tactics similar to those used by the tobacco industry in its denials of the link between lung cancer and smoking, saying that the company used “many of the same organizations and personnel to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue.” These charges are consistent with a purported 1998 internal ExxonMobil strategy memo, posted by the environmental group Environmental Defense, which said:

“Victory will be achieved when

  • Average citizens [and the media] ‘understand’ (recognize) uncertainties in climate science; recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the conventional wisdom;
  • Industry senior leadership understands uncertainties in climate science, making them stronger ambassadors to those who shape climate policy;
  • Those promoting the Kyoto treaty on the basis of extant science appear out of touch with reality.”

 

  • In 2003, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that J. Bryan Williams, a former senior executive of Mobil Oil Corp., had been sentenced to three years and ten months in prison on charges of evading income taxes on more than $7 million in unreported income, including a $2 million kickback he received in connection with Mobil’s oil business in Kazakhstan. Documents filed with the court said Williams’ unreported income included millions of dollars in kickbacks from governments, persons, and other entities with whom Williams conducted business while employed by Mobil. In addition to his sentence, Williams must pay a fine of $25,000 and more than $3.5 million in restitution to the IRS, in addition to penalties and interest.

GLAXOSMITHKLINE PAC:  $1,000

  • In July 2012 GSK pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to a pay $3 billion to settle the criminal charges as well as civil lawsuits in the largest settlement paid by a drug company at the time. The criminal charges were for promoting Paxil and Wellbutrin and for unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about Avandia:; GSK paid $1 billion to settle the criminal charges. The remaining $2 billion were part of the civil settlement over unapproved promotion and paying kickbacks, making false statements concerning the safety of Avandia; and reporting false prices to Medicaid. GSK also signed an agreement which obligated it to make major changes to the way it did business.

HONEYWELL PAC: $5,000

  • The EPA says that no corporation has been linked to a greater number of Superfund toxic waste sites than has Honeywell. Honeywell ranks 44th among U.S. corporations causing air pollution. The firm released more than 9.4 million pounds of toxins per year into the air. In 2001, Honeywell agreed to pay $150,000 in civil penalties and to perform $772,000 worth of reparations for environmental violations.
  • In 2003, a federal judge in New Jersey ordered the company to perform an estimated $400 million environmental remediation of chromium waste, citing “a substantial risk of imminent damage to public health and safety and imminent and severe damage to the environment.” In the same year, Honeywell paid $3.6 million to avoid a federal trial regarding its responsibility for trichloroethylene contamination in Illinois. In 2004, the State of New York announced that it would require Honeywell to complete an estimated $448 million cleanup of more than 165,000 pounds of mercury and other toxic waste dumped into Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, N.Y.

LOCKHEED MARTIN EMPLOYEES’ PAC: $5,000

  • Lockheed Martin received $36 billion in government contracts in 2008, more than any company in history. It does work for more than two dozen government agencies from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s involved in surveillance and information processing for the CIA, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the National Security Agency (NSA), The Pentagon, the Census Bureau and the Postal Service.
  • Lockheed is listed as the largest U.S. government contractor and ranks third for number of incidents, and 21st for size of settlements. Since 1995 the company has agreed to pay $606 million to settle 59 instances of misconduct.
  • Through its political action committee (PAC), the company provides low levels of financial support to candidates who advocate national defense and relevant business issues. It was the top contributor to House Armed Services Committee chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-California), giving more than $50,000 in the most recent election cycle. It also topped the list of donors to Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee before his death in 2012.
  • Lockheed Martin Employees Political Action Committee is one of the 50 largest in the country. With contributions from 3,000 employees, it donates $500,000 a year to about 260 House and Senate candidates.
  • In March 2013, Maryland State Senate Majority Leader Rob Garagiola, while he was said to be dating a Lockheed Martin lobbyist, cosponsored a resolution which would give Lockheed Martin tax rebate worth millions of dollars related to hotel taxes paid at its CLE facility in Bethesda, MD. This was after Montgomery County Council refused to pass a similar resolution.

MARATHON OIL EMPLOYEES PAC: $10,000

  • Marathon gave $250,000 to the Supriya Jindal Foundation and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration promptly awarded Marathon subsidiaries $5.2 million in state funds.

MICROSOFT CORP. PAC: $4,500

  • One of Microsoft’s business tactics, described by an executive as “embrace, extend and extinguish,” initially embraces a competing standard or product, then extends it to produce their own version which is then incompatible with the standard, which in time extinguishes competition that does not or cannot use Microsoft’s new version. Various companies and governments have sued Microsoft over this set of tactics, resulting in billions of dollars in rulings against the company.
  • Microsoft has been criticized for its involvement in censorship in the People’s Republic of China. Microsoft has also come under criticism for outsourcing jobs to China and India. There were reports of poor working conditions at a factory in southern China that makes some of Microsoft’s products.
  • To avoid providing stock options and medical and retirement benefits to employees, Microsoft hires thousands of temporary workers (temps) for the designing, editing and testing of its software. When a federal judge (upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court) outlawed the hiring of temps for longer than six months, Microsoft got around the ruling by laying off its temps for 100 days and then rehiring them.

MONSANTO CO.: $4,000

 

  • In 2003, Monsanto reached a $300 million settlement for manufacturing and dumping of the toxic chemical polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Alabama.
  • In 2004, Monsanto, along with Dow and other chemical companies, were sued by a group of Vietnamese for the effects of its Agent Orange defoliant, used by the U.S. military in the Vietnam War. The case was dismissed.
  • In 2005, the US DOJ filed a Deferred Prosecution Agreement in which Monsanto admitted to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and making false entries into its books and records. Monsanto also agreed to pay a $1.5 million fine. The case involved bribes paid to an Indonesian official.
  • The Monsanto Company Citizenship Fund has donated more than $10 million to various candidates since 2003. In 2011, Monsanto spent about $6.3 million lobbying Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture about regulations that would affect the production and distribution of genetically engineered produce.
  • US diplomats in Europe have worked directly for Monsanto.
  • Monsanto gave $186,250 to federal candidates in the 2008 election.
  • Monsanto spent $8.1 million opposing the passage of Proposition 37 in California, making it the largest donor against the initiative. Proposition 37, which was rejected in November 2012, would have mandated the disclosure of genetically modified crops used in the production of California food products.
  • More recently, as of October 2013, Monsanto and DuPont Co. are backing an anti- labeling campaign with roughly $18 million so far dedicated to the campaign.

 

PFIZER, INC. PAC: $2,500

 

  • In September 2009, Pfizer pleaded guilty to the illegal marketing of the arthritis drug Bextra for uses unapproved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and agreed to a $2.3 billion settlement, the largest health care fraud settlement at that time. Pfizer also paid the U.S. government $1.3 billion in criminal fines related to the “off-label” marketing of Bextra, the largest monetary penalty ever rendered for any crime. Called a repeat offender by prosecutors, this was Pfizer’s fourth such settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice in the previous ten years.

 

RAYTHEON CO. PAC: $7,500

  • In March 1990, Raytheon pleaded guilty to one felony count of illegally obtaining classified Air Force budget and planning documents. U.S. District Judge Albert V. Bryan, Jr. imposed a $10,000 criminal fine for one felony count of “conveyance without authority” and $900,000 in civil penalties and damages. The documents allegedly gave Raytheon an unfair advantage against its competitors in bidding for weapons contracts. Although the plea only involved 1983 Air Force documents, U.S. Attorney Henry Hudson said Raytheon also illegally obtained a wide range of secret Pentagon documents.
  • In October 1994, Raytheon paid $4 million to settle a U.S. government claim that it inflated a defense contract for antimissile radar. The PAVE PAWS (Precision Acquisition Vehicle Entry Phased Array Warning System) system was designed to detect incoming submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The government claimed in a federal lawsuit that Raytheon inflated a contract to upgrade two of four PAVE PAWS sites by proposing to hire higher-skilled employees than were necessary for the job.
  • Just one year earlier, on October 14, 1993, Raytheon paid $3.7 million to settle allegations that it misled the U.S. Department of Defense by overstating the labor costs involved in manufacturing Patriot missiles. “The recovery of this money is yet another warning to contractors that the Truth in Negotiations Act’s information disclosure requirements will be strictly and sternly enforced,” Assistant Attorney General Frank Hunger said.
  • The Patriot missile system was not the spectacular success in the Persian Gulf War that the American public was led to believe. There is little evidence to prove that the Patriot hit more than a few Scud missiles launched by Iraq during the Gulf War, and there are some doubts about even these engagements. The public and the U.S. Congress were misled by definitive statements of success issued by administration and Raytheon representatives during and after the war.

BOEING CO. PAC.: $2,000

  • In 2003, Lockheed Martin sued Boeing for industrial espionage to win the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) competition. Lockheed Martin claimed that the former employee Kenneth Branch, who went to work for McDonnell Douglas and Boeing, passed nearly 30,000 pages of proprietary documents to his new employers. Lockheed Martin argued that these documents allowed Boeing to win 19 of the 28 tendered military satellite launches.
  • In July 2003, Boeing was penalized, with the Pentagon stripping seven launches away from the company and awarding them to Lockheed Martin. Furthermore, the company was forbidden to bid for rocket contracts for a twenty-month period, which expired in March 2005. Boeing settled with the U.S. Department of Justice for $615 million.
  • On September 15, 2010, the World Trade Organization ruled that Boeing had received billions of dollars in illegal government subsidies.

DOW CHEMICAL EMPLOYEES PAC: $10,000

  • Dow was one of several manufacturers who began producing the napalm B compound under government contract from 1965. After experiencing protests and negative publicity, the other suppliers discontinued manufacturing the product, leaving Dow as the sole provider. The company said that it carefully considered its position, and decided, as a matter of principle, “its first obligation was to the government.” Despite a boycott of its products by anti-war groups and harassment of recruiters on some college campuses, Dow continued to manufacture napalm B until 1969. The USA continued to drop napalm bombs on North Vietnam until 1973.
  • Until the late 1970s, Dow produced DBCP (1,2-dibromo-3-chloropropane), a soil fumigant, and nematicide, sold under the names the Nemagon and Fumazone. Workers at Dow’s DBCP production plants were made sterile by exposure to the compound. These effects were consistent with animal experiments showing that DBCP sterilized rabbits. The workers successfully sued the company, and most domestic uses of DBCP were banned in 1977.
  • Areas along Michigan’s Tittabawassee River, which runs within yards of Dow’s main plant in Midland, were found to contain elevated levels of the cancer-causing chemical dioxin in November 2006. In July 2007, Dow reached an agreement with the EPA to remove 50,000 cubic yards of sediment from three areas of the riverbed and levees of the river that had been found to be contaminated. In November 2008, Dow Chemical along with the EPA and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality agreed to establish a Superfund to address dioxin cleanup of the Tittabawassee River, Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay.[48]
  • According to the EPA, Dow has some responsibility for 96 of the United States’ Superfund toxic waste sites, placing it in 10th place by number of sites.

GOLDMAN SACHS PAC: $5,000

  • A federal appeals court upheld the conviction of former Goldman Sachs Group Inc director Rajat Gupta, one of the biggest successes in federal prosecutors’ long-running probe to stop insider trading on Wall Street.
  • Federal prosecutors and Securities and Exchange Commission officials also investigated whether a senior Goldman investment banker, Matthew Korenberg, fed inside information to a Galleon Group portfolio manager named Paul Yook, according to separate reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

 

HOME DEPOT PAC: $2,500

  • In July 2005, former employee Michael Davis filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Home Depot, alleging that his discharge was in retaliation for refusing to make unwarranted backcharges against vendors. Davis alleges that the Home Depot forced its employees to meet a set quota of backcharges to cover damaged or defective merchandise, forcing employees to make chargebacks to vendors for merchandise that was undamaged and not defective.
  • In the settlement of the litigation, Home Depot changed some of its corporate governance provisions. Home Depot also agreed to pay the plaintiff’s counsel $6 million in cash and $8.5 million in common stock.

WALMART STORES PAC: $6,000

  • Wal-Mart is the beneficiary of $96.5 million in economic development subsidies in Louisiana and $1.2 billion in tax breaks nationwide. Yet, in 2011, Walmart, four of whose owners are among the 11 richest Americans, decided to roll back health care coverage and to increase premiums for its employees. Wal-Mart still boasted that 90 percent of its employees had health coverage, neglecting to mention that more than half of those got their coverage through their spouses’ group coverage. The company provides no health coverage at all for new part time employees despite the company’s 24.7 percent gross profit martin that same year.
  • An April 2012 New York Times investigative report revealed that a former Walmart executive alleged that, in September 2005, Walmart de Mexico paid bribes throughout Mexico in order to obtain construction permits, information, and other favors. Concerns were raised that Walmart executives in the United States concealed the allegations. Reportedly, bribes were given to speed up construction permits, which gave Walmart a substantial advantage over its business competitors. A follow-up investigation by The New York Times published December 17, 2012, revealed evidence that regulatory permission for siting, construction, and operation of 19 stores were obtained through bribery.
  • A paper published in Farm Foundation in 1997 found that some small towns can lose almost half of their retail trade within ten years of a Walmart store opening.
  • A 2004 paper by two professors at Penn State University found that counties with Walmart stores suffered increased poverty compared with counties without Walmarts due to displacement of workers from higher-paid jobs in retail stores which customers no longer choose to patronize. A study in Nebraska looked at two different Walmarts, the first of which had just arrived and was in the process of driving everyone else out of business by cutting their prices to the bone. In the other Walmart, “they had successfully destroyed the local economy, there was a sort of economic crater with Wal-Mart in the middle; and, in that community, the prices were 17 percent higher.”
  • The Economic Policy Institute estimates that between 2001 and 2006, Walmart’s trade deficit with China alone eliminated nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs. Another study found that a new store increases net retail employment in the county by 100 jobs in the short term, half of which disappear over five years as other retail establishments close.
  • Walmart has been criticized by labor unions, community groups, grassroots organizations, religious organizations, environmental groups, and even Walmart’s own customers and employees. They have protested against the company’s policies and business practices, including charges of racial and gender discrimination. Other areas of criticism include the corporation’s foreign product sourcing, treatment of product suppliers, employee compensation and working conditions, environmental practices, the use of public subsidies, the company’s security policies and slavery. Wal-Mart denies doing anything wrong and maintains that low prices are the result of efficiency.

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Campaign Contributions, Congress, Elections, House, Senate, PACs, Politicians | 6 Comments »

Employee survey of DOA employees reveals severe morale problem; New poll shows no one more popular than Jindal

October 2, 2014 by tomaswell

A survey to gauge state employee job satisfaction in the Division of Administration (DOA) should be an eye opener for Commissioner of Administration Kristy Kreme Nichols and agency heads throughout DOA—but it probably won’t be.

Meanwhile, LouisianaVoice has learned that Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-Iowa, R-New Hampshire, R-Anywhere but Louisiana) received some exciting news this week when a new poll revealed that no one was more popular than Jindal among Republican contenders for the GOP presidential nomination.

The excitement was short-lived, however, when the actual meaning of the numbers was revealed.

It turns out that in a CNN poll of New Hampshire voters, Jindal tied with Rick Santorum with 3 percent, while “No one” polled 4 percent, prompting Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert to joke that Jindal should adopt the slogan “Jindal 2016: No one is more popular.”

Adding insult to injury, a Public Policy Poll also showed that in a head-to-head showdown with former Gov. Edwin Edwards for governor, Edwards would win with 47 percent of the vote to Jindal’s 43 percent, with 10 percent undecided.

Not the numbers on which to base an ambitious run for the White House.

The employee survey, conducted by IBM/Kenexa to rate overall job satisfaction revealed DOA employees scattered throughout 22 state agencies grouped within DOA were generally less content, scoring well below the national norm in the areas of:

  • Trust (47.8 percent);
  • Employee recognition (39.2 percent);
  • Senior leadership values (55 percent);
  • Communication from management (42.8 percent);
  • Senior leadership vision (33.2 percent;
  • Opportunity for employee advancement (28.2 percent), and
  • Employee involvement in decision making (57.8 percent).

Moreover, only 28.3 percent of respondents believed that positive change will occur as a result of the survey, compared to 31.6 percent who felt the survey would produce change and 40.2 percent who were unsure.

There were no records available to indicate how much the survey cost but The Department of Economic Development contracted with Kenexa Technology in 2011 to conduct a similar survey. The contract cost for that survey of a single agency was $19,900.

Not only did state employees throughout the 22 agencies in DOA reflect an overall pessimistic outlook, the 52.7 percent response rate (553 employees responded) was well below the IBM/Kenexa benchmark of 80 percent which served as a barometer of the general skepticism of state employees in general under the Jindal administration.

That’s certainly not difficult to understand, given the manner in which Jindal has gone about gutting agencies by laying off employees in wholesale numbers, privatizing agencies, attempting first (unsuccessfully) to slash state retirements and most recently going after medical benefits by manufacturing a crisis at the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) in order to declare an emergency to increase deductibles and co-pays which he hopes will drive retirees out of OGB

Meanwhile, Kristy addresses the morale problem by insisting that agency directors strong arm employees to participate in the Louisiana Marathon so she can win her participation bet with Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Kathy Kliebert.

As an added incentive, she announced on Thursday that her participating employees would be treated to a barbeque cookout Saturday on the grounds of the governor’s mansion.

And who wouldn’t want one of those TeamKristy T-shirts with the nifty slogan “We Run Louisiana,” coined by Texter-in-Chief Liz Murrill?

There was no immediate word on whether or not Jindal would take time out of his doomed quest for the Republican presidential nomination to attend.

Capture

Forgive the misspelling of dimwits and asinine in the photo. We’ll explain how to use Spellcheck to our computer graphics techie over at GOHSEP. (He doesn’t care; he’s leaving.)

Posted in DOA, Governor's Office, Privatization, State Agencies | 19 Comments »

OGB issues RFP for an actuarial contract in wake of Buck Consultant debacle; firm has problems elsewhere as well

October 1, 2014 by tomaswell

Even as the Jindal administration was announcing that it was capitulating to the desires of the attorney general and state legislators to delay implementation of new proposed health coverage plans for state employees and retirees, the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) was quietly issuing a request for proposals (RFP) for actuarial services beginning Jan. 1, 2015.

https://www.groupbenefits.org/portal/pls/portal30/ogbweb.get_latest_news_file?p_doc_name=4D7A4D774E4445794D793551524559334E444531

Greg Cromer (R-Slidell) and John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) asked several times during the hearing the identity of the actuary who recommended three consecutive years of premium reductions in the face of rising health care costs and it wasn’t until the fourth time the question was asked that an answer was forthcoming.

“In fiscal year 2012 there was a 3 percent erosion of the fund balance,” Edwards said. “Yet, in fiscal 2013, there was a 7.11 percent reduction in premiums followed by 1.8 percent even though health care costs were going up by 6 percent. What actuary told you those reductions were sound?”

“Buck Consulting recommended a 2.25 decrease for calendar 2012,” Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols said.

Edwards then asked if Buck Consulting was still under contract to the state.

“That contract is being bid,” Nichols said.

“I would hope so,” Edwards responded.

State records indicate Buck had a $2.1 million contract with OGB to provide actuary and consulting services. That contract ran from Dec. 1, 2009 through Jan. 1, 2012. Additionally, Buck had another $600,000 contract from June 1, 2011, to June 1, 2013, “to assist in advising the Division of Administration with regard to public retirement systems and insurance benefits for public employees, actuarial services” at $250 per hour and per diem payments of $165.

Buck Consultants is a subsidiary of Affiliated Computer Services which in turn was purchased by Xerox in 2009. Jan Cassidy, sister-in-law of 6th District Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Bill Cassidy, worked as Regional Vice President of Business Development for ACS and Xerox for nearly four and one-half years before going to work for DOA in December of 2012 as Assistant Commissioner in Procurement and Technology at a salary of $150,000 per year. A search of state contract records in March of 2013 by LouisianaVoice turned up four contracts with ACS totaling $45.55 million.

ACS contributed $10,000 to the campaign of Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-Iowa, R-New Hampshire and R-Anywhere but Louisiana) in 2003 ($5,000), 2008 ($4,000), and 2009 ($1,000), Jindal’s campaign records show.

LouisianaVoice, in March of 2013, noted several contracts between ACS and other states, cities, and even the federal government which drew sharp criticism over problems experienced by the company as well as questionable contracts in Texas and Alabama.

https://louisianavoice.com/2013/03/15/doa-hires-jan-cassidy-sister-in-law-of-cong-bill-cassidy-at-150000-previous-employers-records-are-less-than-stellar/

But ACS wasn’t the only entity in that organization with problems. Buck Consultants was sued by Providence, Rhode Island in 2013 because, the city claimed, Buck miscalculated $700,000 per year in savings the city anticipated through pension reform. Instead, Mayor Angel Taveras said, the cost to the city was expected to be $10.8 million over the next 28 years.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pionline.com%2Farticle%2F20130226%2FONLINE%2F130229899%2Fprovidence-ri-sues-buck-consultants-over-pension-savings-calculations&ei=0sIsVMTAE4OOyASQpIKIBQ&usg=AFQjCNEiIVz3kvxYoTszpqnKeonAQGq_-A&bvm=bv.76477589,d.b2U

In California, Buck Consultants was also accused of making several mistakes in its actuary for the Mendocino County retirement system, prompting the county to cancel its contract with the firm in March of 2011. Buck Consultants paid the county nearly $600,000 as a settlement of its dispute in September of that same year. http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ci_17656902

http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ci_18951388

In a case that should sound familiar to OGB members who have been following events since the privatization of the agency, retirees in Stanislaus County, California, in 2009 sued the county retirement board over its decision to shift $60 million in reserves to ease the county’s pension obligations for fiscal year 2009-10. http://www.modbee.com/2009/12/24/984878/retirees-challenge-stancera-over.html

And now OGB “is seeking proposals from actuarial and consulting (actuary) providers for a contract that will allow for benefit design, rate development, RFP scoring, and other analytical and financial support activities for the state health insurance plan,” the RFP says.

The actuary chosen for the contract “will provide methods for, and calculation of, health plan premiums for OGB health plans and other support services.”

So while Kristy Kreme continues to insist that the current plans for OGB do not call for increased premiums, only higher co-pays and deductibles, it’s interesting to note that the contract being sought by OGB certainly leaves the door open for premium adjustments down the road and it isn’t difficult to guess which way those adjustments will go.

The RFP says that OGB projects medical plan expenditures of almost $1.284 billion in fiscal year 2015, which begins next June 1. Of that amount $56.9 million will be in administrative costs, the RFP says, adding that OGB will require “ongoing consulting and assistance with benefit development, rate setting, risk adjustment determinations, financial analysis, analysis of claims and encounters, evaluation of expenditures, budget projections, trend calculations, causes and discovery of trend, evaluation of multiple benefit options, and financial and other reporting requirements as may be necessary to administer” the health plan.

Should Buck Consultants submit a proposal and should it be the low bidder, someone other than Kristy Nichols might wish to talk to the folks in Providence, R.I., Mendocino or Stanislaus counties in California to do a little vetting before a contract is awarded.

This consultant-happy administration has made a horrible mess of things with OGB since 2011. There’s no need to continue down that same road of bad decisions.

Posted in Contract, Contracts, DOA, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals | 22 Comments »

Watching Kristy Kreme Nichols responding to legislators like watching Jerry Lewis movie: mixture of exasperation, humor

October 1, 2014 by tomaswell

Listening to Commissioner of Administration Kristy Kreme Nichols’ responses to questions during last Thursday’s House Appropriations Committee hearing over changes to the state Office of Group Benefits (OGB) health plans, one word kept coming to mine: bromides.

Bromide is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a statement that is intended to make people feel happier or calmer but (which) is not original or effective,” and by Wikipedia as “a phrase or platitude that, having been employed excessively, suggests insincerity or a lack of originality in the speaker.”

No matter which definition one might choose, that is precisely what legislators and members of the audience were treated to during the seven-hour hearing at the State Capitol.

Keep in mind as you read this that subsequent to the hearing last Thursday, the administration of Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-Iowa, R-New Hampshire, R-Anywhere but Louisiana) retreated from its plans of the gang rape of 230,000 state employees, retirees and dependents so that the administration can follow the law for a change and proceed through the legal process of obtaining approval of the proposed benefit changes for OGB members. https://louisianavoice.com/2014/09/30/in-need-of-aloe-vera-after-being-burned-by-appropriations-committee-last-week-ogb-announces-enrollment-extension/

Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe), for example, sparred with Nichols on the issue of the $1.3 million contract with Ansafone, Inc. of San Diego and Ocala, Florida to field phone calls from OGB members. “Where is the project work plan?” Jackson asked. “No one at OGB knew what it was when I called. No one on the committee has received any project work plan. We have a $1.3 million contract for phone service. Is this something that Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS) should be doing?”

“We had no other choice but to ramp up our customer service for open enrollment,” Nichols said.

Jackson again asked if fielding questions from members should be something BCBS should be doing to which Nichols responded, “OGB has always retained a customer service component.”

Jackson said legislators were told three years ago that privatization of OGB “would be helpful to members, not harmful. We fixed something that was not broken and now it’s broken. We were doing pretty good but then for some reason we offered the business to BCBS, everyone shifts to that and our utilization costs go up.”

Jackson finally got Nichols to concede that utilization is a major issue. “Vendors have to 100 percent accountable for managing utilization with us. To the extent that the request for proposals (RFP) and current contract did not explicitly mandate that, we need to in the future.”

We’re glad we could clear that up for you.

Kenny Havard (R-Jackson) asked Nichols why the Administrative Procedures Act, which lays out a step by step procedure for the adoption of rule changes. For a complete list of APA requirements, click here: apa

“We are,” Nichols said.

“You’re doing that now,” Havard countered. “But you didn’t before. If you’d done it before, we wouldn’t be here now. Who decides what laws we have to follow and which ones we do not have to follow in this?”

“The legislature sets laws and we try to follow,” Nichols replied.

“Everything we do lately ends up in court and that’s exactly where this is heading,” Havard shot back. “We’ve created a problem that we’ve put on the backs of state workers. We have people making $500 a month and you’re about to raise their insurance (costs) and somebody needs to answer for it because we’ve created a problem and blaming it on somebody else. I don’t support Obamacare but I also don’t support Jindalcare.

“We lowered premiums so the state would not have to put up its share and now the fund balance is dwindling,” he said. “I just want to know who made the decision that we didn’t have to follow the APA.”

“We are following the APA,” Nichols continued to insist. In our opinion, the plan of benefits does not have to be promulgated because it’s in the OGB authority.”

State Sen. Ed Murray (D-New Orleans) attempted to question Nichols but soon grew frustrated at her evasiveness and gave way to Rep. Greg Cormer (R-Slidell) who asked but did not receive a definitive answer: Did an actuary give the opinion on the rate decrease of 7 percent? Cormer told OGB CEO Susan West, “If you were a private insurer, the Department of Insurance would have already taken you over” because of the agency’s mismanagement.

Jack Montoucet (D-Crowley) asked Nichols, “Where would OGB be today had we not made all the changes, if we’d left them alone and let them do their job? To me, it wasn’t broken. I never got a call in six years (prior to privatization) complaining about OGB. Today, I gotta tell you, Jesus Christ, I’m getting phone calls every day and this (new plan) hasn’t even been implemented. That’s scary.”

Nichols, as she did most of the day, stammered and fumbled for an answer. “All public employee health plans are experiencing the same thing,” she finally said, but then said that the cost increases “could have been prevented if we’d structured the HMO correctly in the beginning.”

Joe Harrison (R-Gray) went further than the others in calling for a special legislative session to deal with the OGB crisis and noted that there were no problems with the agency during the tenure of Tommy Teague, who was fired as CEO on April 15, 2011.

“Mr. Teague had a solvent plan and I’ve yet to hear any in the administration tell me why we moved away from that plan,” Harrison said.

“I would ask that we have a special session on this,” he said. We have more than 200,000 lives we are adversely affecting. There are other options to this. Many in the insurance and health care industry have looked at this and (have) said there are better ways to go.”

The hardest questions, however, came from Rep. John Bel Edwards (D-Amite). Following up on a question asked earlier by Rep. Greg Cromer (R-Slidell), Edwards asked if the recommendations for premium decreases three consecutive years were made by an actuary.

“I was not with OGB then,” West said. “I don’t have that information with me…”

“It’s been three hours since that question first came up,” Edwards said.

“I don’t have that information with me,” West repeated.

“It’s been three hours since that was asked,” Edwards said again. “That’s three hours in which those reports could have been brought over here. Who made the decision to reduce premiums by 9 percent total in fiscal years 2013 and 2014?”

“Ultimately, the administration,” Nichols said.

“The OGB director?”

“I wasn’t at DOA in fiscal year ’13,” Nichols said. “I don’t know where the recommendation came from.

When Edwards elicited testimony from Nichols and West that the OGB policy board had not met in more than a year even as the OGB fund balance was dwindling by $16 million per month, he asked, “Was there a lack of a quorum because there weren’t enough members appointed to the board (by the governor) or that they weren’t showing up for meetings?”

“A combination of both,” West said.

“So we have a situation where (the decision was made) to reduce premiums by 2.25 percent in 2012 which drained the fund balance by 3 percent knowing costs were going up 6 percent, and an additional reduction of over 7 percent the next year and an additional reduction of almost 2 percent the following year all the while with costs of health care going up and we were surprised that the fund balance went down?

“This is a self-manufactured crisis that you are now saying is an emergency because we had a fund balance that was healthy,” Edwards said. “We had OGB members who were relatively happy with the plan and today we have an unhealthy fund balance and OGB members who are very unhappy. In fact, I would not that not a single OGB member came to testify today who support any of those plans—not a single one of them.”

Edwards if there was to be discussion of stability for OGB, “we can’t leave it in the hands of whoever’s been running it for the last two years…”

He then asked Nichols when the decision was made to follow the rule of promulgation as mandated in the APA.

“The general counsel advice to OGB,” Nichols said, “was a plan of benefit changes should not be required to be promulgated…”

DOA general counsel Liz Murrill stopped texting long enough to interject, “We had the conversation at the beginning of September.”

“When was the decision made?” Edwards repeated.

“At the beginning of September,” Murrill said.

“The (OGB policy) board looked at what you wanted to do in July so you knew what you wanted to do by July 30. If you had started the rule promulgation process by August 30, you could get through the entire process before January 1. You didn’t do that.”

Nichols, in a weak attempt to defend the emergency rule procedure in lieu of promulgation, asked, “Why was OGB allowed to implement 41 emergency rules in the past?”

“I suspect because nobody challenged it,” Edwards shot back. “Typically, you don’t follow the law unless you get challenged and that’s the real precedence that you’re following.”

Saying a Pew Survey shows that Louisiana is the third stingiest state in the nation in providing health coverage for public employees, Edwards said there is a “tremendous disconnect between saying we had an inflated reserve fund that it needs to be right-sized and today saying we have an emergency because the fund balance is not enough and it’s on its way (from a high of $520 million) to $8 million.”

He then again asked the question that no one had answered to that point. “In fiscal year 2012 there was a 3 percent erosion of the fund balance. Yet, in fiscal 2013, there was a 7.11 percent reduction in premiums followed by 1.8 percent even though health care costs were going up by 6 percent. What actuary told you those reductions were sound?”

“Buck Consulting recommended a 2.25 decrease for calendar 2012,” Nichols said.

“If you don’t have an emergency, then what you’re going to start on January 1 is invalid and you’re causing a bigger problem than if you simply go through the ordinary rule making process,” Edwards said. “Anyone who’s adversely impacted by having to pay a higher deductible or higher co-pays by an invalid emergency rule has a right to have that money returned to them.

“The safest thing to do if you are really worried about the taxpayers of the state of Louisiana is to give very serious thought to stopping the emergency rule making process, go forward with the ordinary rule making process and have whatever plans survive that process implemented in a year that doesn’t start until they (the rules) become final.

“Public meeting notices, meeting requirements, and oversight by the legislature are all very, very important. We had people today saying this was the first opportunity that they had to come and voice their objections. That’s an important part of this whole process.”

Posted in Contracts, DOA, Governor's Office, House, Legislature, Legislators, Office of Group Benefits, OGB, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, Revenue | 23 Comments »

In need of aloe vera after being burned by Appropriations Committee last week, OGB announces enrollment extension

September 30, 2014 by tomaswell

If anyone—ANYONE—in charge at the Division of Administration (DOA) or the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) knows what they’re doing, please contact us immediately because we have given up all hope that the Jindal administration in its entirety has the first clue.

The following is the latest news release from OGB (through DOA, we’re certain; no one would dare take this responsibility on without the prior blessings of Commissioner of Administration Kristy Kreme Nichols.

But it is ample evidence that these are the people Jimmy Breslin had in mind when he wrote The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

After all the planning, all the news releases, all the email blasts, all the expenditure of time and money (we would add talent to the list, but that would generate instant doubt in the minds of our readers), OGB and DOA now suddenly shift gears with this.

Here is the news release (with our comments in boldface type):

The Office of Group Benefits announced Tuesday it would extend the annual enrollment period for its 2015 health plan options through the end of November 2014. The enrollment period will now begin October 1 and last through November 30. The health plan changes are scheduled to begin March 1, 2015 instead of January 1 when the plan year begins.

The enrollment period for supplemental insurance products, including dental, vision and life insurance will be extended through November as well. Those plans will take effect January 1 along with flexible spending plans. Flexible spending accounts allow employees to set aside a portion of their paycheck to pay for qualified expenses before taxes are deducted.

“We take the concerns of our members very seriously (We got our butts handed to us by legislators last week) and want to do everything we can to ensure they have the time and resources necessary to make their plan choice,” said Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols. “Shifting our timeline will give people the chance to get accurate information and better understand their options.”

(What she means, of course, is now members will have an extra month to select a method of cutting their own throats.)

In addition to the extended time frame, OGB will allow retirees who are enrolled in an OGB health plan option, either as primary or secondary coverage, to remain in a comparable option without having to re-enroll. Retirees interested in Medicare Advantage plans are still required to enroll by December 7 for the plan year that begins January 1. If no action is taken by the end of the enrollment period, retirees will remain in the option most comparable to their current selection. Active employees who take no action will be enrolled in the Pelican HRA 1000 option, a new choice that offers up to $2,000 in employer funding that offsets out-of-pocket costs. (We hope that will discourage the pitchforks and torches at least until Gov. Jindal can finish his absentee term.)

Several new options with lower premiums and increased employer contributions are available beginning March 1. Members are encouraged to use the additional enrollment time to make the selection that best fits their needs. Most members will remain in their current plan through February 28, unless they choose to make a change. However, members who wish to remain in or select a Vantage plan must make their selection effective January 1.

As health care costs across the country continue to rise (We’re still blaming Obamacare for everything—even the Saints’ poor start), OGB and other employers have had to make changes to benefit offerings in order to continue to pay claims. While OGB maintains a reserve fund that contained more than $370 million in cash at the end of fiscal year 2014, the cost of claims currently outpaces the revenue received through premiums each month (We won’t bring up those premium reductions again; we’ve heard enough about those).

Last week, OGB announced it would begin the process of promulgating the schedule of benefits (but only after Reps. John Bel Edwards and Kenny Havard scalded us in that committee hearing). Sending fiscal and economic impact statements to the Legislative Fiscal Office (LFO) begins the promulgation process that will make OGB’s benefits a part of state law. Once the LFO approves, the rules will be sent to the Office of the State Register, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, and oversight committees. The committees will then send a recommendation to the governor for approval. OGB expects the regular rules to be promulgated by March 1 (We hope legislators don’t remember that we said we couldn’t extend this past the first of the year).

OGB is also issuing emergency rules (Will that be emergency rule number 42 for OGB? We’ve lost count) to publish the formulary and prior authorization changes that took effect in August for active employees and retirees without Medicare. Those changes will take effect in January for retirees with Medicare, in line with the Medicare plan year. Emergency rules have the same effect as promulgation of regular rules, for up to 120 days. They will take effect immediately and continue through the administrative process.

Information on the 2015 plan options is available on OGB’s annual enrollment website at www.annualenrollment.groupbenefits.org<http://www.annualenrollment.groupbenefits.org>. (Or you can totally waste your time by calling Ansafone.) Members are receiving decision guides in the mail that outline each plan in detail. 43 meetings are being held across the state in addition to live webinars for employees and retirees. OGB has also developed a cost calculator tool that allows members to compare plans and out-of-pocket cost side-by-side as well as a one-sheet that compares last year’s plans to the upcoming year’s options. Additionally, customer service hours have been extended to 7 a.m. through 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Posted in DOA, Health Care, Office of Group Benefits, OGB, Office of Group Benefits | 31 Comments »

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