Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Never let anyone say Gov. Jindal isn’t green; no one is better at recycling old politicians into cushy retirement positions

August 8, 2013 by tomaswell

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—Gov. Bobby Jindal is green and we can prove it.

He must have the welfare of the environment uppermost in his mind. He is all about recycling. The man was born to recycle. Just examine this list:

  • He recycled defeated State Rep. Jane Smith to Deputy Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue at $107,500.
  • He recycled former State Rep. Kay Katz to the Louisiana Tax Commission ($56,000).
  • He recycled former St. Tammany Parish President and defeated lieutenant governor candidate Kevin Davis to Director of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness ($165,000).
  • He recycled former Slidell police chief and mayor Ben Morris into a position at GOHSEP (unknown salary).
  • He recycled former House members Rickey Hardy, Tank Powell and Mert Smiley and former Grant Parish Sheriff Leonard Hataway to the State Pardon Board ($36,000 each).
  • He recycled former State Rep. Noble Ellington to Deputy Commissioner of Insurance ($150,000).
  • He recycled defeated St. Barnard Parish President Craig Taffaro as the new Director of Hazard Mitigation and Recovery ($150,000).
  • He recycled term-limited State Rep. Troy Hebert as Director of the Alcohol and Tobacco Control Board ($107,000).
  • He recycled former State Sen. Nick Gautreaux to Commissioner of the Office of Motor Vehicles (no salary available, but it doesn’t matter; he was forced out after a few months).
  • He has recycled former executive counselors Tim Barfield and Jimmy Fairchild more times than we can count and Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols has been recycled a few times in her own right.
  • He recycled former State Rep. Lane Carson to Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs ($130,000).
  • And now that Carson is retiring after four years on the job, we get word that Jindal is recycling Congressman Rodney Alexander to fill Carson’s post.

No sooner did Alexander announce on Wednesday that he was retiring from Congress because of his stated dissatisfaction with partisan gridlock than Jindal made the offer.

Major League Baseball’s managerial revolving door has nothing on Jindal when it comes to running the same tired old names through the system, allowing them to fatten their retirements even as Jindal is laying off state employees who need their jobs—and who actually perform work as opposed to these appointees who only occupy a desk and suck on the public teat.

It just seems to us that there are others out there who are equally—or more—qualified for these positions and it gets more disgusting with each appointment of the same fat cats to these six-figure jobs.

Of course, we know the underlying reason for recycling all these washed-up legislators: it’s to bump up their retirement benefits—at the expense of you, the taxpayer.

You see, legislators don’t really make that much in outright salary, so their retirement benefits aren’t that much—unless they can secure a six-figure job and remain in it for three years. Retirement is computed at 2.5 percent of one’s highest three years of average earnings times the number of years of service. Thus, 2.5 percent of $130,000 is considerably more than 2.5 percent of $16,000 or so.

Now with Alexander, it’s different: he already has a federal pension from his tenure as a congressman. But now, even though he cashed in his legislative retirement from his days in the legislature, he can buy all that time back and draw a state pension based on his $130,000 salary for the final three years of Jindal’s administration.

Nice gig if you happen to have the stroke to get it and of course there’s nothing like being governor and having the power to screw the taxpayers while running around preaching fiscal responsibility and laying off state workers.

Granted, we are a bit jaded and cynical from covering this administration, but if someone can convince me that fix wasn’t already in on this retirement/appointment, we’re willing to listen.

We can’t help but wonder what Alexander’s duties will entail, duties that someone else was not qualified to perform—especially since Jindal already gave out all those veterans’ medals before his 2011 re-election.

Thanks, Bobby and thanks, Rodney, for all that “good, ethical government.”

Posted in ATC, Congress, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, State Agencies | 19 Comments »

RFP for IT consolidation goes out; DOA, perhaps fearing CNSI repeat, cautions employees against vendor contact

August 5, 2013 by tomaswell

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—The deadline for proposals (RFP) officially passed as of close of business last Wednesday (July 31) and oral interviews of potential bidders is set for Aug. 14 for the consolidation of the information technology (IT) departments of some 20 departments within the state’s Executive Branch. http://wwwprd1.doa.louisiana.gov/OSP/LaPAC/agency/pdf/5479100.pdf

The Division of Administration (DOA), which issued the RFP, is tentatively scheduled to announce the awarding of the multi-million dollar contract on Aug. 16 with work on the contract set to begin on Aug. 30 even as more and more horror stories surface about experiences of potential bidders/contractors with similar projects in other states.

Meanwhile, in an apparent effort to at least project an appearance of propriety with efforts to avoid any conflict of interest and to head off another possible CNSI public relations disaster sent out a pretty interesting email to all DOA section heads and the Council of Information Services Directors.

The “conflict of interest advisory,” a one-page memorandum from Richard “Dickie” Howze, interim state chief information officer, cautioned state employees against any contact with vendors, potential proposers or subcontractors regarding the RFP.

The IT consolidation contract could rival that of the $200 million CNSI contract which the state cancelled after a federal investigation was launched into the manner in which the contract was awarded. Former Department of Health and Hospitals Director Bruce Greenstein had previously worked for CNSI but told legislators he had built a “firewall” between himself and the contract selection process. That turned out to be false as documents subpoenaed by legislators revealed hundreds of emails and telephone conversations between Greenstein and CNSI officials during the selection process.

It was also learned that Greenstein had tweaked the contract requirements so that CNSI might qualify to bid on the Medicaid claims processing contract. He resigned in March shortly after the Jindal administration cancelled the CNSI contract but was allowed to remain on the job for nearly a month.

Greenstein’s name recently resurfaced. Now residing in Seattle, where he was living when first hired by Jindal, he was spotted at a July 8 dinner meeting in a Shreveport restaurant with Steve Skrivanos, board chairman of Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana. One report also placed foundation President and CEO Dr. John George in that meeting though Dr. George has denied that he was present.

Unconfirmed rumors surfaced that Jindal directed the foundation and LSU Medical Center officials to find Greenstein a job while the investigation in Baton Rouge was ongoing.

“The Division of Administration, Office of Information Technology (OIT) staff has been working on the development and release of (an RFP) for Information Technology Planning and Management Support Services,” the DOA memorandum of July 19 said.

“OIT has engaged the participation of the Council of Information Services Directors (CISD) for technical support in this endeavor and may request the support of other sections within the DOA throughout the process. OIT has gone to great lengths to maintain strict contact requirements to ensure all vendors have equal access and standardized information.

“Suring this procurement process it is crucial that you and your staff do not have any contact with vendors who are potential proposers or who may be part of a proposal as a subcontractor regarding this RFP or other related RFPs. If you work with a contractor who is a potential proposer, there shall be no private communications, discussion of the upcoming process, timelines, RFP content, evaluation or award,” the memo said.

“Additionally, it is not appropriate for any current state employee to provide a reference for a vendor responding to this procurement. These restrictions will remain in effect until the contract(s) has been awarded and the protest period has past (sic). Please ensure that your staff are (sic) made fully aware of these requirements. Anyone failing to follow this policy may face disciplinary action, up and including termination.”

Wow. Too bad that memo was not made available to Greenstein during the awarding of the DHH Medicaid claims processing contract.

Now, perhaps someone should send a similar note to the folks up at Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana in Shreveport.

Posted in Ethics, IT, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals | 10 Comments »

Who or what is Response Systems? Wisconsin firm has $900K contract to help with LA. hurricane evacuations

August 5, 2013 by tomaswell

The best little hurricane response company no one ever heard of has been handed a contract by the Jindal administration to provide physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, nursing assistants, respiratory therapists, licensed social workers and clerical and administrative staff in case a major hurricane strikes Louisiana.

And the company is in Wisconsin.

Response Systems, Inc., a company in Oconomowoc (can I buy a vowel?), Wisc. was named recipient of the $871,000 contract, apparently because it is more qualified in hurricane relief than any other company from Texas to Florida.

Funny thing is, no one in Wisconsin seems to know squat about the firm.

A business reporter for the Milwaukee Journal knew nothing of the company other than a story that ran several years ago naming a new vice president/general manager who is no longer with the firm.

Even stranger, Bob Duffy, Director of Economic Development for Oconomowoc, drew a blank when asked about the company on Monday. “I never heard of them,” he said.

One would reasonably think that the director of economic development in the very town in which Response Systems, Inc. is domiciled would know of the company and whether it was a viable, thriving member of the local business community.

It required a fairly extensive search, but a web page for the company was finally found which offered some information about the company. http://www.disasterpreparation.net/about-news.html

LouisianaVoice attempted to call Response Systems but got the voice mail of the firm’s registered agent, Todd Grainger.

Here’s what we do know:

  • The contract with the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) runs from Feb. 1, 2012 to Jan. 31, 2016 and is for emergency preparedness and readiness training—something we just assumed in our own naïve way was the responsibility of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. After all, what is the function of a state agency with a current budget of $1.3 billion—unless it’s just to be sure the state has a sufficient supply of ice for the next hurricane?
  • The company will get even more money in case it has to do anything—like providing medical teams in the event of a disaster.
  • Response Systems would be called out for a minimum five-day deployment at a cost of $290,714, plus travel and meals—that’s over and above the $871,000 contract amount.
  • The company may provide staffing of more than 150 licensed personnel to ensure operational efficiency and recovery in the event of a mass medical surge or evacuation.
  • The company must have teams in place within 48 hours of call-up.
  • Response Systems, Inc. employs fewer than 10 people and had revenues of less than $500,000 last year, according to an online business profile service.
  • The company was first incorporated in January of 2009, was sent a notice of administrative dissolution for failure file an annual report on Oct. 1, 2010, and was restored to good standing after filing its report on Oct. 28, 2011—barely three months before entering into its contract with DHH.

In perhaps the irony of all ironies with this administration, DHH Secretary Kathy Kliebert was quoted as saying, “If the event (a hurricane of some like disaster) goes on for a prolonged period of time, we didn’t have the staff to really staff those shelters appropriately.”

Might this be because Jindal has gutted state agencies with widespread layoffs so that he could contract with these private firms? Could this be another CNSI on a somewhat smaller (like $200 million smaller) scale?

While LSU has provided professional staff in the past, state public health nurses are getting fewer in number with the cutbacks and Kliebert said hospital privatization changes which have occurred recently made the contract necessary. Really?

State Health Officer Dr. Jimmy Guidry added that while it was nice to have had support from LSU in the past, “It’s a new day. Business is different. We have to get a little more creative.” Really again.

The company’s website says Response Systems, Inc. has contracts with several other states, including Colorado, Washington and Kansas for similar services.

The web page said it is actively recruiting medical teams to assist with on-demand mass evacuation operations on the Gulf Coast.

“We are respectful of the large responsibility Louisiana DHH has tasked us with,” said Grainger on the website. “Our ability to successfully carry out past response missions in Louisiana is a key building block to insure a now larger statewide construct of support.”

The website described the company’s role in assisting DHH following Hurricane Gustav in 2008.

Posted in Contract, Contracts, GOHSEP, Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, Public Records | 39 Comments »

Teepell weighs in on Ice waste story by tweeting blame back to Ex-Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s handling of Hurricane Katrina

August 4, 2013 by tomaswell

Twitter apparently is the new eight-party line.

Growing up in Ruston when it truly was a rural community (the two taxi services were the One-Four (green Chevrolets) and the Twelve Hundred (black Fords) taxi companies because their respective telephone numbers were 14 and 1200. (One could go just about anywhere in Ruston for a quarter and the cabbie kept his money in a cigar box—and tipping was unheard of.) The local furniture store was 1. Apparently they had the first telephone ever installed in Ruston.

Much like Barney Fife and Andy in The Andy Griffith Show, we had to pick up the receiver and wait for the operator to come on the line and we would give her the number we wanted to call.

This was, of course, long before the first dial system came to Ruston and our number was changed from first 122-J and then 1190-M (the letters J and M told the switchboard operator which way to move the lever—push forward and pull back were the options—to ring the proper number on a two-party line. Four- and eight-party lines had ring codes like a long, a short and another long, etc.) to Alpine 5-0177, later AL5-0177 and then simply to 255-0177 and still later to 255-5276 because the telephone company didn’t want the last four digits starting with a zero. (And we thought things were simpler back then.)

But even with the dial system, we remained on a two-party line with our neighbor, the Williamsons. To my knowledge, neither of us listened to the others’ conversations because we were friends and respected each other.

Out in the country, it was a different story. The best way to get news back then was to listen in on those eight-party lines—mainly because with eight households sharing a line, it was impossible to know who was eavesdropping.

Ah, nostalgia. It’s not what it used to be.

Twitter, it seems, can be just as fun.

Take the recent exchange between Gov. Bobby Jindal’s alter-ego Timmy Teepell and Robert Mann, political historian, holder of the Manship Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU, and who formerly worked for three U.S. Senators and former Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

The topic of conversation was the recent report by the Louisiana Inspector General which noted that the Jindal administration paid the equivalent of $28 a bag for 10-pound bags of ice following Hurricane Isaac last year only to pay another $312,000 restocking fee to the ice vendor and then allow the ice to melt in an unrefrigerated storage building at a total cost of more than $7.1 million.

Occasionally others listening in on the 21st Century party line would chime in.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the entire string of comments, but we have enough to know that Teepell got a little thin-skinned about the whole matter and attempted to toss the issue back into the lap of Blanco by alluding to events that occurred in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Following are a few of the choice comments:

  • Mann: “Jindal’s response to Ice Capade is that too much is not enough. If only he took same approach to higher ed and health care funding.”
  • Teepell to Mann and Jan Moller of the Louisiana Budget Project: “Remember when (Mann) worked for Blanco and that hurricane hit and people didn’t have enough ice. That sucked.”
  • Mann to Teepell and Moller: “Waiting days and days for the ice, buses and troops that Bush and FEMA promised. That really sucked.”
  • Teepell to Mann: “Do u remember working for Blanco? Should I post links to the TV footage? When people need food, ice and water…u get it 4 them.”
  • Mann to Teepell: “You seriously want to talk about people ‘suffering’ under a governor’s watch?? Your irony meter needs adjusting.”
  • Teepell to Mann: “We got ice to everyone who needed it…but under your watch (Mann was working for Blanco at the time of Katrina), these folks were left to suffer.”
  • Mann to Teepell: “I recognize those people. They’re the same ones to whom you now refuse health insurance. They love Jindal.”
  • Teepell to Mann (attaching photo of a throng outside the New Orleans Convention Center after Katrina): “Do you recognize these people, too?”
  • At this point someone named Calvin Lester Jr. offered his two cents worth to Teepell and Mann: “Those are the people you (Republicans) made sure never came back so your guy could win.”
  • Another participant, Jenny Barber Valois, to Teepell and Mann: “I applaud having ordered ice. The amount and waste are unacceptable. Melting for a month, why not offer to public?”
  • Third party line member, identified only as Baudenski, to Teepell and Mann: “So happy that the nation’s most desperate can be used to prop up Jindalite’s rhetoric.”

That certainly beats the local news from the old eight-party lines where the most titillating news item was when it was learned that Mrs. Brewster just got back from Houston where she had a wart removed from her nose only to learn that Mr. Brewster had supper of squash, collard greens and cornbread with the widow Johnson while she was gone.

But I’d still rather hear about the wart on Mrs. Brewster’s nose any day than listen to Timmy Teepell whine.

Somehow, trying to prop this administration up by attacking someone who has been out of office for more than five years just doesn’t seem to be much of a defense for such monumental waste.

I guess as much as anything else, it’s his cavalier attitude that is so reflective of the entire Jindal administration that I find offensive.

Posted in Auditor, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Transparency, Waste | 18 Comments »

IG report: GOHSEP pays $28 per 10-lb. bag for ice, stores it in unrefrigerated warehouse to melt at total cost of $7.5M

August 3, 2013 by tomaswell

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—In anticipation of Hurricane Isaac a year ago, the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) purchased 33.9 million pounds of ice at a cost of more than $7.1 million, nearly half of which was allowed to melt in an unrefrigerated warehouse in Lacombe, according to a report just released by the Louisiana Inspector General’s (IG) office.

Lacombe is in St. Tammany Parish.

GOHSEP Director Kevin Davis was St. Tammany Parish President until his appointment by Jindal to head GOHSEP in December of 2011.

In addition to the cost of the ice, the state also paid Pelican Ice, Inc. of Kenner nearly $1.1 million for mileage and $9.2 million in “loitering” fees for Pelican drivers at $75 per hour, bring the total cost of the ice supply project to $17.4 million.

The reported noted that the Louisiana National Guard (LANG) claimed that 1.5 million bags of ice were distributed to the public.

Pelican, however, invoiced GOHSEP for the delivery of only 142 truckloads, or 624,800 bags. Pelican was the sole supplier of ice for the hurricane relief effort.

Based on all associated costs, GOHSEP paid $28 per bag of ice distributed.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reimbursed the state for 75 percent of the costs of the ice with GOHSEP paying the remaining 25 percent.

Certainly, had there been a widespread power outage caused by Isaac and had the administration not been prepared with sufficient supplies of ice, there would have been harsh criticism from those unable to obtain ice.

But at the same time, it would seem reasonable to assume that GOHSEP would have taken the necessary precautions to secure refrigerated storage facilities for the ice that was not distributed to storm victims.

Isaac made landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River on Aug. 28, 2012, and GOHSEP place three separate orders with Pelican for ice—on Aug. 29, Aug. 30 and Sept. 2. Each order was for 15,050,000 pounds of ice in 10-pound bags, or 45.15 million pounds total. The amount actually delivered was 33.9 million pounds for which Pelican invoiced the state $17.4 million.

The invoice amount included 268,856 miles at $4 per mile ($1,075,901), $9,207,692 “loitering time,” the time which Pelican’s drivers were required to wait to load or unload their trucks beyond a four-hour delay. The ice itself cost $7,124,000, according to Inspector General Stephen Street, Jr.

Additionally, GOHSEP agreed to pay Pelican a $315,000 “restocking charge” to take back some of the ice but the ice was taken to an unrefrigerated warehouse in Lacombe where it was allowed to melt. The warehouse rental was negotiated by Baron Property Management of Destrehan. The registered agent for Baron Property Management, Paul J. Murray, contributed $1,000 to Jindal in November of 2008.

The cost of the ill-fated Lacombe warehouse project came to more than $7.5 million, the report said. That included $3.2 million for the ice, $416,114 in mileage costs, $315,000 for the “restocking fee,” and $3.6 million in loitering costs.

Another sticking point noted in the IG report was that even though GOHSEP paid Pelican $4 per mile and the $75 per hour loitering fee, it also paid $238,819 to refuel the loitering ice trucks. This meant that taxpayer dollars paid mileage and purchased fuel for the trucks, in effect, a dual payment.

Among the IG’s findings and recommendations:

  • During hurricane Isaac, neither GOHSEP nor LANG had an inventory tracking system sufficient to accurately record the daily consumption of ice. Such a system should be implemented to ensure that the essential amounts of commodities are on hand or on order.
  • We found that LANG could not provide supporting documentation to show the amounts of ice consumed and requested during the hurricane. An inventory tracking system should include a feature that reliably memorializes the amount of commodities requested by each parish and the quantities ordered and delivered to fulfill those requests.
  • GOHSEP expended $7,536,314 to acquire, transport and restock ice that was allowed to melt in an unrefrigerated warehouse. To prevent such unnecessary expenditures of public funds in the future, GOHSEP should include a provision in its ice contracts for excess ice to be returned to the distributor along with a refund of the value of the returned product.
  • GOHSEP paid $238,819 to purchase fuel for refrigerated trucks that it was already paying $1800 per day to loiter. Future delivery contracts should be written to ensure that trucks receiving loitering and mileage payments be required to provide their own fuel. In the event that the trucks cannot leave their assigned location, arrangements should be made for fuel to be delivered to the trucks at their own expense.

Davis, in his response to Street’s report, said that all four of the report’s recommendations have since been implemented by GOHSEP.

In September of 2008, Jindal lost no time in making Department of Social Services Secretary Ann Williamson the scapegoat for the confusion that surrounded shelter conditions and the emergency food stamp program following Hurricane Gustav.

Though Williamson officially “resigned,” it is no secret that she was forced out, or “teagued” by Jindal—a tactic that seems to be his preferred method of jettisoning people he doesn’t want in his administration. Williamson had the misfortune of having served under former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, apparently an unpardonable sin in the Jindal administration.

In commenting on Williamson’s departure, Jindal, as is his custom, declined to say whether he leaned on her to resign, choosing to fall back on what would become a familiar line with subsequent departures: “We agreed it was time to go in a different direction.”

No word has been forthcoming from the governor’s office if any disciplinary action might be considered for Davis’s waste of $7.5 million in lost ice and transportation costs or if an agreement to “go in a different direction” might be in the works.

Of course Williamson was not the one who contributed $3,000 to Jindal’s campaigns.

That was Davis.

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency, Waste | 22 Comments »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »