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As 2013 college football bowl season kicks off, Gov. Jindal reveals proposal for another controversial privatizaton plan

December 23, 2013 by tomaswell

Just in time for the college football bowl season, Forbes magazine has rated the LSU football program as the fourth most valuable in the country, prompting an announcement by the Jindal administration to capitalize on the latest data.

With an estimated value of $105 million, the LSU programs ranks behind only the University of Texas ($139 million), Notre Dame ($117 million) and Alabama ($110 million) and ranks ahead of such traditional football powerhouses as Michigan, Florida, Oklahoma, Georgia, Ohio State, Nebraska, Auburn, Arkansas, Southern Cal, Texas A&M, and Penn State—5th through 15th, respectively.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2013/12/18/college-footballs-most-valuable-teams-2013-texas-longhorns-cant-be-stopped/

Upon learning of the ranking, Gov. Bobby Jindal, always the political opportunist, immediately pressured the LSU Board of Stuporvisors to approve a request for proposals (RFP) aimed at the privatization of the LSU football program in time for the start of the 2014 season.

The board approved the plan without discussion or objection.

“We actually have been considering this opportunity for some time,” Jindal said. “The latest story by Forbes simply provides us with the opportunity to negotiate the most favorable contract for the people of Louisiana.”

Jindal said the timing is such that it will be impossible to issue the RFP before the Feb. 5 LSU Bayou Bash recruiting party but he said he felt logistical problems of dealing with new signees could be overcome with assistance from legal counsel Jimmy Faircloth.

“The fact of the matter is, long story short, at the end of the day, there are two things: the LSU football team is overloaded with unproductive players. Applying my well-known ‘do more with less’ mantra, the new team owners will drastically cut the excess fat from the program. All players who do not make the first team on either offense or defense will be dismissed from the team. The kickers and punters will come from the remaining 22 starters.”

He said that move alone would save the program millions of dollars in housing and meal costs as well as costs for extra uniforms, equipment, game tickets and tutors. Other cost saving measures to be initiated by the privatization move include the termination of medical treatment for injured players and suspension of any athletic department financial contributions to academics. “We have already seen that academics can do more with less; now they will have the opportunity to do even more,” he said.

Jindal said in his prepared statement that the 22 players will each be paid on a sliding scale beginning at $100,000 per year. “That should allow LSU to attract the very best starting players in the nation and prevent the raiding of the top two or three high school players that Louisiana produces each year by other colleges—especially by Nick Saban and Alabama,” he said.

“This move will represent a new gold standard of athletic competition,” he said.

He said that a player who is injured and unable to continue in a game will be replaced from a pool of about a dozen standby contract players who will be employed in administrative positions within the Department of Education. In some cases, players will be asked to play on both offense and defense as an example of his “do more with less” crusade.

“The fact that the new owners will schedule only home games also should help us move forward with all due speed,” he said.

Jindal said his latest plan represents a “bold new move” for LSU football. “This should allow us to win the BCS championship virtually every year,” he said. “That fact alone should dispel all arguments that privatization doesn’t work.”

Confidential sources confirmed that one unidentified administration official who raised questions about possible NCAA sanctions for paying players was summarily teagued, a claim that was immediately denied. “That person left on his own accord,” an administration spokesman said. “We had nothing to do with his decision to leave.”

“There is a reason the NCAA would take issue with our proposal,” Jindal said. “I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the head of the NCAA is a former president of LSU and that he is envious of LSU’s success since his departure. If you recall, when Dr. Mark Emmert was at LSU he was the one who hired Nick Saban and because of that, he has a vested interest in the continued success of Coach Saban. So it’s understandable that he would be opposed to this move.”

Jindal then proceeded to verbally attack Emmert and the NCAA over the anticipated encroachment. “Dr. Emmert and the NCAA want to deny a voice to the very people who will be harmed by such ridiculous sanctions,” he said. “They are trying to muzzle fans who simply want to express their support for what will be the most successful football program in the history of intercollegiate athletics. The only thing our fans want is for the finest athletes in the nation to have the opportunity to escape failing programs.

“Dr. Emmert is attempting to tell our fans to sit down and shut up. That’s never going to happen. Despite whatever evolving legal argument the NCAA comes up with, the voices of hundreds of thousands of fans will be heard,” he said.

“I have already indicated that the NCAA’s effort to deny these kids the right to equal opportunity in football is both cynical and immoral,” Jindal continued. “They (the NCAA and Emmert) can’t have it both ways. Our fans know the real result of any NCAA action, should it be successful, would be to keep great football players in failing programs like those at Alabama, Auburn, Georgia and Florida.”

Key losses to Alabama “have pushed a significant number of players to go out of state,” Jindal said. “Threatened sanctions are another intrusion by the NCAA on players’ personal decisions. Players who wish to play for a premier program should not have to seek approval of Dr. Emmert or the NCAA. It is our moral obligation to ensure that every top player who we recruit has access to the best program available.

“America is a nation of opportunity and a quality football program opens the door to opportunity, no matter the social background of the player.

“We in Louisiana are rejecting the status quo because we believe every player should have the opportunity to succeed.”

He said the Tiger Athletic Foundation (TAF) has been contracted to help draft the RFP for the administration.

Insiders have intimated that TAF is likely to be the sole bidder on the project, although Spectacor Management Group (SMG), which operates the Mercedes Benz Superdome, the New Orleans Arena, Zephyr Field in Metairie and the Baton Rouge River Center, has not been ruled out.

Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret said whoever wins the contract will receive generous tax incentives and exemptions “for bringing new jobs to Louisiana.”

Jindal said the privatization should save the state “approximately $500 million a year, give or take a few hundred million.”

(We wanted to hold off on this story until April 1, but we just couldn’t wait.)

Posted in Boards, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Layoffs, LSU, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals | 23 Comments »

Irony of ironies: Jindal’s quacking about duck commander suspension by A&E in the wake of Murphy Painter acquital

December 20, 2013 by tomaswell

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE):

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The echoes of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s silly, incoherent defense of the Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson had not even died out before the ironic acquittal of former commissioner of the State Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) Murphy J. Painter stung him with perhaps the most humiliating of several recent courtroom defeats.

And before we delve any further into this sordid mess, let us point out that the media, for the most part, have missed the real story in this entire Robertson GQ interview. While everyone is fixated on his comments about gays, his even more moronic claim that African-Americans were happier before the civil rights movement should have been the lead in every story written about the interview. How a writer claiming to be a professional reporter could have missed that elephant in the room is beyond comprehension.

And though he could not find the time to visit that toxic sinkhole at Bayou Corne in Assumption Parish until many months into the crisis, Jindal was Johnny on the spot with his defense of Robertson and in his condemnation of A&E Network for daring to suspend Robertson for exercising his freedom of speech.

While Jindal may well have a valid point in invoking the First Amendment, it is interesting to reflect on how intolerant the governor is of dissenting opinions within his own administration. Early on, he jettisoned Board of Elementary and Secondary Education member Tammy McDaniel, Louisiana Highway Safety Commission Executive Director Jim Champagne (because Jindal apparently didn’t want to wear a motorcycle helmet on his Hell’s Angels weekend outings—now just try and get the visual of biker Bobby out of your head), Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Ann Williamson and virtually every member of the State Ethics Board (though most left in protest over his gutting of that agency).

In quick order followed Melody Teague for testifying against his government streamlining plans (she eventually was reinstated). Then her husband, Tommy Teague, was booted as head of the Office of Group Benefits for not toeing the company line on privatization (Scott Kipper, his successor, would also leave within weeks).

The firing of the Teagues quickly gave birth to the widespread use of the term “teaguing” as the euphemism for being terminated by Jindal.

Others shown the door included Department of Transportation and Development Secretary William Ankner, Office of Elderly Affairs Executive Director Mary Manuel, LSU System Office General Counsel Raymond Lamonica, LSU President John Lombardi, Secretary of Revenue Cynthia Bridges, LSU Health Care System head Dr. Fred Cerise, and Interim LSU Public Hospital CEO Dr. Roxanne Townsend.

And then there were the demotions from key legislative committee assignments. Removed from their positions for not voting with the administration or for simply asking the wrong questions in committee meetings were State Reps. Jim Morris (R-Oil City), Harold Richie (D-Bogalusa), Joe Harrison (R-Gray) and Cameron Henry (R-Metairie).

And of course, there was the showcase teaguing—the very public firing of Painter by Jindal and subsequent criminal charges after Painter refused to issue an alcohol permit for Champions Square across the street from the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans.

It just so happens that Champions Square is part of Benson Towers, owned by New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson who, coincidentally, is a huge contributor to Jindal through himself, members of his family and his various business enterprises—in addition to being the landlord for several state offices in Benson Towers at an annual cost of $2.6 million a year more than the state had been paying before moving into Benson Towers. https://louisianavoice.com/2013/02/06/emerging-claims-lawsuits-could-transform-murphy-painter-from-predator-to-all-too-familiar-victim-of-jindal-reprisals/

When Painter rejected the application of Spectacor Management Group (SMG) because of errors in its application for the alcohol permit, SMG arranged a meeting between Painter and SMG attorney Robert Walmsley, Jr., member of a law firm that contributed $5,000 to Jindal.

Apparently, refusal to crater to Benson is a cardinal sin in Louisiana.

Painter was soon contacted by Jindal executive Counsel Stephen Waguespack, nephew of Wiley Waguespack, who had earlier defeated Painter in the Ascension Parish sheriff’s election. Painter said Stephen Waguespack leaned on him to cooperate with SMG and to cease using ATC’s legal counsel to address concerns with the Champions Square project being pushed by SMG.

Waguespack, Painter said, advised that he, as executive counsel for the governor’s office, “saw no problem with issuing the requested license to SMG,” whereupon Painter said he would defer to Waguespack—if Waguespack was willing to issue a legal opinion in writing to the ATC representing the governor’s position.

“The governor’s executive counsel refused and suggested that issuing such an opinion was not a good use of his time and/or position,” Painter says, adding that he understood from that conversation that he “was being ordered to issue the license requested by SMG in direct contravention of law.”

In more than 15 years as ATC commissioner, Painter said he had never received such a call from the governor’s office.

Painter and ATC again refused to issue the requested license and two days later Painter was summoned to the governor’s office on the fourth floor of the State Capitol where he met with Waguespack, Louisiana State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson and Jindal’s then-assistant executive counsel Liz Murrill.

Painter was advised that an unidentified law enforcement agency (later identified as the Office of Inspector General) was investigating him for alleged criminal violations, specifically sexual harassment and that Jindal was asking for his resignation.

When Painter refused to resign he was fired and an official announcement was issued by the governor’s office that he had resigned.

In what Painter described as another means of garnering publicity, an investigator from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) obtained a warrant to search Painter’s office at ATC even though a previous investigation by the Department of Revenue had already cleared Painter of any wrongdoing.

So, after losing major court battles over the funding of school vouchers, pension reform, and the teacher tenure and evaluations section of his education reform, Jindal now has egg all over his face in the highest profile case of teaguing in his beleaguered administration. It was, after all, the only one of the many teagued employees Jindal has actually tried to prosecute in criminal court.

On Friday, December 20, 2013, it all blew up in his face. In baseball terminology, he’s oh-for in the courts.

And don’t think for a moment that because it was a federal trial, the Jindal administration was not behind the indictments and subsequent prosecution from the get-go. All of which makes his sanctimonious outrage over the A&E network’s actions more than just a little hypocritical.

The jury verdict: not guilty on all 29 counts of computer fraud and lying to the FBI.

Sadly, for a governor who entered office with such promise, Jindal’s jumping on the Phil Robertson bandwagon is about all that’s left of his fading political career.

Posted in ATC, Campaign Contributions, Courts, Governor's Office, Teague | 13 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

December 19, 2013 by tomaswell

“Overall, the proficiency rating for the Scholarship (voucher) Program is 41 percent. This rating is based on the percent of students who scored basic and above on standardized tests during academic year 2012-2013.”

—Report by the Legislative Auditor on the Louisiana Department of Education’s “Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program.”  (Hosanna Christian Academy in Baton Rouge, which subjects job applications to an extremely personal questionnaire based on religious believes and sexual activity and orientation while receiving $1.4 million in state funding, and New Living Word School in Ruston which the audit report says overcharged the Department of Education by more than $395,000 before subsequently being removed from the program, had proficiency ratings of 41.2 percent and 21.1 percent, respectively.)

Posted in Audit Reports, Auditor, Education, Notable Quotables, Vouchers | 1 Comment »

Jindal priority: defend Duck Dynasty but ignore abysmal performance of DOE scholarship (read: voucher) program

December 19, 2013 by tomaswell

Give Gov. Bobby Jindal credit: He, along with a gaggle of Louisiana politicians, is all over A&E Network like…well, like a duck on a June bug over the Phil Robertson flak stemming from his comments about gays and blacks in that GQ interview. http://theadvocate.com/home/7889023-125/gov-jindal-responds-to-ae

Without going into the full story (you can get that from virtually any news source, from ABC-TV to local newspapers), suffice it to say Jindal has already spent almost as much time on this issue as on that sinkhole in Assumption Parish—or even staying at home to address other Louisiana problems, for that matter.

And while offering moral support for Robertson, Jindal has had little to say in defense of his boy-child State Superintendent of Education John White in the wake of a devastating state audit of the Jindal administration’s showcase school voucher program or of a controversial employment questionnaire required of applicants by a Baton Rouge private academy that has received more than $1.4 million in state funds.

Bernard Taylor, on the other hand, acted promptly and decisively to head off attempts by a local organization claiming connections to Jindal and White and headed by a man recently arrested for misuse of Baton Rouge city transit system funds to gain access to the East Baton Rouge Parish school system.

Okay, that’s a lot to digest in one gulp so let’s take ‘em one at a time, beginning with Taylor and an outfit called Empowering Students for Success.

Empowering Students for Success http://www.educatingourfuture.org/, founded earlier this year to help prepare students for new Common Core standards, is headed up by one Montrell “MJ” McCaleb.

The organization’s web page features separate photos of McCaleb with Jindal and White and also contains an impressive list of corporate sponsors that includes Cane’s Chicken, Infiniti of Baton Rouge, Subaru of Baton Rouge, IBM, the Baton Rouge Advocate, Acura of Baton Rouge, Piccadilly Restaurants, Sprint, Coca-Cola, Kleinpeter Dairy, and the National Urban League.

The problem is McCaleb’s most recent gig was as a member of the Capital Area Transit System (CATS) board of directors until his resignation for health reasons and later arrested after being accused of using nearly $1,500 in bus system funds to pay his private satellite TV and cellphone bills over a three-month period earlier this year. http://theadvocate.com/home/7057877-125/former-cats-board-member-booked

An email sent to EBR school principals by Taylor assistant Jamie Manda, said, “It is our understanding that Montrell McCaleb may contact you or email you to request an appointment to discuss services he provides through his organization, Empowering Students.

“Dr. Taylor asked me to let all principals know that under no circumstances has he given permission for Mr. McCaleb to contact you on his behalf about his program.”

But…but…but he’s got photos of him and Jindal and him and White on his web site.

What more does a guy need to get a foot in the door?

Well, if you want to teach for Hosanna Christian Academy, you’ll need to provide quite a lot of potentially embarrassing personal information.

Besides the customary name, address, phone number, date of birth, and professional qualifications, the questionnaire also asks for the applicant’s marital status, general state of health, religious beliefs, if the applicant smokes or drinks alcohol, is sexually active, lives with a non-relative of the opposite six, and whether or not he or she engages in homosexual activity.

The application form then requires the applicant’s signature on a statement of faith based on Bible scripture. Here is the link to that questionnaire:HOSANNA EMPLOYMENT QUESTIONAIRE (Yes, we know questionnaire was misspelled, but it’s a pdf file and we couldn’t change it.)

Before we get too far into this thorny issue, let’s understand we have no objection to a church-affiliated school setting rigid standards for hiring personnel—so long as the school is completely self-sustaining and not reliant in part or in whole on public funding.

But Hosanna received more than $1.4 million in state funding in the 2012-2013 school year from the state’s scholarship (voucher) program for 284 voucher students, according to an audit of the voucher program released last week by the Legislative Auditor’s office.

That has prompted protests from the Louisiana Federation of Teachers (LFT).

LFT President Steve Monaghan said no public funding should be sent to schools “that pry into a person’s life.”

State regulations governing hiring practices of schools receiving voucher dollars are vague, perhaps deliberately so as to allow greater leeway for church affiliated schools to receive public funds but to still act like private schools.

Monaghan said he will ask the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to look into Hosanna’s hiring practices as well as those of other private schools with voucher students.

Josh LeSage, headmaster of Hosanna, said the school is within its legal rights in asking the questions of job applicants. “We are not breaking any laws,” he told the Baton Rouge Advocate.

Vouchers are offered as state aid to students attending C, D and F public school so that they may attend the private schools.

The problem with that theory is that 45 percent of Louisiana’s voucher students still attended D and F rated schools last year, according to data released last month by the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE).

The figures are incomplete because the department only released data on 20 percent of the 118 schools in the program, raising concerns about the lack of accountability in voucher schools.

Those concerns were echoed in a 27-page report by the Legislative Auditor’s office that said, among other things, “…there are no legal requirements in place to ensure nonpublic schools that participate in the (voucher) program are academically acceptable.”

The report further said the DOE review process “lacks formal criteria to ensure that schools have both the academic and physical capacity to serve the number of scholarship students they requested.”

That would reinforce reports last year by LouisianaVoice that New Living Word School in Ruston had been approved for far more vouchers than the school could accommodate. Even after the initial approval of 315 vouchers was reduced because the school had no computers are desks, it still was approved for 58 vouchers for which it was paid a whopping $447,300 by the state.

The audit report indicates that New Living Word overcharged the state by $395,520 and was subsequently removed from the scholarship program.

New Living Word was not the only one. The report says that auditors found that DOE overpaid or underpaid 48 of the 118 participating schools (41 percent) in the 2012-2013 academic year, leaving us to wonder just who is running DOE.

But rather than belabor the details of the audit, here is the link to the report so that you may read it for yourself:00036AA0

The rank and file employees of DOE are doing their best under extremely trying circumstances. Many classified employees were laid off and replaced by highly paid unclassified (non-civil service) employees brought in from out of state and who knew little to nothing about running the state’s largest agency. As a result, programs have been started, halted, re-started, changed, amended and scrapped as the young, inexperienced administrative personnel flail about in an effort to cobble together a policy for the department.

Were their efforts not so pathetic and wasteful, it would be light comedy to watch. Instead, John White and his minions are nothing short of tragic, pitiful excuses of pseudo educators who know only how to drive Enterprise rental Escalades and Jeep Cherokees on the state dime 24/7.

And while White himself must ultimately shoulder the blame for the procedural morass the department has become under his watch, it is David “Lefty” Lefkowith who is the poster child for all that is wrong with the voucher system. That is, after all, his job at DOE: he is in charge of the program—when he’s not jetting back and forth between Baton Rouge and his home in Los Angeles.

Posted in Audit Reports, Auditor, BESE, Education, Governor's Office, Vouchers | 4 Comments »

Lines blurred between Sen. Vitter’s campaign committee and new Fund for Louisiana Super PAC; Jindal to succeed Vitter?

December 17, 2013 by tomaswell

The Daily Kingfish blog http://dailykingfish.com/tag/superpac/, with an inadvertent assist from the Baton Rouge Advocate, http://theadvocate.com/columnists/6061634-55/around-washington-for-monday-may has given us an interesting angle on the new Super PAC set up on U.S. Sen. David Vitter’s behalf which conceivably could bring him some problems with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).

LouisianaVoice also has come across an interesting bit of speculation beginning to make its way through the rumor mill that involves a possible Vitter run for governor.

It’s a tangled web that started with a demand by Washington attorney Charles Spies that the Louisiana Board of Ethics should fall in line with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that removed the limits that may be contributed to Super PACs.

Spies chairs the Fund for Louisiana (FFL), the Super PAC set up to help Vitter with either a run for governor in 2015 or for re-election to the Senate in 2016.

Spies, also co-founder of Restore Our Future PAC for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, said in his filing with the Louisiana ethics board that if the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion abolishing the contributions to Super PACs is not granted and it is later determined by the courts that the state’s $100,000 limit “impermissibly infringe on constitutional rights, Fund for Louisiana’s Future will have suffered irreparable harm” and that “FFL’s political speech—and the political speech of others like it—is being burdened and chilled.”

But The Daily Kingfish noted that while Spies is the mover and shaker behind the effort to remove the state’s contribution cap, the Louisiana address for FFL is 6048 Marshall Foch Street in the Lakeview area of New Orleans.

That’s the address at the bottom of FFL’s web page and it just happens to be the home of Bill Callihan, a director at Capital One Bank.

Okay, nothing wrong with this picture so far.

Vitter is prohibited by federal election rules from coordinating for the Super PAC and does not personally participate in fundraising activities.

Again, nothing wrong so far.

FFL has scheduled its Louisiana Bayou Weekend for Sept. 5-7, 2014 with Vitter as “special guest.” Invitees will have the opportunity to participate in Cajun cooking, an airboat swamp tour and an alligator hunt.

While Vitter can appear at the Super PAC event, he is prohibited from soliciting contributions.

And this is where the picture becomes somewhat muddled.

Courtney Guastella Callihan—Callihan’s wife—is listed on invitations as the contact person for the Bayou Weekend.

She also served as Vitter’s campaign financial director, a dual role that blurs the distinction between her function with the Super PAC and Vitter’s Senate campaign.

Citizens United legalized independent groups raising unlimited funds but it did not legalize politicians establishing dummy organizations to evade campaign finance laws.

So the question now becomes is Courtney Callihan on the payroll of both Vitter’s Senate campaign committee and FFL?

If so, that could conceivably bring real legal problems with the FEC.

Now, having said all that, here is a real zinger we came across in the rumor mill. Mind you, everything is speculation at this point, but the report appears to have a certain validity that warrants a mention here.

Even if it proves to be untrue, it’s still interesting to speculate.

It is no secret that Jindal and Vitter are not the best of friends. Jindal even refused to endorse Vitter in his re-election campaign three years ago even though Vitter, in an apparent effort to be the better man (that being a relative term), did endorse Jindal for re-election the following year.

But it is also true that politics makes for strange bedfellows and this would rate right up there with the most bizarre of them all.

Should Vitter be elected governor in 2015, he would take office in January of 2016 with still a year left on his Senate term.

He would have to vacate his Senate seat, of course, and as governor would name his successor.

Sources say that the two have buried the hatchet and talk already has Jindal moving into the Senate office for the duration of Vitter’s term, thus providing him a stepping stone, so to speak, for his anticipated longshot run for the GOP presidential nomination. (should we have bold-faced, capitalized, underlined and italicized longshot?)

Of course, if Public Service Commissioner and former Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources Scott Angelle should run, that in turn would create a dilemma for Jindal. Would he throw his Protégé under the bus for a shot at a U.S. Senate seat?

Stranger things—including outlandish political marriages—do occur in politics (see JFK/LBJ, 1960).

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Congress, Governor's Office, House, Senate, PACs, Politicians | 7 Comments »

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