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Jindal tax plan was like watching movie from back row of a drive-in theater on a foggy night…before he punted to Leg.

April 9, 2013 by tomaswell

It seems Gov. Bobby Jindal’s $500,000 advertising campaign was good money thrown after bad.

You’ve probably seen those ads paid for by Believe in Louisiana, the non-profit 527 political organization founded by Jindal supporter and Baton Rouge Business Report publisher Rolfe McCollister.

The advertising blitz was supposed to turn the tide in favor of Jindal’s proposal to abolish the state income tax in favor of a state sales tax increase that kept changing. The ads laid it out loud and clear: you either wanted to get rid of the state income tax or you preferred to “keep loopholes for lobbyists.” The ad concludes with the question, “Whose side are you on?”

Pretty simplistic. Very much like former President George W. Bush’s “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” in his dust-up to his Big Iraq Attack.

But just as Bush’s “Mission accomplished,” and his “You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie” were a bit premature, so was the ad campaign.

And they were still running on Tuesday, a day after Jindal suddenly folded like a cheap suit on his tax proposal. That’s what happens when you make a large media buy. Just like furniture store and automotive ads that often continue to run a couple of days after a special promotional ad, the tax ads continue to implore viewers to tell their legislators to support the tax plan.

Jindal unexpectedly pulled the rug from under legislators who first heard that he was pulling the tax proposal bills when the governor announced it during his uncharacteristically brief 13-minute address to open the 2013 legislative session on Monday.

His decision, besides catching legislators short, also disappointed many who have grown to detest everything about this governor.

“I was almost sorry Jindal folded,” one Baton Rouge resident said. “I was hoping for a well-deserved humiliating defeat, which would have been good for the state, if not for him. He’s got about three more years to keep wrecking Louisiana. I’d rather have Edwards or Uncle Earl (Long) when he was in Mandeville,” he said in reference to Long’s commitment to East Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville in 1959 during the waning days of his last administration.

“Jindal is wrong about the GOP being the stupid party,” he said. “It’s the crazy party now and for the immediate future.”

Another longtime political observer said, “I wasn’t surprised that he capitulated. That was going to happen sooner or later. But I really was surprised that he had no Plan B,” he said. “How could they not have a fallback plan?”

The sudden retreat should not have caught anyone by surprise. Trying to decipher the governor’s tax plan was closely akin to trying to watch a black and white movie from the back row of an old drive-in theater in a thick fog.

But then, anyone parking on the back row of a drive-in theater on a foggy night probably had no intention of watching a movie in the first place, so perhaps that’s a bad analogy.

The lack of an alternative plan prompted retired Louisiana State Budget Director Stephen Winham to say that Jindal “never had a plan beyond elimination of income taxes and franchise taxes as an ancillary.”

But then Winham perhaps captured the quintessential Jindal when he predicted that Jindal would turn lemons into lemonade. “I think he can possibly salvage his national reputation, again based on my original premise that he can claim he tried to lead us to the Promised Land, but we just didn’t have sense enough to go.”

Winham said in a guest LouisianaVoice column way back on Jan. 25 that Jindal had “already achieved a major goal of this proposal—getting extensive national media coverage for making a bold proposal to fix Louisiana’s budget and economic development problems.”

A somewhat jaded Baton Rouge political junkie said Jindal realized his ambitious tax plan was stalled and would never get out of the House Ways and Means Committee. “No governor could have his plan die in committee, so he got in front of it and pulled it,” he said.

“I also think he did the smart thing by throwing it to the legislature. Now it’s on their backs. If they don’t come up with a plan (and they won’t) Jindal can blame the legislature,” he said, echoing Winham in predicting Jindal will play the blame game on his renewed national speaking tour.

Moving forward at the end of the day (as Jindal is fond of saying), the blame game is about all that is left for him in his efforts to save face in the coming weeks.

With the tax issue all but dead now, we can all turn our attention to the legislative debate on Jindal’s patchwork budget proposal.

That should be every bit as interesting as the highly anticipated tax debate that went out with a whimper after a lot of bravado, buildup and B.S.

Posted in Budget, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Taxes | 19 Comments »

BESE apparently watches ‘Bachelorette’; White continues to ignore legitimate media requests for DEO public records

April 9, 2013 by tomaswell

Call this the John White Special.

Let’s start with BESE’s March meeting at which the calculation of Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) funding was discussed in a 26-page report which at one point appeared to veer off into reality television. The MFP was approved by BESE on March 8.

One of the criteria outlined at that meeting was the High Standards Weight.

“This weight is provided to recognize the cost of providing advanced coursework,” the BESE report said. “A 30 percent weight is provided for students in grades 8 through 11 that (sic) meet the certain criteria on exams. Students must meet the following criteria in order to be considered eligible (one would think that education administrators would know to use the word “who” instead of “that.”):

• Students in 8th grade that (there’s “that” again, instead of “who”) score excellent on Algebra I End of Course (EOC) tests;

• Students in 9th grade who (ah!) score excellent on Geometry EOC tests or score in a 3 or higher on an Advance Placement (AP) exam;

• Students in 10th grade who score 3 or higher on an AP exam;

• Students in 11th grade who score a 3 or higher on an AP exam or a 4+ on an International Bachelorette (IB) course.

Wait. What? Bachelorette? Yep, that’s what it said.

Like we said, reality television rules at BESE.

Maybe someone should have whispered to BESE/DOE that it should be International Baccalaureate before it’s approved for an official state document. And perhaps motivational speaker David “Lefty” Lefkowith could take time to show up for work one day and give proofreading lessons.

The biggest sticking point with White, insofar as LouisianaVoice is concerned, is the difficulty (make that impossibility) of squeezing what are clearly public records out of DOE.

R.S. 44:32(D) provides: “In any case in which a record is requested and a question is raised by the custodian of the record as to whether it is a public record, such custodian shall within three days, exclusive of Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays, of the receipt of the request, in writing for such record, notify in writing the person making such request of his determination and the reasons therefor. Such written notification shall contain a reference to the basis under law which the custodian has determined exempts a record, or any part thereof, from inspection, copying, or reproduction.”

Three days.

If Jesus could escape from his tomb in three days, the Department of Education certainly should be able to lay its hands on and produce requested public records within that prescribed time.

Yet, LouisianaVoice has outstanding records requests dating back to March 6 without so much as an acknowledgement from DOE. We know Superintendent John White received the requests because our email alerts us whenever a recipient has opened one of our emails. There’s a reason for that.

Following are some of our outstanding public records requests:

Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 8:58 PM
To: john.white@la.gov
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

I would like a list of and a CV for the following:

All personnel who now work or who have worked in the Louisiana Department of Education since January of 2007 who worked for or otherwise were associated, affiliated with or employed by Teach for America, the New Teacher Project, and/or the Eli Broad Foundation;

In providing this information, please provide the following information:

Dates of employment for each;

Job title for each;

Salary for each.

(Nothing.)

Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 8:29 PM
To: john.white@la.gov
Cc: J Arthur Smith
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

emails sent by James Bowman the week of March 4-7, 2013 relative to directing staff not to attend BESE meeting.
Emails sent by Nick Bolt since Feb. 1, 2013 pertaining to Shared Learning Collaborative, including any and all communications relative to off-line discussions of SLC or Shared Learning Collaborative.

(Nothing.)

Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2013 10:04 AM
To: john.white@la.gov; troy.humphrey@la.gov
Cc: J Arthur Smith
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

Please allow me to review all contracts, purchase orders and authorizations to hire, executed and/or signed by Kunjan Narechania from January 1, 2012 through April 1, 2013. In providing these documents, please do not omit the signature page(s).

Please allow me to review all forms, including literacy, high school redesign and accountability authorized and/or signed by Kunjan Narechania from January 1, 2012 through April 1, 2013. Please include all signature page(s).

Please allow me to review all contracts, purchase orders and authorizations to hire executed and/or signed by Michael Rounds since his employment with DOE. Please include all signature page(s).

Please allow me to review all contracts, purchase orders and authorizations to hire executed and/or signed by David “Lefty” Lefkowith since his employment with DOE. Please include all signature page(s).

Please provide copies of all travel records/travel documents/travel reimbursements for David “Lefty” Lefkowith since his employment with DOE.

(Nothing.)

Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2013 9:00 p.m.
To: john.white@la.gov; troy.humphrey@la.gov
Cc: J Arthur Smith
Subject: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), I respectfully request the following information:

Please provide signed time sheets verifying David Lefkowith’s presence in the DOE offices since his employment with DOE.

(Nothing yet, though the three-day deadline was not expired as of this writing.)

Even more serious is White’s dangerous little game of telling outright lies about the existence of public records and of playing favorites with the media.

The Independent of Lafayette attempted to obtain public records from DOE way back in April 2011 asking the department for correspondence DOE had received from the U.S. Department of Education relative to Louisiana’s No Child Left Behind waiver application.

After first denying the existence of the requested correspondence, DOE finally acquiesced on Friday, May 4, and told the paper the documents would be provided on Monday, May 7.

Instead, White, spoon fed the information, including extensive details and comments from White himself to a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune so that his favored reporter could have the story first.

Mr. White should know that is not the way you try to manipulate the media in Louisiana or anywhere else. Any newspaper worth its salt will do what it must do to protect its interest from such shabby behavior—and the Independent did.

You do not play favorites and you certainly do not ignore legitimate requests from the media—most media. Some take umbrage at such efforts to control information that rightfully is the domain of the public.

It will end ugly.

LouisianaVoice has retained legal counsel and as this is being written is preparing to initiate legal action against White, DOE, BESE and its president, Chas Roemer. It is BESE, after all, that hired White and it is BESE to whom he answers so BESE is legally liable for the behavior of its upstart superintendent who apparently feels the laws to not apply to him.

But apply to him they do. It will cost us money, but in the end, we will be upheld in our efforts and when that happens, the court not only may assess legal fines against the department and BESE, but it can also order DOE and BESE to pay our legal fees and our court costs.

And then there’s the negative publicity that would go with yet another embarrassing court decision against DOE.

Strother Martin (the warden in Cool Hand Luke) notwithstanding, there is no failure to communicate here.

NOTE: (J Arthur Smith copied in several of our public records requests to White is our legal counsel.)

Posted in BESE, Education, Public Records, Transparency | 15 Comments »

Barfield reportedly removed from Jindal tax swap team; administration insiders confide he was ‘in over his head’

April 5, 2013 by tomaswell

Administration insiders confide that Tim Barfield, executive counsel and Revenue secretary-designate Tim Barfield is “in over his head” and has been removed from Gov. Jindal’s struggling tax swap team.

That might seem like a demotion for a man who has been on the job for only six months. But considering the fact that the waters of Jindal’s state tax structure overhaul have been circling the drain for weeks and are now starting to make that familiar gurgling sound, even an involuntary separation from the Jindal tax team could be looked upon as a blessing.

The governor has seen one political ally after another break with him on his ever-changing tax plan, including the heretofore compliant House Speaker Chuck Kleckley, R-Lake Charles who put the Ways and Means Committee hearing on the tax plan on hold until House staffers complete an analysis that would give legislators a better handle on how much money the Jindal plan would raise.

The once friendly Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) also walked away from Jindal, whom the organization has traditionally supported.

Ernst & Young, the consulting firm hired by Jindal to perform an economic analysis of his tax plan even said the proposed tax swap, which would abolish the state income tax in favor of increased sales taxes, was a bad idea.

Making matters worse, Jindal recently upped the ante from the previous 5.88 percent sales tax to 6.25 percent, leaving observers scratching their heads over the administration’s inability to articulate any real plan.

On Wednesday, April 3, an emissary from the governor’s office showed up at the Department of Revenue (LDR) to demand new reports and numbers on revenue collections, saying the information was needed by the start of the session.

LDR staffers have been grinding away at the database in an attempt to comply with the governor’s ultimatum to somehow manufacture the numbers necessary to placate the legislature.

Meanwhile, Team Jindal, through Believe in Louisiana, the 527 non-profit organization founded by Baton Rouge Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister to solicit funds to advance the Jindal agenda, has made a half-million dollar media buy to initiate a slick TV ad campaign in support of the tax plan.

Many of the names of the big money men behind Jindal show up as Believe in Louisiana donors and the organization, unfettered by campaign donation limits, has pulled in individual contributions as large as $225,000, swelling its coffers to well over a million dollars.

“I don’t know why they’re throwing good money after that dog,” said one Democratic leader of the ad campaign.

Barfield, who previously served as labor secretary and as Jindal’s executive Counsel before leaving to work for home health provider Amedisys.

In order to lure Barfield away from Amedisys, Jindal added the title of executive counsel and gave him a combined salary of $250,000, more than double the $124,000 paid his predecessor, Cynthia Bridges.

Until Friday, he had been Jindal’s point man on the tax proposal, but Jindal could not have been happy two weeks ago when Barfield testified before the House Ways and Means Committee that the proposed tax swap would shift about $500 million in taxes to businesses, a statement that helped galvanize the business community against the tax swap.

At that time, he was still talking about a 5.88 percent state sales tax. Jindal has since bumped that up to 6.25 percent.

Posted in Politics | 32 Comments »

Five months and out: was that enough time for DOE deputy superintendent to obtain Louisiana license plates for his car?

April 5, 2013 by tomaswell

Five months.

If you want to train to be a school superintendent in the Eli Broad Superintendent’s Academy, one would be required to complete six weekends of training spread over 10 months.

Five months.

If one wishes to become a teacher without going to the trouble of obtaining an education degree, he or she would be required to attend a five-week summertime crash course. No certification necessary.

Five months.

One month after Michael Rounds resigned in March of 2012 as Chief Operating Officer for Kansas City Public Schools over the awarding of a $32 million renovation contract, that contract was cancelled by School Superintendent Stephen Green. Rounds had been in charge of selecting a company to manage the project and he ultimately awarded the contract to a man named Dayton “Buddy” Hahs who reviewed bids, formulated questions for bidders and sat in on interviews.

When the bids were all rejected and re-advertised, Hahs, apparently more of a “buddy” than anyone knew, suddenly formed his own company, bid on the project and was awarded the contract even though its bid was $2 million higher than the low bid.

Five months.

That’s less time than the seven months it took Rounds to show up in Baton Rouge after his resignation in Kansas City.

Louisiana Superintendent of Education John White brought Rounds into the fold at $170,000 a year as Deputy Superintendent for District Support.

Rounds and White were 2010 graduates of the Eli Broad Superintendent’s Academy of Los Angeles which critics say turns out superintendents who employ corporate management techniques to consolidate power, weaken teachers’ job protections, cut parents out of the decision-making process and introduce unproven reform measures.

The academy was founded by billionaire businessman Eli Broad. It offers a six-weekend course spread over 10 months. There are no qualifications that students have any experience in education—just that they have a bachelor’s degree.

In Oakland, California, one teacher said she saw principals and teachers whom she described as “high-quality, dedicated people,” forced out by Broad superintendents trained to aim for “maximum disruption” when they came to a district, with little regard for parent or teacher concerns.

In case you missed it, the above paragraph contained a plural reference to Broad superintendents in Oakland.

That’s because there apparently was a revolving door there for Broad alumni. The teacher said she became alarmed when she witnessed her school district go through three Broad-trained superintendents in quick succession.

Five months.

John White would have been wise to check with that teacher before hiring Rounds.

Five Months.

There are, to paraphrase a current TV commercial, celebrity marriages of longer duration.

Five months into his job in Baton Rouge and he’s gone. Gone quietly, but gone.

Gone. As in arrivederci, adios, adieu, sayonara and ta-ta.

The Louisiana Department of Civil Service on Friday confirmed that Rounds resigned on March 30, 2013. We didn’t know they worked on Saturday at DOE, but nevertheless, he is gone.

Five months.

That’s hardly enough time for DOE carpetbagger appointees to bother getting Louisiana license plates.

Posted in Civil Service, Education | 16 Comments »

Jindal grades out at ‘D’ or ‘F’ with 88% of voters in T-P poll; Does that mean Louisiana should appoint charter governor?

April 4, 2013 by tomaswell

ANNOUNCING A NEW LOUISIANAVOICE CONTEST:

Some of our readers may remember way back in January when LouisianaVoice launched a little contest to name the road to the Assumption Parish sinkhole. Because of other stories that broke in quick succession, we somehow managed to forget to name a winner.

It’s not that we had this called to our attention by our oversight committee; we’re really not that organized. It’s simply that we’re conducting another contest and someone told us we need to declare a winner of the Bayou Corne access road contest first.

There were some great entries and many were quite original and there were a few duplications. But for pure originality, we have to go with Bectrob and her entry: Don Ho Road. She chose that name because of the “Tiny Bubbles” in Bayou Corne (Tiny Bubbles being the late Hawaiian singer’s theme song).

Bectrob has been contacted to provide an address where we can send 25 of our bumper stickers.

Now for our next contest:

As many Louisianans know, Gov. Bobby Jindal has made it quite clear that he intends to see that all schools rated “D” and “F” are turned over to charter operations in an effort to improve those schools’ performances.

Without going into the merits (or lack thereof) of the grading system utilized in determining those grades, we thought it most interesting to see this week that Jindal’s approval rating had dipped below that of President Obama in Louisiana, according to results of a poll conducted by Southern Media Research.

For a decidedly Red State like Louisiana, that should be doubly embarrassing for Jindal, whose approval rating among women voters has gone into a free fall.

That poll was based on the results of 600 interviews.

NOLA.com, however, is conducting its own online poll and the results show that 88.19 percent of the 966 responses give Jindal a grade of “D” or “F.”

The breakdown thus far is 757 (78.36 percent) gave him an “F” and 95 (9.83 percent) awarded him a “D.” Only 41 (4.24 percent) give him an “A,” and just 43 (4.45 percent) give him a “B.” The remaining 30 (3.11 percent) give him a ho-hum “C.”

That’s pretty much in line with the 9 percent who voted for him in that C-PAC poll in Washington a couple of weeks ago, tying him for 8th place with Sarah Palin in the conservative Republicans’ choice for the 2016 president nomination.

So now, applying Jindal’s own criteria to his latest poll numbers, it appears that he’s out and we’re going to have to appoint a charter governor for Louisiana to replace the current failing administration.

But who to get? Hmm, that’s a tough question. Perhaps some graduate of a five-week crash course offered by Govern for America or the Ely Board Academy which, we’re told, offers a six-weekend course over a 10-month period to qualify to serve as governor. Either way, the incoming governor would not be held accountable and would not have to be certified. That’s a radical departure from the norm, for anyone can readily see that Jindal is certainly certifiable.

The only fair way is to do it the way the Department of Education does it: take applications from those wishing to apply for the position of charter governor.

We will restrict the candidates to characters of popular movies and television shows. Here are a few candidates we’ve come up with provide you with a little inspiration:

• Carl Spackler (Bill Murray’s character in the movie Caddyshack);

• Randall Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest);

• Barney Fife (though, in truth, the Don Knotts character from The Andy Griffith Show, on the few occasions he wore his serge suit on the show, was both spiffier and beefier than Jindal);

• Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci, in My Cousin Vinny);

• Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro, in Taxi Driver);

• Capt. Clarence Oveur (Peter Graves, in Airplane!—in deference to a very good friend of ours);

• Gov. William J. Lepetomane (Mel Brooks, in Blazing Saddles);

• Felix Unger (Jack Lemmon, in the movie version of The Odd Couple or Tony Randall, in the TV series);

• Col. Frank Burns (Robert Duvall, in the movie version of M*A*S*H or Larry Linville, from the TV series);

• Police Chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand, in Fargo);

• Eunice Burns (Madeline Kahn, in What’s Up Doc?);

• The Warden (Strother Martin, in Cool Hand Luke—He was never given a name in the movie);

• Gov. Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford, in All the King’s Men—the thinly disguised story of Huey Long);

• Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton, in All in the Family);

• John “Bluto” Blutarsky (John Belushi, in Animal House);

• Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase, in National Lampoon’s Family Vacation).

As bonus points, we will even accept nominations for a movie or TV show that best epitomizes or exemplifies the Jindal administration.

Some ideas to get you started:

• Plan Nine from Outer Space (The consensus worst movie ever made: aka the Jindal tax plan);

• Terror of Tiny Town (You just have to see this one to draw the obvious comparison);

• Ishtar (See Plan Nine);

• Waterworld (aka Fishtar; See Plan Nine and Ishtar);

• Gilligan’s Island (Stranded, marooned, lost, hopeless; all apt terms, but who would play Ginger?)

• Green Acres (The only intelligent character on the show was Arnold the Pig, but we can’t find anyone in the administration with the IQ to play his part);

• Little Big Man (Included only by virtue of the title).

So get those nominations in. The winner gets 20 very special Jindal business cards that are certain to be a hit at any gathering of state employees.

Posted in Politics | 24 Comments »

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