Between The Lines

Landrieu elicits lucre as salve, ploy, or electoral gimmick?

2009-11-21T14:35:00.000-06:00

So Sen. Mary Landrieu, stating she was “proud” to have wangled at least $100 million to give to the state in extra Medicaid reimburse for one year (2011) in the monstrous health care bill sponsored in the Senate, said she would vote to override any attempt to prevent brining up the bill for action. What does this mean?

By the Democrat voting for allowing the bill that would hike costs, add to the deficit, and probably reduce the quality of care to move forward, the process stays alive as a whole if all other non-Republican senators join her. Failure to do so would not definitively have killed the effort, but at the least would have presented a challenging obstacle for Democrats trying to ram it through as quickly as possible.

Every slowing of the bill, however, is akin to weakening its chances. Polls show a majority of Americans grasp the basic facts of Democrat bills to change health care in terms of impact on costs and care, and a smaller majority opposes it. Knowledge about them only will increase in time, and thereby the majority against it. As Congressional elections loom closer, the electorate will have a greater capacity to remember them and who supported them which some Democrats wish to avoid. While the Democrat leadership has taken on a scorched-earth approach to the matter – regardless of how many seats they lose in 2010 and beyond over their kind of reform, they’ll do it because it can more securely lock liberalism into public policy in the long run – some individual Democrats want to preserve their careers and enough of them will become discouraged at supporting these kinds of bills as time passes to prevent their success.

Landrieu’s choice decreases the potential unfavorable impact of the clock ticking on the chances of these damaging changes Democrats want to make passing. At the same time, it has to be remembered that there are many hurdles to overcome where Landrieu could help defeat version of this. Her most likely points of contention would be over whether public funding of abortion would occur and if Louisiana would be forced into letting a government-run “public option” health care plan operate.

But the fact is, even without these things, it would take a horrible bill and make it only a little less horrible. For Landrieu to support something like that would be a dereliction of duty to do what is best for Louisiana and America. All the set-aside money for the state cannot obliterate this truth, illuminating the craven aspect of Landrieu which should not salve her conscience, if she really does support a slightly less obnoxious version. Let us not hope that was her motivation in being coy about the vote to proceed.

Much better would be if Landrieu played hard-to-get because she really, in the end, wishes to vote against the bill, even with the bonus. Knowing she could draw out the process to help that, her (under this assumption) bluffing could make her look better (or perhaps to assist separately or as well the future political career of brother Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu) to the state’s voters, even if with defeat the state did not get the money this way. Then she could have it both ways: demonstrating she can funnel money to the state yet voting against a bill a solid majority of Louisianans do not like.

Unfortunately, chances are the deal she made to proceed happened because she is a shrewd true believer in the stupidity behind the bill, and she will remain bought throughout the process. Selling out somebody for pieces of lucre is not new in history; let’s only hope her conscience reminds her of such before she assists in inflicting degradation and suffering on the American people.

Court wrongly usurps power to shift flood damage blame

2009-11-19T15:15:00.000-06:00

Several interesting ramifications emerge from the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Stanwood Duval to award some plaintiffs damages, against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who argued improper maintenance of the now-closed Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet channel made the government liable for destructions from flooding incident to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

First, this is an exercise in raw judicial activism. By its nature, judicial activism, which mandates that judges use their own judicial philosophies in saying what the law and Constitution mean rather than confining themselves to the meanings found strictly within the laws or Constitution, places democratically unaccountable and inexpert individuals – judges – in the role of policy-makers. It ignores the possibility that more expertise in policy matters may be found among democratically elected and accountable officials than those who are not.

From this extends three implications. One, this decisions means a policy-maker without expertise is making a policy decision that requires it, making questionable the value of such a decision. So be it, but that also would apply to (most) members of Congress who are democratically accountable because they made the original policy decision to fund projects like MR-GO, so what’s the difference in making their policy-making decisions legitimate? Well, two, precisely because they are held accountable for their decisions through elections and the Constitution explicitly lists policy-making (by giving Congress sole lawmaking power) as a function of this branch of government, which it significantly withholds from the judiciary, So, third, since this really was a matter of policy, unless it can be proven Congress itself deliberately wanted to underfund the Corps in these matters, to design MR-GO intentionally to cause flooding, etc., with the intent of triggering disaster, you cannot argue, as Duval does, that this is more than just an honest policy mistake made by Congress through its implementation by the Corps. Not only that, but the court should not have the power in the first place to render such a judgment.

Second, whether this decision holds up is questionable. Specifically, Duval as a jurist has a history of creativity in his decisions that assigns government all sorts of sinister motives upon which higher courts have frowned. For example, years ago Duval ordered the state to stop its efforts to produce a “Choose Life” vanity license plate because he claimed it promoted private speech. That view eventually was rejected by both the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and Supreme Court. In addition, judges are human and being that the case was tried in New Orleans, judges located in different areas that make up the 5th Circuit might have less emotion clouding their decisions, and certainly that would be the case at the Supreme Court level. In other words, higher courts likely are to take a less expansive view of government responsibility and with greater clarity decide the case than did Duval.

Third … that is, if the case is appealed which would pose a political problem for Pres. Barack Obama and his party leadership that controls, for now, the Democrat Congress. Obama and Democrats ran on the unsustainable notion that somehow the city and state were “neglected” by former Pres. George W. Bush and a Congress at the time of the disaster controlled by Republicans, despite the hundreds of billions of dollars that poured into the state which mostly went to the New Orleans area. If the Obama Administration challenges this decision because the federal government could be on the hook for billions of dollars at a time when Obama and Democrats are engaged in deficit spending well beyond levels in any peacetime period in the country’s history and are getting politically pounded for it, this will make him look (on yet another matter) mendacious and no different from the (mistaken) impression of the Bush Administration.

Fourth, the decision also ratifies the abrogation of personal responsibility and the socialization of risk. Chances are, none of these plaintiffs or others lined up to sue the federal government had any flood insurance. While it is unfortunate that so much suffering came as a result of the disasters, a little common sense would have helped out on the back end of it: if you live below sea level, no matter how supposedly invulnerable your levees are, you buy flood insurance (and it’s cheap, too because, guess what, taxpayers from all over the country, few of whom live in flood zones, at present heavily subsidize it). Had many people living in the areas below sea level not bought flood insurance, there would have been no need to go suing the government to collect money to rebuild. The only reason they shouldn’t be held accountable for a bad choice that they expect others to pay for was the federal government was too stupid to use common sense itself in drawing up flood maps that didn’t order most people having mortgaged property to buy it.

Fifth, even if we buy the argument that the federal government is responsible, to foist the entire blame on it ignores the historical record. The state and some local governments have more culpability in creating these conditions, yet none of that appears to be taken into consideration adequately in assigning sole responsibility to the federal government.

Finally, if the decision were to stand, how would this affect the state’s efforts in compensating for losses? Probably most of the people eligible to sue if this decision held took advantage of and got state money to rebuild. Does the award, or at least some portion of it, flow to the state to reimburse it? How much goes additionally to plaintiffs? This would create a bureaucratic and expensive nightmare, to be borne by the state in terms of aggravation and the national taxpayer in terms of administrative costs beyond their money going for compensation.

Hopefully, higher courts will have a better understanding of the issues and the judiciary’s place in our system of government and overturn this ruling. That may inconvenience some, but maintaining the integrity inherent to notions of who is accountable and responsible and which part of government is intellectually able and constitutionally authorized to make such decisions makes that worth it.

Panel opens up Pandora's box for Jindal hospital plans

2009-11-18T11:05:00.001-06:00

You pay your money and you take your chances, a sentiment reaffirmed to the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration when the Commission on Streamlining Government brought up the contentious issue of whether to build a new hospital complex for the Medical Center of Louisiana-New Orleans.

The Administration’s main purpose in having the Commission, as noted, is to use it as a vehicle to build political support for its redesign of government which has as part of it some controversial matters that challenge existing power structures within state government. Having the Commission endorse Jindal’s views would make some of his desires politically possible in the face of entrenched opposition.

But the shoe got put on the foot when the Commission dove into the matter of rebuilding “Big Charity,” the public hospital now run by the Louisiana State University System that was rendered inoperable in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Original plans by former Gov. Kathleen Blanco set to create a palatial new facility, even as the area had excess hospital capacity that was only going to increase through depopulation. Jindal scaled back those plans somewhat.

However, ignored by the state was the realistic alternative of taking the old building structure and remodeling it. A study paid for by historic preservationists showed this to be a considerably cheaper option, although a study by the LSU System claimed a new building would be more cost effective. Heretofore, the state has accepted the LSU line.

Looking for ways to save the state money as forecasted budget deficits could be in the $2-3 billion range in the next two fiscal years, the Commission advocated what normally is an idea that merely puts off hard decisions, delays matters, and costs more money – do another study. Yet in this instance such a position is justified. Members were right to note that no study unconnected to advocates of one choice or the other has been completed and, if the preservationists’ numbers are the most accurate, around a quarter of billion dollars are at stake and could be saved. For that amount of money, a little more time and expense is cost effective.

Perhaps even more controversially, the motion passing that addressed this issue included review of the LSU System business plan for operating the new facility. At the time it was produced, many (including the Jindal Administration in its conclusion to build a smaller facility) questioned the assumptions behind it that appeared to justify the presence of a larger facility. If a review of the plan showed even at its reduced level too many beds would exist to serve the market and operate it without large losses, this might argue in favor of renovation – although it also could become justification for a new but even smaller Big Charity that might make that plan more cost effective relative to renovation.

After the Commission reports by Dec. 15, then it’s up to the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget to carve out the relatively small amount of money in short order as the recommendation wants the study completed by the beginning of the next regular legislative session in late March. Whether that happens will indicate how much power the Jindal Administration is able or willing to exercise on the matter if it truly is closed-minded about ramming through a hospital of questionably-needed size in this era of tight budgets.

BESE must improve vetting of education contracts

2009-11-17T11:00:00.000-06:00

Louisiana Treasurer John Kennedy, as part of his duties being on the Commission for Streamlining Government, made a good observation about the necessity of the dollar amount of contracts being let by the state’s Department of Education. However, the situation is more complex than many realize for the possibilities of savings in this area.

Kennedy observed that since 2005 $615 million of these have gone out, with $130 million of that in the most recent year available, fiscal year 2009. (Note that 36 percent of this entire amount went to the entity that deals with standardized testing of state pupils.) One would hope that when they go out, they would go for classroom purposes, or at least for activities related to instruction and its quality, but trawling through the 2008-09 list shows not all of them seem to do so. Some that don’t meet this criterion do seem necessary, such as for paying litigation, architects, medical, etc. But of the remaining of the 1,009 listed, from their titles it appears that only 46 obvious cases totaling $773,000 existed that did not really add anything potentially to classroom performance.

(This doesn't include many which appeared related to these matters, but seem rather inefficient. Does the state really have to spend approaching $200,000 to enhance the chances of candidates “of being successful in achieving national board certification and aid in future recruiting?” Or spend over $30,000 on the “Cecil J. Picard Educator Excellence Symposium?” Or over $20,000 on presenters at the “Gifted at Center Stage: Building a World-Class Education System” conference?)

While the purposes of some monies listed may appear necessary, the actual distribution of them seems does questionable at times. For example, is there not a better process of providing after-school tutoring than paying over five dozen entities, just about all of them churches, almost $700,000 to do so? Or why does the Urban League of Greater New Orleans get $250,000 to develop materials for parents to use in “school choice,” meaning whether to send their child to a traditional school or an alternative like a charter school or even private school through the state’s quasi-voucher program, when its parent the National Urban League in the past has opposed especially vouchers (even as a few local chapters support them)? Or why pay $579,700 to about a dozen entities to lead committees on high school redesign, when the CSG itself is paying less than $50,000 (raised privately) for similar direction in reviewing all state spending?

It’s also important to note that almost $15 million was spent on items apparently mandated by the federal government, often using federal dollars – much of which seems to go to what many would describe as classic “pork barrel” items. Thus, the state has no choice on these in terms of expenditures, although perhaps in the choice of contractor, and there seemed to be millions of dollars more in other items on the list that were not clearly designated for this purpose but are for required federal government programs and that state dollars.

Finally, when searching for accountability for all of this, ultimately it would extend to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and secondarily to the Legislature. This is because BESE controls the money to disburse, but the Legislature provides the bulk of it through the Minimum Program Foundation formula the product of which it only can accept or refuse from BESE. Further, the Department, overseen by BESE, controls the applying, reception, and spending of federal grants. Thus, it is hyperbolic and largely inaccurate to claim, as one normally prescient observer does, that “over $130 Million was handed out to individuals [sic] presumably favored by The Rhodes Scholar-in-chief” – Gov. Bobby Jindal’s only real control over this is through his three appointments to BESE who constitute a minority of BESE of which its eight other members are elected.

Legislators may be more to blame by steering money to nongovernmental organizations such as those listed above, and others, by informal lobbying of the Department of Education. (And other state officials may be to blame here as well – what’s up with Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu’s office getting a contract around a half million dollars?) With the Legislature’s leverage limited because of its very indirect control over federal grant disbursal and the MFP procedures, and perhaps with it lacking any real will to do so, it’s up to BESE to practice greater accountability in terms of dollars spent and by ensuring the best contracting entities are found to fulfill the purpose of the arrangements. In the final analysis, the savings through lopping off the unnecessary and in awarding to more efficient providers may be just a small portion of the overall contracting, but every little bit helps in these times of state fiscal difficulty.

Supporters must keep UNO athletics at highest level

2009-11-16T08:35:00.000-06:00

It would be tragic if the University of New Orleans had to step down in the National Collegiate Athletics Association, from NCAA Division I to Division III, given the school’s size and sports history.

Chancellor Tim Ryan last week served notice the school was looking at this possibility in the wake of continuing budget shortages as a dual consequence of the state’s rough budget picture that forces a disproportionate amount of cuts onto higher education and from the continued lingering aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The latter damaged the campus and has reduced enrollment about 30 percent for the university that in the past had about 80 percent of its student body from the metropolitan New Orleans area that still is down around 150,000 in population since then.

It has added up to a predicted annual shortfall in the athletic department of $3 million, or about half of the budget already being cut slack with utilizing a bureaucratic assist. The NCAA has allowed UNO to operate on a waiver from having it keep the 15 sports necessary to enjoy DI status, letting provide only nine. This expires in two years, with the DIII requirement being only 12 sports.

While in the past 25 years the general trend has been for schools to move up in classification, a few have moved down; in fact, Shreveport’s Centenary College is joining in the latter move to be completed in 2012. But like Centenary, most of those moving down are smaller, private schools. The last time a larger, public institution chose this course was Brooklyn College over a decade ago. As it is, UNO would be the 18th largest public university in the country at its current enrollment not to play in Division I (at its all-time high, 2004, enrollment, it would have been the sixth largest).

More galling is the fact that, in several sports, UNO regularly competes well in DI and has a recent history of success in baseball and men’s basketball. UNO’s golden era for baseball was from the early 1980s to early 1990s with a College World Series appearance, regular NCAA tournament participations, and some All-America players. In basketball, that golden era lasted from the late 1980s to late 1990s with a few NCAA tournament appearances, rankings in the Top 25, and some All-America players. While the basketball team is a dozen years removed from its last tournament appearance, as recently as last year the Privateer baseball team was in the tournament.

Even during the decade or so that UNO was a Division II school, it made a significant mark. The only national championships UNO has won at any level came courtesy of the men’s golf team, and the men’s basketball team lost a two-point heartbreaker in the 1975 DII championship. Unlike almost every other school that has moved down where lack of competitiveness was as much if not more responsible than monetary needs as the reasons, inability to compete satisfactorily has nothing to do with this. It would be a shame for a school to move down when some of its teams clearly have no problems competing at the highest level, and that has a history of some success – some more prominent schools in size or reputation never have tasted any NCAA postseason in men’s basketball or baseball.

However, the stark reality is that the state cannot save DI sports at UNO, so if it’s going to happen, supporters must step up. If alumni have money left over after donating for academics, it should go to athletics. Anybody near enough to campus with the time and resources should attend athletic events. It would be a waste for the school to be unable to live up to the record it has set and the potential it promises in finding it must compete at a level lower than which it is capable.

Bond rejection reminds govt to focus only on necessary

2009-11-15T12:20:00.001-06:00

While elections always serve up information about the state of the electorate at the time of them, when they produce seeming disparate results produce the most insightful lessons.

Last Saturday, East Baton Rouge voters decisively rejected a $901 million bond package that would have been paid for by increased taxes. This came on the heels last year of the rejection of another similar package, about $100 million higher, despite the fact that the latest version had picked up many allies in the business community. The measure contained about three-fifths expense on public safety and infrastructure, and the rest on parking garages, venue improvements, but most on a recreational zone called Alive. Proponents argued that the infrastructure changes were needed, and that the other projects would enhance the quality of life in Baton Rouge.

Despite its reduced cost (even with the same 9.9 mills property and 0.5 cent sales tax increases), so-called “establishment” support of the issue, and a great spending disparity in favor of it during campaigning, 64 percent of the electorate rejected it, whereas last year’s issue lost with only 51 percent of the vote. In part this was due to more than 100,000 fewer voters participating in this stand-alone election in contrast to the presidential election held in conjunction with last year’s vote – in a parish that gave the Democrat ticket a slight majority of the vote indicating that the electorate this time compared to last was disproportionately composed of those who pay more in sales and property taxes. Also, economic conditions have gotten worse since then, with no trend to suggest things will improve any time soon.

Outspoken critics pointed to the inclusion of the Alive project as their reason to vote against. Simply, they did not want taxes to go to fund something that was more like a business venture that should be supported from the private sector which had no guarantee of success. Some on the Metropolitan Council had sensed this and wanted the Alive portion dealt with separately, but it stayed on and resisted another attempt to be sliced off after concerns about legal title to the property it was to occupy surfaced.

Another much less publicized simultaneous pair of elections confirmed this sentiment. Two parish crime-prevention districts voted, one case to establish and in the other to increase, annual fees to pay for extra patrols of their neighborhoods, the requests passing handily. This would indicate that Mayor-President Kip Holden made a tactical error insisting, for which he lobbied hard, keeping Alive as part of the package in this year – no doubt because he knew its government-as-economic-growth-engine never would pass on its own.

But neither did it pass with the other improvements driving the train under the very favorable conditions of last year, and thereby Baton Rouge continues to lack the ability to make significant infrastructure and public safety improvements and any such change to that situation now years away. With these elections lies a lesson.

Simply, especially in these more difficult economic times, people want government to focus on doing the things it is best equipped to do – build roads, drainage, public safety complexes, and provide that public safety – and not to take additional monies out of people’s pockets to do what it does badly. Enough of the citizenry recognizes Baton Rouge will improve in quality of life only when people are allowed to keep more of what they earn and utilize it in their own ways through the market to signal what they deem to enhance that – not to have government choose the means of improvement and to oversee it.

It is an enduring lesson but one that the believers in government economic intervention and their sycophants never learn. They just got a reminder of it in East Baton Rouge Parish, and it is better for that.

More stringent TOPS best idea yet from higher education

2009-11-12T15:35:00.000-06:00

Comments made by Louisiana State University Agricultural and Mechanical University (that is, the Baton Rouge-based campus) Chancellor Michael Martin should provoke a lot of interest not only because of their sensibility in dealing with Louisiana’s looming budget crisis, but also as they open an interesting window into some of the internal politics going on with how the higher education approaches dealing with the impending fiscal difficulties of the state.

Martin, speaking at a university forum, addressed LSU’s potential responses to anticipated, potentially large, cuts coming his school’s way. Because of a revenue-generation decline and inability to curb state spending, given the constitutional and legal fiscal status of the budgeting process, in dollar terms higher education is likely to face the second-largest cut absolutely, but the highest in relative terms, in next year’s state budget.

The best thing to do about this would be to review the nearly 650 dedicated funds in state government that are constitutionally or legally prevented from being cut more than a pittance without extraordinarily maneuvers, whose dedications may bear little resemblance to actual objective needs for state spending, and make appropriate changes to reflect genuine priorities. But the Legislature whiffed on a procedure to do just this earlier this year.

It also has choked on giving more authority to universities to raise their tuition levels, although in recent years a modified proposal passed to allow school to make a series of periodic, small hikes on their own. Otherwise, any such increases ridiculously must receive two-thirds support in the Legislature. This hangover from the state’s populist past needlessly interferes with market forces, not trusting that the market will create a situation that allows universities to fund themselves at a level they feel adequate given the amount of students they would be able to attract at that level of tuition.

Recently, the justification accompanying this continued ability for the Legislature to interfere in tuition rates acquired new life through the creation of the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, which awards scholarships worth the highest tuition amount (LSU’s, in essence) to (mostly) Louisiana high school graduates that achieve certain benchmarks. It has been argued that, because the TOPS amount of money spent is tied into tuition, that the Legislature should have some fairly stringent control over tuition.

Martin’s comments were interesting here, because he argued the standards to qualify for TOPS, achieving certain scores on a standardized test and passing a core curriculum in high school, should be increased. Refreshingly recognizing that this is a scholarship program which implies academic excellence, this view runs counter to the current conceptualization of it as, frankly, a semi-entitlement program since, to be honest, its standards are so low. Presently, for the in-state graduate, on the American College Test only a score of 20 is necessary, well below the national average. Further, only minimal academic performance (such as a low 2.3 for the first 48 hours, 2.5 Grade Point Average – B-/C+ – from there) is required to maintain the typical award at a four-year university.

When mediocrity is being rewarded, it’s hard to argue that excellence is being encouraged. Raising standards for the program would encourage improved high school performance – sending a ripple effect throughout all of secondary and elementary education – not just better performance once in college and on TOPS. It also would discourage those not that serious about college from wasting their time and taxpayer dollars; some students lacking direction in life currently go to college because TOPS will pay for them to drift there and subsequently flunk out.

Of course, with fewer students qualifying, the state would spend less than the $130 million or so currently budgeted to TOPS, and less demand would wash over Louisiana public institutions – already overfunded and maldistributed in some ways – but the payoff might be taking the tens of millions of dollars saved and putting it back into the universities. And it’s not really that courageous of a statement by Martin, in the sense that LSU already has admission standards for incoming freshmen at an undemanding but higher level than the basic TOPS award, so it would lose few students from an increase up to its admissions levels.

However, most interestingly, Martin’s suggestion not only runs counter to the inane opinion of his boss, LSU System President John Lombardi, that TOPS become a need-based program, but also implicitly bucked the LSU System position that admission standards should not be raised. Elevating TOPS requirements would have the same effect as a rise in admissions standards across the higher education system, producing fewer enrollees because some no longer would qualify. That Martin publicly contradicts Lombardi and gets away with it can mean just one of two things, that Lombardi is on slippery ground with his employers, the LSU Board of Supervisors, or the System recognizes that Lombardi’s position and perhaps other controversial statements of his regarding the funding of higher education have become non-starters so Martin’s now becomes a fallback position.

The latter seems to be the case as state government appears to be approaching a consensus on raising admissions standards at schools that offer degrees beyond the associates’. Regardless of the motive, Martin’s suggestion is the best heard from higher education leadership to date, and coupled with a rise in admission standards and the consolidation leading to cost-saving efficiency of the several governance boards in Louisiana higher education are requisite first steps to creating more efficient higher education delivery in the state, especially vital to countering the pernicious effects of future budgetary woes.

Bad vote by Cao not made for electoral preservation

2009-11-11T08:35:00.001-06:00

The problem for Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao simply was political dynamics had put him into a no-win situation, a reality becoming more apparent as time puts distance into his vote for the disastrous H.R. 3962. But he probably knew that, and that’s why he voted as he did.

This bill, which will lower the quality of health care provision in America in exchange for higher premiums, higher taxes, and with incentives to bring under direct control of the government the sixth of the American economy it represents, barely passed with Cao being the only Republican to vote for it (although his was not the crucial vote.) Indeed, that he voted at the very end indicates he wanted to make sure his would not be the decisive vote in its passage.

Some have argued that this sequence of events and result shows political calculations mainly drove Cao’s decision-making: he needed to vote for it to please enough constituents in his district with about two-thirds Democrats, and about one-half black Democrats. To date his announced opponents, both black Democrat state legislators, have been critical of his votes against the Democrat agenda, particularly concerning the spending bill that massively increased the deficit while unemployment surged after its passage. This vote could inoculate him enough against such criticism to give him a chance to win, it has been argued.

But that view disregards reality. The analytic process is easy enough to understand: it was assumed voting for it would gain more votes than would be lost, while voting against it merely would keep votes but lose others. However, the problem with the calculus of this is it probably works in reverse: the affirmative vote would attract fewer supporters that it would lose present supporters, with that difference probably still greater than votes he would lose by voting negatively.

The validity of this latter assessment already has received confirmation in canceled fundraisers on his behalf and requests for return of donations. It’s not that he will be denounced by Republicans or the party, just that any enthusiasm for his reelection will wither away. Why work for or even vote for somebody who went against you on the most important issue of this Congress? Any Democrat in the seat would have done the same, so what’s the difference if it’s Cao or somebody else in there?

Cao will need a lot of voluntary activism and funds to swim against a huge tide for reelection. Think of the typical Democrat in the district: for many, no matter how Cao voted on anything they’ll never vote for him because they have alternative candidates who will vote just as they would like and who are more “representative” of them (i.e., black Democrats) than is Cao. Only through energetic campaigning can he swing enough Democrat moderates, independents, and Republicans, who will have to turn out at significantly higher numbers than liberal Democrats behind their eventual nominee, to win.

Yet as a result of this vote, that no longer is possible. The enthusiasm necessary to create this kind of turnout evaporated with it. And Cao seems to have known this himself when he spoke of making the vote saying he recognized it would “probably be the death of my political career.” Knowing he was only slightly less unlikely to win by opposing than by supporting, and that his vote would not be crucial, he chose to support because that’s what he thought was best for people in his district – and maybe even of the whole state, if rumors that he was able to get assent to increase the federal government’s contribution to Louisiana’s Medicaid costs from Democrats are true.

So it’s doubtful that Cao’s decision was based on boosting his reelection chances. Rather, he did what he thought was best for his neck of the woods. In larger sense, isolated from the fact that his vote didn’t make any difference (and even if Democrats try to use it as a propaganda ploy the very emphasis they place on it shows they know how weak a tool it is; otherwise, why even bring it up?), it was the wrong decision for the good of the country, but that does not mean it was made in electoral self-interest.

Recommendation may keep education integrity intact

2009-11-10T08:20:00.001-06:00

It appears that Louisiana is about to take the correct step in resolving the difficulties posed by the new “career” diploma, but, as is typical, resolution of the details will be the most important step.

The High School Redesign Committee overwhelmingly passed a recommendation to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education that students pursuing this diploma, only recently introduced which requires a less-rigorous curriculum than the “traditional” diploma, pass the same exit exam as other students. Passage of this test is required for graduation.

Rather, passage of choices from among tests is required, as the nature of the exit exam process is about to change. The state’s Department of Education recently approved moving away from the Graduate Exit Exam, which compiled questions from the areas of English, mathematics, social studies, and the sciences and of which students had to pass the first two areas and one of the other two. Now instead, what are more properly termed “end of course” exams will be administered. They will mandate passage of Algebra I or geometry, English 2 or English 3, and of biology or American History.

This makes some sense as it would allow for later taking of the exams in a student’s career (some were taking the GEE as early as their sophomore years) to allow for more time to acquire knowledge and may create better alignment of material learned and tested. However, BESE must be wary that the overall rigor present in the GEE not be decreased in the formulation of these new exams. In other words, if the GEE had math questions beyond Algebra I and geometry now these would be eliminated and the reduced rigor, if that applies overall across all subject areas tests, would produce a disservice to the students and the state.

Hopefully, this will not be the case. If so, the new diploma will become a benign development and not reduce standards as many feared its initiation would bring. While it still may handicap students that pursue it in that will not prepare them for college who then later in life may want to go to college, whatever enhanced vocational training it may provide might outweigh that cost. BESE needs to adopt this recommendation.

"Obama Lite" Walker reaps what he, Council sowed

2009-11-09T11:00:00.000-06:00

The foremost question on the minds of Bossier City’s citizens is, what did Mayor Lo Walker know and when did he know it?

Drained of his usual pompous arrogance, last month the chastened Walker announced that the city heading into the end of its budget year was short $6.5 million, over 10 percent of its total spending, and would lay off immediately almost 15 percent of its workforce. The mayor, reelected unopposed in April, who once told observers that if they didn’t like this “conservative” budget they could vote against him, said now after the elections had come and gone that it was his fault alone, all due to some surprising fiscal “discovery.”

And if you believe this, give me $35 million of the city’s money and I’ll get you an office building that will attract the Air Force’s Cyber Command. None of this should have been a surprise to Walker or anybody in the city government. Every city keeps regular, usually monthly, tabs on its revenue intake, primarily on sales taxes which are remitted almost constantly. Bossier City’s finance department knew exactly what was going on from the beginning of the year. The only question is when did the trend become unmistakable?

Chances are, Walker knew of it months ago and irresponsibly kept hoping against hope that something would happen to turn it around – royalty checks, money from Washington, whatever – in order to cover for years of his incompetent fiscal management in office and prior to that as city chief administrative officer. Had he taken his medicine sooner he could have stopped the bleeding much earlier with less disruption to the city. Only with upcoming budget considerations was his hand forced, with his lack of leadership providing the worst possible outcome. This week he unveils his response to his self-made crisis by submitting the city's 2010 budget.

Nor is Walker’s plea that he alone be held responsible credible. The see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil City Council, conditioned over the years not to think for itself save in terms of how each member can make himself look like a big fish in a small pond, apparently showed no initiative, no curiosity about the city’s finances even as the country’s deteriorating economic condition was apparent over a year ago. The National League of Cities then reported a sharp decline in the typical municipality’s revenue stream, but apparently the returning members of the Council were too busy trying to get themselves reelected than pay attention to their jobs and ask the relevant questions. Indeed, they signed onto a budget that depended on a 3.4 percent increase in sales tax collections as the recession intensified.

Of course, both branches together sowed the seeds of this train wreck years ago with their agreements to spend on impractical capital projects -- $56.5 million on a money-losing arena, $21 million on a parking garage gift for a private developer, $35 million on a high-tech office building that has little chance of paying itself back for decades being the main culprits. These dollars alone if invested could have provided the safety net needed for hard times – as was argued often in this space and in other places.

But of more consequence is that Bossier City, whose leaders like to count coup on Shreveport by asserting the city is better managed, in per capita terms actually has far more debt than Shreveport. According to the city’s 2008 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, it stands at a shocking $317 million – compare this to the similar-sized cities of Monroe at $168 million, Alexandria at $73 million, Lake Charles at $60 million, and Kenner at $58 million – and most of it accumulated in the past few years. The reason why the city chronically has had to dip into reserve funds in recent budgets is because it needs to service and pay off this debt – which will cost in the $20-$25 million range annually for the next 15 years – and why it was unable to handle this current economic downturn, courtesy of these clowns in charge.

Investing the wasted money, or using it to defray roughly 40 percent of these outstanding bonds, even if altering the budget in no other way would have averted this crisis. But showing off the baubles while puffing out their chests was more important to these nimrods and makes cries from one that they were “deceived” ring a bit hollow and late.

Bossier City never has had, contrary to another negligent city official in this matter Finance Director Joe Buffington who constantly blames the citizenry for not paying enough taxes, a revenue problem. Blessed by ephemeral gaming revenues, instead these were squandered in a way that makes now blatantly evident something revealed long ago in this space – it has a tremendous spending problem.

This should never happen again. Section 3.09 of the city charter gives the Council the power to investigate, including compelling testimony under oath. Walker, Buffington, and others in the city need to be asked what they knew and when they knew it. If shown they sat on this information, the appropriate people like Buffington should be fired, and Walker subjected to a recall petition – if industrious citizens don’t start one on their own for which they are clearly entitled and justified. Such action would deter future inaction.

However, it won’t happen. Because it may well show Walker and the reelected members of the Council all knew about this negative trend during their campaigns prior to and after filing day, yet not one peep came from them about it. If that’s the case, it is a devastating dereliction of their duties adding yet another layer of incompetence and irresponsible behavior to their existing hoard based on their poor spending choices.

Walker’s density on the matter is to the point that he even failed to recognize the irony in a statement following his admission that part of the blame for the city’s fiscal condition is due to Pres. Barack Obama’s policies. Because given the similarities between Obama’s and Walker’s free-spending ways, if Walker was a brand of beer he’d be called “Obama Lite.”

Melancon keeps alive, Cao snuffs political career

2009-11-08T15:25:00.000-06:00

When the vote was called for H.R. 3962, a monstrous bill that will lower the quality of health care provision in America in exchange for higher premiums, higher taxes, and with incentives to bring under direct control of the government the sixth of the American economy it represents, two Louisiana representatives went into the chamber with their political careers on the line. One walked back out with it intact.

Rep. Charlie Melancon managed to get a pass from his mistress in the Democrat leadership to vote against the final version. The way it worked, the leadership lined up supporters with an eye towards letting those of their party in the most vulnerable electoral positions off the hook, with a hierarchical ranking. Since Melancon is not defending a district, but trying to knock off incumbent Sen. David Vitter, he probably had low priority and would be one of the first to be told to fall on his sword to venerate liberalism. Luckily for him, because 219 Democrats pledged or were ordered to support it and voted accordingly, with 218 needed to pass with a full chamber present, apparently enough slack existed for Melancon to have the leash taken off of him.

His bid for the Senate is a longshot, but he would have had absolutely no chance at winning it had the Democrat leadership not been able to round up a few extra bodies – including the newest member just narrowly elected from New York. Take him away, and that leaves one to spare – because one Republican only voted for the measure.

That was Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, and the move effectively ended his political career, at least as a Republican. It was top priority for the GOP to keep this mess from hurdling another obstacle, and while its leadership has cut a lot of slack for Cao in the knowledge he is a Republican representing one of the most Democrat districts in the country (courtesy of some hard work and former Rep. Bill Jefferson’s legal woes), this is one thing for which they would have been unable to give him a pass.

Expect GOP assistance to Cao to wane for next year’s election. At the very least, expect many potential small donors otherwise attracted to Cao’s great American success story and social conservatism not to open their wallets as a result for his reelection. His very slim chances of achieving this will get worse as a result, and the irony is this vote really will get him no political credit in the district as there are enough other things a black Democrat majority there can fault him on where this won’t compensate. If he voted to support this disaster by conscience, so be it; if he did so because of political calculation, that’s a really bad call.

Fortune has favored Melancon his entire federal office career, and he remains politically alive because of it on this occasion. Fortunate also in the dynamics that got him elected, Cao probably cannot make the same claim of political viability after this incident.

LA earmark procedures need changing, not elimination

2009-11-05T15:15:00.001-06:00

In its deliberations, an interesting request came from Treasurer John Kennedy for the Commission on Streamlining Government to pursue: the end of earmarks as we know them. Kennedy argued that a Commission recommendation be to eliminate them completely, arguing they allowed too much wasteful spending. Opponents countered that this approach threw the baby out with the bathwater. What’s the correct policy here?

First, note that this is a statutory matter, not a constitutional one. This is because the Louisiana Constitution grants the Legislature power to make appropriations (Art. X Sec. 7(D)(1)). Thus, to alter the Legislature’s ability to make such appropriations, it would take just a statute to do so.

Second, this would affect the theoretical principal-agent relationship between the state and local governments. In theory, local governments are entirely creatures of the state, created and assigned to perform certain tasks (with a few dozen of these entities granted extra latitude in doing so through the use of home rule charters). Thus, to surrender the power to transfer money to a local government for a purpose the legislature finds desirable impedes its ability to act as the principal.

Third, a conceptual distinction needs making between one kind of agent, local government, and another, the so-called “nongovernmental organization” (NGO) which is an entity not connected to government, probably nonprofit in nature, but seen as a vehicle by which to carry out state policy. That differentiation relies upon another theoretical principle in intergovernmental relations, known as “subsidiarity.” This idea argues that governmental functions should be performed at the lowest possible level, regardless whether the administering level has the power to do so independently. There is some history of subsidiarity concerning federal-state relations in America, exemplified by the (vastly de-emphasized) 10th Amendment.

However, there are 50 separate political cultures concerning state-local relations, and Louisiana’s history is weak in the practice of subsidiarity. For example, the state provides extensive services in health care through its charity hospital system, and with the majority of funding in elementary and secondary education. Especially since the 1930s, this notion has not played as strong of a role in policy-making as it has in many other states.

Applying these principles, some measure of earmark reform is possible and desirable by the Legislature. It would be too restrictive to completely ban the practice. It does serve the principal-agent purpose, and if there are “abuses,” the means have been implemented, at least by legislative rules, to ensure transparency which would assist in the real solution to earmarks considered wasteful, voter recognition of this and use of elections to replace offending legislators. (Not that this couldn’t be strengthened; the standards need to become a matter of law and perhaps made stricter.)

However, in regards to NGOs, the principal of subsidiarity would mandate that the state get out of that business. Since the NGOs are confined to local areas and perform functions assigned to local governments, those governments would be the appropriate ones by which to make such decisions. A statute limiting state earmarks to go only to local governments to perform tasks assigned to local government by Art. VI of the Constitution would be entirely appropriate, and should be pursued.

Democrats continue desperate tactics against Vitter

2009-11-04T12:00:00.001-06:00

You can tell that Louisiana Democrats do not think much of their chances to defeat incumbent Sen. David Vitter when they continue to reinforce their only line of attack on him based on the strategy that he’s “evil.”

With the issues preferences of the Louisiana public solidly on his side (as well as his continuing to hold comfortable poll leads a year out from the election), Democrats have engaged in the age-old strategy of coming up with as many implausible accusations as possible and throwing them all at Vitter, desperately hoping some mud sticks that portrays him as some insensitive weirdo. The latest effort was a coordinated attempt to make Vitter appear, in the words of the Democrat operative, to “support a law that tells a rape victim that she does not have the right to defend herself.”

(It is shameful that Democrats took advantage of a woman with personal tragedy to try to score political points this way. More to the point, if Democrats continue this line of inquiry, they’re going have to agree upon how they regard Vitter’s temperament. Because he said he committed a “serious sin” and his phone number turned up on a list of calls received by an escort agency, although he never has confirmed this, it is suggested by his political opponents that he paid for sexual intercourse. So Democrats are hinting that the same guy who allegedly paid for sex also would countenance rape by an unwillingness to let women defend themselves from it? Doesn’t seem consistent if he’d go so far as to pay for it, implying he would not want to prevent rape – if he didn’t think so, why pay for it?. But trying to figure out how and why liberals think the way they do has baffled even the wisest, keenest, and best-informed observers for decades.)

Of course, as Vitter himself pointed out, opposing the amendment (that would set a precedent in the government’s ability to intervene in internal corporate relations) doesn’t prevent a defense against alleged crimes, and the amendment isn’t even necessary since the courts recently ruled in a universal way that in those kinds of cases they would be adjudicated in the U.S. courts regardless of whether they occurred on U.S. soil or whatever contractual arrangements apply. All the useless amendment really did was to prevent arbitration from being used in any legal circumstance for Defense Department contractors, increasing business for trial lawyers and costs ultimately to be paid by the American public. As Vitter also noted, even the Pres. Barack Obama Administration opposed the amendment initially, although after its successful passage has expressed neutrality about it. The empty amendment will have nothing to do with the ability of employees to seek judicial relief.

Stunts like this, creating an issue that doesn’t exist, to date seem the only trick in Democrats’ bag against Vitter. Perhaps the foreknowledge that a huge wave is building against their candidates in the 2010 elections is driving them to such longshot tactics. If this is the best they can do, a year from now Vitter will have cruised to an easy reelection.

Whining appointee proposes setting back LA ethics law

2009-11-03T15:50:00.001-06:00

If there ever seemed to be a man unhappy in his voluntarily-accepted job, it is Frank Simoneaux, current chairman of Louisiana’s Board of Ethics. Proclaiming ethics administration has become “crippled”, dispassionate investigation reveals the only “crippling” threat comes from Simoneaux’s constant yawping in favor of interjecting more politics and favoritism and less professionalism into the process.

Naturally, Simoneaux complains, as he has for some time, about the changes brought a year ago to the functions of the commission he heads. Prior to his joining, the board’s powers were changed by removing its adjudication function, leaving only with the power to bring charges. Now administrative law judges decide, the products of which the law states must be accepted by the Board.

The advantages of such a system, considered best practice in the ethics administration literature, over the previous are legion and well-known: rather than have political appointees without any necessary legal training or following legal advice render decisions, randomly-chosen civil servants insulated from political forces with law degrees and specialized legal training in this area of law decide. It’s worth noting that, under the previous system, in no other place in Louisiana jurisprudence outside adjudication for civil servants did any one body have the power to be all of the prosecutor, judge, and jury.

How anybody could assert that the change could create such an inferior situation only can be explained by understanding the real motive behind it of the pursuit of power and privilege: bringing back some version of the previous situation would give more of that to appointees like Simoneaux. Wholesale revisions of the nature suggested by him clearly would not be in the public interest.

Regardless, this does not mean that some review and perhaps tinkering at the margins may not have any value. Simoneaux recommends that the Legislature request the Louisiana State Law Institute to review the current law. Why not? By the time the request is made next year and the Institute accomplishes it, there will have been enough time to render initial judgments on the workability of the new system.

Also, as suggested by the more temperate Board member Scott Schneider, perhaps the board could have more input on interpretations, rather than utilizing cases with actual controversy concerning the law. Finally, maybe the board could be given an expanded appellate role. Instead of mandating that it sign off on any decision, if a majority of it contests a ruling made by the initial three-judge panel, three of the four remaining judges could be impaneled to review the initial ruling.
But acquiescing to Simoneaux’s power-aggrandizing demands does not serve the goal of better ethics enforcement. If he’s so upset about all of this, perhaps he should heed the advice of House Speaker Jim Tucker and resign the post he thinks is so worthless. His expressed attitude indicates he won’t be missed by those interested in high ethical standards.

Current education course will reward LA and its children

2009-11-02T11:25:00.001-06:00

Louisiana is jumping into the fray for some helpful federal money for elementary and secondary education – no thanks to entrenched special interests which would rather protect their own interests than see improvement in education, and to others who have the wrong idea about quality education.

This week, the state invites public comment on its plan for the “Race to the Top” program which could provide as much as $250 million for intervention mostly in troubled schools, and some for underperforming schools. Part of the proposal calls for the potential expanded use of a successful tool used in the past, charter schools.

Of course, this irks the primary protectors of the current below-mediocre system, teachers’ unions, as the charter school concept allows for greater administrative freedom that makes it more difficult for inferior teachers not only to get continual pay raises, as has been the recent norm, but even to keep their jobs. Turning a school into a chartered one doesn’t always immediately bring results because better tools have to be used effectively and do not automatically improve matters, but the state’s track record with them has proven they do bring improvement beyond what the traditional model does.

This means representatives of unions, whose job is to siphon as much taxpayer money as possible to as many members that do as little work as possible, have to resort to disingenuous argumentation to try to criticize this strategy. Thus, you get one flack saying that charter schools generally fared worse than traditional public schools in the state’s most recent accountability report card, as a tactic to try to discourage use of them in the plan and in any other situation.

But this slyly tries to deflect from the truth. It is true that, when comparing all charter schools to all traditional schools, that traditional school scores on the state’s accountability system exceed those of charter schools.’ However, the reason why practically every charter school exists is because they were abysmal-performers taken over by the state for that reason then switched to charter status. When comparing progress of charter schools to traditional schools of the same kind, in fact (in New Orleans since most of the state’s charter schools are there) you see much greater improvement with the charter schools. No matter how much special interests try to deny or obfuscate it, charter schools have worked better than traditional schools in improving the worst-performing schools.

Yet putting greed ahead of children’s learning isn’t the only threat to the success of the proposal. With its recently-implemented “career” diploma that lowers rigor in the classroom, concerned observers wonder whether the state’s new “dummy diploma” will be used as a strike against the application, signaling the state lacks seriousness in its accountability efforts and favors making politicians look good by pumping up graduation rates at the expense of actual learning. This can be avoided by having the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education at its next meeting by requiring graduates under this diploma meet the same Graduate Exit Exam standards currently in place.

If BESE does this right thing and also ignores the background noise from defenders of the past struggling system, with its current accountability program Louisiana stands a great chance of getting rewarded for its progress and the steadfastness behind it. This will make many children in the state the biggest winners of all.

LA must investigate fund use for legality, efficiency's sake

2009-11-01T11:15:00.002-06:00

The greater the reform, the more time and effort it will take, and one step in the process of overhauling Louisiana’s incredibly inefficient long-term health care system should begin with discovering the proper disposition of investment gains from a key health care account.

Last week, the former head of the state’s Office of Citizens with Developmental Disabilities Bruce Blaney, who now runs a nonprofit agency, called for an investigation into the disbursal of funds from the state’s Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly. The account holds funds for eventual disbursement to Medicaid providers, and the balances before being used are invested.

Blaney claims that these earnings, in the neighborhood of $50 million annually, should be apportioned so that two-thirds go for nursing home reimbursement and a third to reimbursement of home- and community-based providers. Instead, he asserts that it all may have gone to nursing homes, a violation of an agreement between the state and federal government that was providing funds. Not only does the former head of the overseeing department, Health and Hospitals, confirm this split, but written documentation of it exists, in the form of a letter signed by both state and federal officials.

However, the current overseer of the fund insists that the agreement lapsed with the end of Gov. Mike Foster’s second term. But unless the letter specifically states this, that seems an incredulous interpretation. Blaney has asked the Legislature to look into this, arguing that perhaps $200 million or more was misallocated over the past several years as a result of this. At the very least, something like the Legislative Audit Advisory Council needs to investigate this before the end of the year.

Bolstering Blaney’s claim is that lobbying by the nursing home industry in 2003 tried to get a constitutional amendment adopted that would have dedicated all funds to the industry’s reimbursements. Why would this be necessary unless it was generally understood that the division as described in the letter was in place?

But if Legislature does not act, or it does and finds the facts do support Blaney’s view and it then does not provide redress, then those supporting the integrity of the agreement need to go further and bring suit against the state. Perhaps knowledge of this may focus the Legislature, which has a notorious bias on favor of institutionalizing care of the resource-poor elderly and of the disabled.

That bias is indicated already in many ways, such as by the extremely favorable funding formula that, years ago, was costing the state almost $100 million extra a year according to the Legislative Auditor (and which could be much higher now) which rather than changing, the Legislature subsequently put into law. Also, the Legislature has tolerated giving the industry $20 million a year for empty beds.

Some recent favorable signs have been coming that the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration, facing huge potential future budget deficits in part caused by Medicaid spending, is ready to stop the gravy train for institutions in the area of long-term care. It needs to add this resource to its efforts to increase efficient use of taxpayer dollars in this policy area, a move that likely will improve care and quality of life for program clients.

Despite legal ambiguity, added Census question needed

2009-10-29T15:10:00.000-05:00

While it might appear that the issue of whether the 2010 Census should count separately undocumented persons is something that just came up, in fact it is a perennial issue of long history that often is not well understood. Clarity is required to assess the reasonableness of this requirement and therefore how to proceed on the issue.

Despite Sen. David Vitter’s recent taking up of this cause, it’s been around a long time and others of his colleagues have been there before. As far back as prior to the 1980 census it had become part of the public policy debate. In 1988, members of Congress wanted to pass legislation requiring a separate count on all forms (since the middle of the 20th century only the “long form” included the question, which is sent to a smaller portion of households). They also threatened to file suit, but neither went anywhere. A number of academic studies came out in the 1990s and this decade estimating the impact of illegal immigrants on apportionment. In 2006, Sen. Conrad Burns raised the issue but was rebuffed. A number of stories early in this year appeared about it.

Why Vitter and others came to start offering amendments to bills that would deny funding for Census activities at such a late stage in the game, when they might have been more effective months ago and prevented Democrat counterparts such as Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu from using as an excuse the process was too far along and would cost millions of more dollars, is a mystery. Also complicating his fight is that in all likelihood it is unconstitutional. Some argue in the context of what the earliest Congress is believed to have understood that created the operating rules for the Census could be interpreted to mean only citizens could be counted, but it is a bit convoluted of an argument. The Fourteenth Amendment seems particularly damaging to that cause, when it pretty directly mandates that all “persons” be counted.

Nevertheless, having some kind of separate question even on the short form would be beneficial. If opponents do sue over the constitutionality of the undifferentiated count and actually succeed, the data would be already in the correct format to do, or redo, Congressional reapportionment. However, such an outcome seems unlikely given on the U.S. Supreme Court the four justices who are strict constructionists – Chief Justice John Roberts, and Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas – would be hard pressed to take such an activist interpretation of the document and all they would need is one more vote from more liberal judges some of whom secretly politically probably prefer the effort to fail.

Were that the case, only a constitutional amendment would suffice. Yet that could come prior to 2020, and the data would stand ready to fit. And for the future, a law such as that proposed two decades ago should be put into place so data could be ready for changes that could trigger and intra-Census reapportionment.

It will cost money to redo, but Democrats have blown hundreds of times the figure this year alone on spending that serves no real purpose and/or does not solve public policy problems. This relatively small amount accomplishes something far greater, ensuring that a cherished feature of our system of government reflect correctly intentions behind its founding, whether updated. Opposition to it therefore remains quizzical, and makes one wonder whether opponents like Landrieu believe in maintaining the system’s integrity.

Many misunderstand place, purpose of streamline panel

2009-10-28T12:15:00.000-05:00

So, Louisiana’s Commission on Streamlining Government is actually beginning to compile recommendations, which legally are due by Dec. 15. To understand what this will mean for public policy going forward over the next nine months, we must understand the purpose of its existence.

Some have invested too much importance in it. For example, the idea factory member Treasurer John Kennedy has become on it would make one think he’s running for governor in 2011 with this gig as a means of floating trial balloons for the future. This is not a bad thing, but it’s not realistic either to think the CSG was formed solely and only to ferret out novel, never-before-seen and creative ways of making state government more efficient.

At the same time, others have dismissed it without understanding its true importance. Those who say it is an exercise in hot air that seeks to substitute rhetoric for action (or to excuse inaction) in a sense also have misunderstood it by assuming its political value is diversionary. In fact, it is intended to be a complementary political tactic to build support for some inevitable proposals and in the process perhaps find some genuinely new approaches that can be added to that agenda.

This is why observing the role played by the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration in its unfolding is vital to comprehending its impact. Those testifying on the Administration’s behalf just didn’t wake up after the Commission formed and suddenly started to brainstorm on efficiency in their corners of government. The ideas they are pitching have been on the minds of Jindal and/or his key subordinates for some time, many of which challenge the existing bureaucratic system and special and political interests that support it.

Thus, the primary purpose of the Commission is to provide additional legitimacy to these propositions. Many Jindal would be bringing forward for consideration in next year’s legislative session regardless of whether such a body ever had existed. But with it in place, by getting its imprimatur on as many of the things it has discussed as possible, it makes it that more difficult for opponents to battle the forthcoming Jindal agenda. The bonus would be any new ideas Jindal likes being revealed in the process of deliberations, which he can add to that agenda.

Therefore, the valid way to understand the existence and purpose of the Commission is it’s there to increase political support for Jindal’s ideas that would be introduced next year regardless of its existence, maybe to find him new ones to add, and perhaps leading to the discard of some that the process may reveal face too much opposition. Of secondary importance is its place as an incubator of truly unknown stuff. None of this is a bad thing; airing out and vetting all these ideas contributes to the debate around the broader question for which the commission was formed.

As a result, its final decisions as far as recommendations are important only insofar as they reflect a rough estimate of political support for them. Some that get rejected nevertheless will appear in Jindal-sponsored bills next year, while others accepted will not be supported by Jindal and therefore are likely to go nowhere during the next session. Again, knowing that it is an instrument to aid certain ideas of efficiency primarily and secondarily serves as a blank slate for any such idea truly realizes its place and impact in Louisiana public policy-making in the near future.

Budget imperative finally threatens nursing home bonus

2009-10-27T15:20:00.000-05:00

It took a budget crisis, not any rational reassessment, to get Louisiana at least to consider getting on the right track in regards to long-term institutional health care. Regardless of the motive, the inefficient use of taxpayer dollars biased in favor of institutions finally looks like it is going to come under review, and actually be eliminated.

The looming 2010-11 fiscal year budget deficit, as part of the Commission on Streamlining Government exercise, much of which is being caused by the state’s largest expenditure of long-term care costs for the indigent and disabled, has prompted the state’s Department of Health and Hospitals to propose the single largest, by far, cut in spending with a $232 million reduction in reimbursements for hospitals and nursing homes in care – a position long advocated in this space. It would be an across-the-board rollback of rates to the 2006-07 levels, as Louisiana in ineligible to change eligibility standards due to its acceptance of federal money courtesy of the federal spending bill passed earlier this year.

Hospitals were nonplussed at their share of over $100 million to endure, and they may have a point. With Louisiana’s stubborn insistence on maintaining charity hospitals – whose days may be numbered if Washington Democrats succeed in cramming down an unwilling public’s throat any current budget-busting, quality-harming plans that will lead to nationalization of health care – many nongovernmental hospitals will be able to shunt Medicaid patients to these, so the state will not save much at all. This should be evaluated more closely by the Commission when it makes its recommendations by Dec. 15.

But the reduction in regards to nursing homes is very welcome, appropriate, and long overdue. For decades the industry has received special funding privileges, writing into law things such as a case-mix methodology that was costing the state five years ago almost $100 million needlessly according to the Legislative Auditor, and $20 million a year funding for empty beds. Therefore, its estimated $100 million cut merely eliminates this unfair advantage.

Louisiana Nursing Home Association executive director Joe Donchess threatens that such a move would decrease the quality of care. This is empty posturing to deflect attention from the real, and desirable, outcome. Federal and state regulations will not permit care to go below a certain level (and, according to the federal government, the majority of home already operate at a low level) or the facility loses its license. Instead, what will happen is a reversal of the wastefulness that has plagued Louisiana taxpayers for so long – the overcapacity of the industry finally will be wrung out of the system.

This is why it has gotten favorable treatment for so long, because industry executives believed they could keep building and the state always would cover the number of beds with patients. But a decade ago when the state (under legal duress) began shifting dollars to home- and community-based care, the industry got caught short yet successfully lobbied policymakers to continue to cushion it. So promising about this suggestion is the practical impact of a rate cut will be to force facilities to cut costs by closing space or even entire homes where the market unsubsidized by government can’t sustain the excess empty beds.

Farcically, Donchess suggested cuts instead should be made in the home- and community-care system – which already have faced cuts which are eliminating roughly 30 percent of service. This has been done according to a resource allocation model that tries to match actual need with resources provided – a model as of yet not applied to nursing homes where application of the model would probably lead to many residents (many willingly) exiting them in favor of home- or community-based care. This tactic probably would be better than just making the cuts across the board: apply the RAM to the nursing home population first, then base reimbursement reductions on who would remain. This more realistically would match actual need to resources.

There is no other reduction than this in all of state government that promises as large savings, perhaps a fifth of the entire deficit, and also would constitute as efficient a use of taxpayer dollars. Particularly encouraging is that DHH would not have suggested this unless the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration seriously was considering pursuing this solution. Even if the Commission wimps out and does not recommend this, the groundwork is set for Jindal to propose this as part of next year’s budget. Now more than ever, common sense must prevail with adoption of this proposal into the budget.

Superintendents prefer to protect interests, not educate

2009-10-26T09:05:00.000-05:00

As if more confirmation was needed, that Louisiana’s school superintendents are complaining about a legal change regarding school financing once again demonstrates they seem more interested in acquiring power and privilege for their agencies than in educating children.

A recent change of law now directs a proportion of locally-generated operating funds to charter schools in any of Louisiana’s 69 local school districts, away from the district. Previously, only state funds that would have gone to the district were shunted away. Of course, this has perturbed a number of these districts’ superintendent who are complaining that they now aren’t getting money for students their traditional schools aren’t educating.

If that appears somewhat farcical, get a load of the comments made by the president of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents, one of their own: “It’s kind of like the Boston Tea Party all over again,” said Gary Jones, superintendent of schools in Rapides Parish. “It’s taxation without representation.”

That remark leaves no doubt that Jones, if he came from the teaching ranks, never was a history or government teacher. Citizens do have representation in this matter – they voted for state legislators and the governor who made the decisions to change the law. Further, since the people’s representatives did approve of the matter, to argue there is a lack of representation suggests that the locus of the thing lacking representation in the mind of Jones is not the people, but the school districts themselves.

But Jones and the other complaining superintendents seem to forget the Louisiana Constitution in all of this. Art. VIII Sec. 1 says it is the Legislature that is to “provide for the education of the people of the state and shall establish and maintain a public educational system.” Also, Art. VIII Sec. 10 states that “parish and city school board systems … are recognized, subject to control and supervision by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the power of the legislature to enact laws affecting them.”

In other words, these districts act as agents to the state for the purposes of education. Further, any money they receive as a result of lawful revenue-producing actions by the Legislature or its agents the districts is the people’s money, not theirs. All the people care about is that education occurs; there is no mandated way that money must be apportioned among state agencies in order for it to occur beyond what the Constitution says about the matter, which is that it’s ultimately in the hands of the Legislature.

This explains why the argument about the impermissibility of charter schools getting dollars raised by a local government even when rejected as charter schools by that local government also fails. Most charter schools exist today (outside of the Recovery School District) because the state had to approve them after they were rejected at the local level – rejected usually precisely because the local districts saw them as threats to them and other special interests like unions rather than evaluated them as a different kind of and perhaps better agent besides traditional public schools to help educate children. Again, education is a state, not local, responsibility so if the state’s agent overrides a local decision where so empowered, it should have the right to redirect dollars attendant to the decision addressing the function in question.

Understand the basic dynamic going on here: districts do not like charter schools because they know these are more committed to providing quality education than are they, who put too much emphasis on keeping cozy relations with special interests like unions and in maintaining the existing bureaucratic and political structures and power relations. Their arguments on this issue merely reflect this attitude and in the end remind us of as a consequence of the actions stemming from such mindsets why public education in Louisiana remains, in both absolute and comparative senses, insufficient and subpar.

Spending, not revenue, problem causes Bossier deficit

2009-10-25T13:55:00.001-05:00

One part of the cacophony emanating from Bossier City’s budget meltdown is the assertion by its Finance Director Joe Buffington that the city got into its predicament of having a $6.5 million hole in a $50.3 million operating budget because it didn’t tax its citizenry enough. Let’s see just how valid this is.

Buffington had complained shortly after the news had been “revealed” (making a very unlikely assumption that Buffington had not known about it for months) that Bossier Cities consistent refusal to roll forward property tax millages over the past few cycles had created this hole. When assessments of property values occur every four years, rates automatically change to compensate for the change in value; governing authorities have the option to vote to not make the adjustment, thereby increasing property taxes for payers and increasing the amount of property tax revenue coming into a jurisdiction.

“It's the same hole perpetuated for the last two years by rolling back taxes and spending down the fund balance," Buffington said. "The administration just finally put the pieces of the puzzle together.” Since then, Buffington has been muzzled by Mayor Lo Walker, who has stated he will not raise taxes to deal with the situation. The entire city administration refuses to make comments on any aspect of the budget.

Bossier City’s 2008 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report gives plenty of data to show where the real problem lies. First, it’s worth noting that the city’s property tax rate, in comparative perspective to the other four Louisiana municipalities of roughly equivalent size, is neither high nor low. Currently at 21.69 mills having fallen from 26.38 in 1999, it is in between the present rates of Monroe at 27.75, Kenner at 23.93, Alexandria of 20.23, and Lake Charles at 16.09. None of these, even the least fiscally imprudent of these cities, Monroe, are reporting budgetary difficulties close to those encountered by Bossier City.

Also notable is that the property tax take of the city has grown faster than its rise in assessed value. Since 1999, despite failures to roll forward, property tax revenues for the city have grown from about $6.761 million annually to $10.461 million, a 60 percent increase. In fact, increases in sales taxes proportionally have been almost identical although in the past couple of years they have flattened, which would be expected as the country entered economic recession, while property tax increased collections have continued without stop. Utility taxes have grown even more, almost doubling. These are expected for a city whose population has increased an estimated 10 percent since then, and even accounting for inflation exceed that population growth.

So, property tax proceeds have held their own despite not rolling forward rates, especially in the past couple of years (they tend to be much more stable sources of revenues). The problem has come on the spending side, in operating expense terms particularly in the area of public safety where there has been a vast expansion over the past decade. Bossier City was employing in 2008 461 police and fire personnel having a population of 62,384, up from 381 for a population of 56,466 in 2000, a 21 percent increase. Compare this to Lake Charles’ 71,061 population with 384 such employees, and Kenner’s 65,202 people served by 364 such workers.

This is why Walker has said he would eliminate 80 jobs in the public safety area, because it was that area that was overstaffed relatively, which only would set the city back to its 2000 level and still have it, on a per capita basis, exceed the levels of these other two cities (data for Monroe and Alexandria were not available). But this really isn’t the main part of the gap between revenues and expenditures.

That comes from the enormous amount of debt the city has taken on since 2007, tripling it from about $104 million in 2006 to $317 million in 2008. (Of the other four cities, they range from $58 million to $168 million or so in debt.) This has come not only to pay for sins of the present – such as the Cyber Innovation Center boondoggle – but from those of the past – for roads and infrastructure projects and the like that could have been paid for by hoarded cash but instead squandered on a parking garage gift to a private developer and the arena. In those two years, per capita debt of Bossier City soared from $1,735 to $4,891 – more than 50 percent higher than Shreveport’s.

This now requires debt repayment approaching $25 million a year for at least the next 15 years (it was close to $14 million in 2008), when the total revenues for the city (including not just the operating budget for general government) were about $90.753 million in 2008. This means potentially that the problem, sucking already a fifth of total revenues in 2008, could be much worse in 2010, which is why Walker is taking drastic – and apparently permanent – moves now.

Finally, note that even if the 4.69 mills had been rolled forward, in today’s terms it would have raised only about $2.3 million, barely a third of the deficit. That’s assuming there would be as much assessed valuation, because having higher property taxes would have stunted what growth the city would have had.

In the final analysis, Bossier City does not have a revenue problem. Its growth in those areas has been more than sufficient, vindicating a strategy designed to encourage growth by keeping taxes at a reasonable level. But Bossier City has had a spending problem for well over a decade that needlessly inflated its debt by over a third on unneeded projects, and that’s why the chickens are coming home to roost. Suggestions that Bossier City’s property owners don’t pay enough in taxes are just an exercise of a bureaucrat invalidly shifting blame to cover for government spending gone wild.

Excuses to retain old pay system paint sorry picture

2009-10-22T17:00:00.001-05:00

If the comments being received (at civilservicecommission@la.gov and apparently subject to release on request) about revisions to Chapter 6 of Louisiana’s Civil Service rules are any indication, these changes to be reviewed by the Civil Service Commission on Nov. 4 are more desperately needed than ever.

The changes would more closely tie pay adjustments to actual performance and move away somewhat from declaring almost every single classified civil service employee in the state worthy of a flat 4 percent raise every year, and very few deserving of nothing. But from the comments received about the changes, you wonder just how well served Louisiana’s citizens from a group of people who appear to show a tremendous ability to come up with all sorts of straw men and red herrings in their arguments, but with little ability to think critically.

Summarized, the comments, virtually all negative, argue the new plan:

Places too much power in the hands of supervisors to allow for favoritism and does not really reward people for doing a good job. Now, let me get this straight, the evaluation system – the validity of which must be severely questioned when almost every employee is judged as at least adequate many of which are ranked even higher – is not going to change, just the distribution of pay raises, yet it’s actually argued that it is this change that would affect the ability of supervisors to play favorites? How in the world can one argue that the present system is any less susceptible to favoritism, and therefore meaning the change cannot possibly increase it? If “favoritism” is the problem, the real change needs to be in the evaluation method itself which has nothing to do with the distributional method of the raises.

And this new system would not reward for doing a good job? By contrast, as it stands now, an employee just scraping by gets exactly the same percentage raise as an outstanding employee. You tell me how the current system would do a better job of motivating and rewarding than what is proposed, and thereby deriving more efficiency.

Lets agencies use this as a way to deny raises to their employees to save the agencies money. See above; that is a problem with the evaluation system, not the new proposed distribution. Under the present system, the same thing can be done simply by handing out (which would be more realistic in any event) more of the two lowest categories of evaluations. How would the proposal change this in any way?

Allows some agencies to have more capacity to provide pay raises than others that creates an uneven playing field among employees from agency to agency. If so, wouldn’t that be happening now under the current regime where agencies with fewer resources would have to give out more two lowest evaluations? So how would this be any different, if it is actually the case, under the new regime?

But, more to the point, so what? Employees should be concerned about their own performances, not what others are getting. Further, job classifications operate within certain bands so the same kind of job being performed in different places, if one gets more in raises, eventually it levels as the top of the band is reached. And it is the job of the Department of State Civil Service to review pay among classifications to make sure it is appropriate for the job being done. If some are getting out of whack by many salaries in an agency hitting the top, it needs to go in and make adjustments. Again, this has nothing to do with the proposed plan itself.

Cannot possibly tie successfully performance to pay increases. Meaning it shouldn’t be attempted at all? Certainly the new plan will not perfectly accomplish this. But there’s no doubt it will do a much better job than the current in which only in the most tenuous fashion does pay get linked to actual performance.

None of these objections, upon analysis, hold any water. But that doesn’t mean that implementing the new plan by itself, as explained elsewhere, accomplishes the objective of greater performance for less money. Two other things must happen.

One, the evaluation system must be made realistic. It should be obvious that no organization, especially one not facing market pressures, has almost no inadequate employees, and so many good ones. The Commission must investigate ways in which to have evaluations performed that more genuinely reflect the true performances of classified employees, and implement necessary changes based on this.

Two, supervisory training of the new system must be adequate. Supervisors who will be doing the evaluating must have a clear idea about how do it: knowledge of benchmarks, how to measure those benchmarks, how to translate those benchmarks into ratings, and the like. As an example of where there may be a gap that can be addressed by this, in academia unclassified employees often supervise not only other unclassified employees (such as faculty members), but classified employees as well (such as secretaries). Civil Service must rigorously train every supervisor in the proposed plan should the Commission wisely adopt it to make sure proper implementation produces valid results.

Let’s hope for the sake of reassurance of quality in Louisiana’s civil service that the comments received as of a week prior to the deadline are reflective of an unrepresentative set of individuals comprising present and former employees in the classified service, and for the future’s sake that the Commission understands the vapidity of a great many of them.

Suggestions great, but need right budget paring strategy

2009-10-21T16:20:00.002-05:00

As twin deadlines of statutory natures draw closer for Louisiana, the time for talk should recede and the time for planning for difficult action must commence with the leadership to do it as a budget catastrophe looms.

Both of the state’s temporary panels to find ways of reducing state government expenditures, the Commission on Streamlining Government and the Postsecondary Education Review Commission, are coming the point where they need to spit out recommendations for legislative action, by Dec. 15. About the same time, the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference will certify the status of the balance of the budget as state agencies for months have been taking actions, and continuously talking of additional ones, to pare expenses to stave off a deficit being declared.

With just 55 days to go, the various scattered suggestions and responses must coalesce into a particular strategy that determines what gets recommended and what can be implemented immediately, in order to allow for action by the Legislature and agencies to commence. The optimal strategy should concentrate on four items.

First, personnel is the key area. The largest single area of expenditure in government, or any organization, is in salaries and costs associated with them. No meaningful reduction in the cost of government can occur without much taking place here. Even if it shed no functions (but see below), efficiencies in the number of positions required and in job performances must be addressed.

One lawmaker, in a recent commission meeting, wondered whether the tactic of offering early retirement with some inducement could really trim expenses that much, because it could be that those positions would have to be filled in any event. This is a partial concern, because while many jobs can be eliminated with duties apportioned out, some cannot. But it also is an opportunity in many cases to be able to promote capable subordinates into these positions. Chances are disproportionately that their retiring bosses, because of looming changes that will better match pay to performance, went early because they were coasting underperformers. They may have had capable subordinates bottled up behind them who will do a better, more efficient job.

Second, reductions cannot be indiscriminate. Across-the-board cuts may work, but not well, because they lump in the necessary with the peripheral (see below). The Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration has the right idea in moving to an outcome-based budgeting regime, because it will create priorities of functions, and the least important can be identified for cutting. This also means review of dedicated funding must occur to ensure appropriate amounts are going to appropriate things.

Third, taxes cannot be raised as a solution. As the recession continues with no clear signs of ending, the worst thing to do is to raise taxes to sap economic recovery. Fee raising for the most part also should be off the table, unless there can be demonstrated a strong connection between a particular service being performed and the quantifiable amount of resources going into it can be demonstrably shown as significantly lower than this, such as potentially with college tuition.

Fourth, politics must be minimized. Politics breeds inefficiency which sometimes must be tolerated, such as with devoting huge resources to the disabled, but too often can keep programs benefitting too few people who have little real need going when they need to be shut down. It also gets used as an escape from responsibility to make hard and/or unpopular decisions. The idea of across-the-board cuts is an example, for it spreads pain of cutting around assuming everybody will hurt some. But as it attenuates both the necessary and the peripheral, it is not the best use of resources and still promotes the use of some less efficiently than if the cuts fall on the least needed activities, allowing those really necessary to get more funding. Cowardice of this nature must be avoided.

The Jindal Administration needs to adopt these ideas, if it hasn’t already, and articulate to the Legislature that they will guide Jindal’s actions in his budgeting, while also employing commission recommendations, and use of veto powers. Failure to do so will not avert the crisis and just make future solutions harder and less achievable.

Independent entrance could alter radically race dynamics

2009-10-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

Already shaping up to be interesting, Louisiana’s Third Congressional District contest which selects nominees in a little under a year may be getting even more fascinating if state Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard enters the fray.

Richard, who has run as an independent, would join a declared field of state Rep. Nickie Monica, a Republican, another in businessman Kristian Magar, and attorney Ravi Sangisetty, a Democrat. Others, like Richard, ponder entering but Richard’s entry, should he choose to run as an independent, would alter the contest’s dynamics more seriously than probably anybody else.

With the advent of closed primaries for federal office in Louisiana’s last election cycle, Richard could be the only candidate that would avoid any kind of runoff or runoff primary to make it to the general election in a little over a year. This would give him a small advantage in terms of resource conservation and make him less likely to attract negative attention from opponents.

But of more tantalizing concern for the major parties’ nominees is this would alter the trajectory of the general election in unpredictable ways. Chances are slim he could win in a three-way matchup with the other two nominees – around his little corner of the bayous independence plays well as an alternative to the GOP in the historically loyal Democrat area, but it will be a disadvantage district-wide especially with major party financial support – but his presence would guarantee no candidate could get a majority and he would siphon votes off from them.

The question is, will a Republican or Democrat suffer more defection because of his presence? That really can’t be answered until the actual nominees win their spots and we can see the various experience and personalities of the pair. For example, if voters are really in an anti-politician mood, if he is matched up against other officeholders he would probably draw more from them than against political newcomers.

Still, some reasonable, general inferences may be drawn. If it’s going to look like a big election year for the GOP, the national Democrats probably won’t put much into this seat and Richard’s intervention won’t amount to much. Compounding that will be Democrats realize even if they pull it out, that could trigger the redistricting away of that seat after just a couple of years, another thing which may put a damper on quality Democrats from pursuing the spot and reducing its competitiveness an thereby Richard’s effect.

Only if it looks like Democrats could be competitive in the district might Richard’s presence make a difference. In that case, all other things equal, he may detract more from the Republican candidate. National Democrats have attained a level of some toxicity in the district, with incumbent Rep. Charlie Melancon’s duck-and-cover, gallivanting style of the past few months disappointing many voters not helping, he will attract some of the disaffected. But national Republicans only now are beginning to regain their conservative credentials so for those still turned off by their straying from them who were never fans of Democrats in the first place, Richard might be an attractive alternative especially if he tries to sound some conservative themes in this putative campaign.

In short, those who became alienated enough typically voting Republican who took a flyer on Melancon over the past few years and are not ready to come back to the GOP likely outnumber those usually voting Democrat disgusted enough to flop over to an independent but not ready to touch a screen for a Republican. But there’s so much else that could happen between now and then that the only sure thing about a Richard entry would be an intriguing race would become that much more.

Bossier City officials to bill citizens for their mistakes

2009-10-19T15:30:00.000-05:00

Even as the Shreveport political corruption circus grows alarmingly vaster, there's another set of clowns who legally have squandered far more money than apparently illegally disbursed under Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover’s watch – Bossier City’s Mayor Lo Walker and its City Council.

Budget inattention aside, the latest buffoonery on their parts has them coming to the citizenry to make it pay tens of millions of dollars for their exercises in economic ignorance and ego-stroking. Last week, the Council signaled its intent that in the near future it was going to almost double the fees for water and sewerage service for the average user. The typical household that directly pays on these things under the announced hike would cough up nearly $250 more a year.

This increase is designed to offset about $38 million in costs for a $106 million upgrade and expansion of the city’s sewer system. Of the remainder, $60 million will come from conventional bond debt (at 20 years at current rates costing the citizenry about $1.36 million a year in interest) and another $8 million from special low-interest loans (at an assumed .95 percent interest for that term another $40,000 or so a year). This means you can add about $50 more a year interest payments to each Bossier City household on top of the average fee increase, or about $300.

The Council’s reaction to its clumsy attempt to reach into citizens’ wallets was best summed by its resident gaffe machine, David Jones, who didn’t disappoint when he uttered, “That pipe, you can’t live without it. Unfortunately, it’s not very sexy.” If a sentiment shared by the Council as a whole and the mayor, this implies that textbooks could be written about its members’ bizarre sexual fetishes.

Because while pipe may not be attractive to them and Walker, it seems that bricks, mortar, ice, exhaust fumes, and cyber dreaming sure turn the cranks of these spenders of other people’s money. Because contrary to what they think, Bossier City can live without building a $56.5 million money-losing arena, it can live without giving a $21 million parking garage to a private developer who could have paid for it, it can live without $35 million paid into a building destined to remain vastly underutilized that will never come close to paying itself back. These are the things that these cretins decided on which to spend over $112 million of Bossier Citians’ resources.

In the past 12 years in which these blunders were committed, most of the members of the Council were on it, all but rookie James “Chubby” Knight for most of these, and throughout Walker when not mayor was city Chief Administrative Officer. Note that the mistakes could have paid for the contemplated expansion and upgrade in its entirety, which genuinely cannot be lived without, instead of foisting this additional cost on ratepayers and citizens. And yet now these charlatans, after having wasted all this on these misguided efforts of equal part believing in big government to direct economic development and in making themselves seem like big fishes in a small pond, have the audacity of hope to bill the people for their incompetence.

At least this time no subterfuge comes attached to this excising, unlike the last rate hike almost four years ago which was said to offset withdrawal of savings to pay for emergency services and mowing grass, activities that had nothing to do with wastewater treatment. That method of grabbing cash was chosen simply because it was the most expedient way to abscond with the most money. The interest earned on the savings itself could have absorbed both these rate increases. Regardless, this latest development that highlights the poor fiscal judgment of Bossier City’s elected officials affirms that the city anthem for this crop of bozos ought to from Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music: “Send in the Clowns.”