ACADIANA DELEGATION FILLED WITH PRAISE FOR SESSION With a $1.1 billion surplus fully spread around, how could area lawmakers not be at least a little giddy returning to their districts this week? That’s how much of your money was spent during the seven-day special session that convened last Friday.
More than $500 million was poured into roads and $300 million pegged for coastal protections. Tax breaks were also doled out to parents and businesses, and many regional ports received financial assistance. “The Legislature as a whole came forward to improve the business climate in this state. This session, in addition to the progress made from the special session on ethics, has the future of our state looking bright,” says Rep. Jonathan Perry, a Republican from Abbeville who chairs the Acadiana Delegation.
The lawmaker caucus represents a 22-parish stretch and is growing in membership. As part of its outreach, the delegation released a rave review of the recent special session that listed eight items of interest for the legislatively-defined area of Acadiana. Those items included:
• $20 million to widen U.S. Highway 90
• $75 million that UL Lafayette can share in with other Louisiana colleges and universities for critical repairs
• $2 million for Acadiana parishes (the Legislature’s 22; not the traditional geographic outlay) for the maintenance and improvement of rural roads.
Perry adds all of the accomplishments were collective goals that every member of the group assisted on when possible. “I am particularly proud of how the Acadiana Delegation came together on those issues that directly affected our districts,” he says.
GOVERNOR MAKES PR SWING THROUGH LAFAYETTE It’s becoming increasingly safe to label Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal as the most-traveled governor in recent years, at least inside state lines.
He hit the road and visited Louisiana major metro areas during the campaign, after being elected, before his special session on ethics and then again following the session. Now, with a successful second special session in the can, Jindal took to the asphalt again to tout his administration’s accomplishments from the gathering that convened last week.
He appeared on Monday at Lafayette’s Restaurant, in the Bayou Room, highlighting his victories from the recent special session where lawmakers spent the state’s $1.1 billion surplus according to an agenda crafted by his administration.
AN “INFURIATING” $156 MILLION INCREASE TO ICF FOR THE ROAD HOME Last week, The Times-Picayune revealed that former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s administration increased the payment to ICF International for administering the Road Home project in December by $156 million — from $756 million to $912 million, an increase of 25 percent — unbeknownst to the general public. Blanco defended the action, telling the T-P via e-mail, “It was my understanding and belief that any contract change would be publicly noticed. I encourage Steve Theriot, the legislative auditor, whose office was consulted during negotiations, to continue to audit ICF and to hold them accountable for every dollar of their contract.” Theriot told the paper he would begin dissecting the amendment costs immediately.
The Associated Press reported that ICF is boasting strong profits after going public and getting “a potentially big raise recently from the state of Louisiana,” even though 56,000 applicants still hadn’t received any Road Home monies as of last month. True to form, ICF representatives defended the raise and laid blame elsewhere for inefficiencies in the program. ICF spokeswoman Gentry Brann complained in an Associated Press story that the Road Home has come to be viewed as an entitlement program and blamed meddling community groups for some of the program’s problems. The T-P was not amused, blasting Brann and ICF in a Sunday editorial:
“That is outrageous,” the paper wrote. “This grant money is a small measure of repayment for the massive devastation wrought when the federal government’s levees fell apart during Katrina. The air of entitlement comes from Ms. Brann and others at ICF, which went public after getting the Road Home contract and has profited handsomely on rising stock prices. ... Ms. Brann pointed out in the AP story that ICF will only make a 3 to 5 percent profit on the Road Home contract. She makes it sound like a sacrifice. But 5 percent on $912 million is $45.7 million. That would be a fortune to the thousands of South Louisianians who have had to beg for the grants they need to rebuild their shattered homes.”
Contributors: Jeremy Alford and R. Reese Fuller
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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