Inspector General Stephen Street Thursday issued the results of a review of all positions in the executive branch of state government for possible dual employment. The investigation, according to Street, was prompted by an early 2009 story in The Advocate.
Street explains that the holding of two or more full-time positions simultaneously within state government or its political subdivisions is prohibited by state law. In addition, the scheduled hours of the dual positions for these employees overlap, Street notes, raising questions of whether the employees actually worked all the hours they were paid for. The annual salary of the lower paying positions for these four employees was approximately $177,000.
In early 2009, The Advocate published a story on state employees with salaries of $70,000 or more. Street says concerns were raised after his office read the story and noted that some of the employees were listed as holding more than one position in state government. "Due to concerns from this observation, we conducted a review of the entire executive branch of state government as of November 2009," the IG's report notes. The office found that several of the positions identified in the news report as full-time were actually part-time positions, but it did identify the following four people who held two full-time positions in state government:
• Samantha Ackers - employed by both Baton Rouge Community College (salary $47,000) and the Governor’s Office on Mental Health Advocacy Services (salary $36,275.20)
• Sharon Shelmire - employed by both the Baton Rouge Housing Authority (salary $43,264) and University of New Orleans (salary $32,000)
• Betty Carter - employed by both LSU Interim Public Hospital (salary $86,382.40) and Delgado Community College (salary $55,491.20)
• Coletha Riley - employed by both LSU Interim Public Hospital (salary $94,927.72) and Delgado Community College (salary $53,127.40)
The report indicates that at times the responsibilities of these positions may have conflicted, forcing the employees to choose performance of the responsibilities of one position over the responsibilities of the other. For example:
• The schedules for Samantha Ackers provided by the Baton Rouge Community College and the Governor’s Office on Mental Health Advocacy Services show that Ms. Ackers was supposed to be at both locations on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons for the fall semester in 2009.
• The schedules for Sharon Shelmire provided by the Baton Rouge Housing Authority and the University of New Orleans both required Ms. Shelmire to be present from 8 a.m. until noon on Monday – Friday.
After the inquiry began, Ackers resigned from her position with the Mental Health Advocacy Center and was terminated from her position with Baton Rouge Community College. Shelmire resigned from her position with the Baton Rouge Housing Authority.
“There are several things wrong with holding two full-time jobs at the same time with the state and its political subdivisions," Street says. "First, it’s flatly prohibited by law. Second, at a time when state employees are being laid off and their positions eliminated, it erodes the public’s confidence in government as a whole. And, third, in at least two specific situations that we identified, individuals took steps to try to conceal their dual employment status from their employers.”
Noting that "taxpayers deserve better," the inspector general concludes with the obvious: “It is a fact of life that when a person is trying to hold down two full-time jobs, he isn’t at his most productive at either one of those jobs."
Street makes two recommendations that should end the dual employment of any of the employees whose status was brought to light -- and result in the repayment of money for hours that were not actually worked.
Read the full report here.
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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