Deeply criticized for her furtive one-day retirement last August, which resulted in a $90,000 lump sum payment for unused vacation and sick leave, Commissioner of Higher Education Sally Clausen is stepping down. It was a wise decision.
As she noted in her resignation letter, dated June 8, Clausen’s retire-rehire debacle has been “a constant distraction to the important work of higher education and to the Board of Regents.” Her resignation is a sad ending to a career in education that has spanned more than three decades, including stints as president of the UL System, president of Southeastern Louisiana University and secretary of education for the state.
“There are still important issues in this session that need attention, not the least of which is final passage of Senator [Ben] Nevers’ bill to strengthen the Regents, the GRAD Act, Performance Based Funding and higher education’s budget,” Clausen continues. “My hope is that in some small way, this decision will bring a sharper focus to these important issues.”
For reasons still not clear, Clausen kept the decision to take advantage of the state’s often-abused retire-rehire program, designed to retain quality teachers, from the 16-member Board of Regents. The governing board had hired her a year earlier for the $425,000 job, $377,000 annual salary plus a $12,000 car allowance and $36,000 for housing. At that time, she became the state’s sixth commissioner of higher education.
Clausen made headlines and drew praise in April when she requested that her salary be cut in half, from $377,000 to $199,000 — what she called a show of solidarity with her employees in a time of deep budget cuts. She also said she would forego the housing and car allowances. Still keeping the retirement under wraps, she told The Times-Picayune at the time that she was unsure whether she would continue beyond the legislative session, citing family obligations that had made her contemplate retirement.
Contemplate? She’d already done it.
Clausen is helping her divorced daughter in Houston care for a 4-year-old, special-needs child who has been diagnosed with a rare illness, the T-P reported. How easy it would have been, even then, to just come clean about the retirement.
Apparently, a handful of people did know about the retirement, but Clausen should never have kept the board in the dark; board members publicly expressed their disappointment. Let’s hope today’s retirement announcement is directly connected to the board’s May 26 executive session, out of which emerged new personnel policies but no comment on Clausen. Her resignation is effective July 1.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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Ding Dong the witch is gone!