Heading a beleaguered agency whose every move from the past few years is being investigated by state and federal officials has broad appeal, as more than 100 people have applied of the executive director’s position at the Lafayette Housing Authority.
The candidates, who had until Wednesday to apply for the job, which was paying Walter Guillory $186,000 a year (with a $5,000 business allowance and other benefits) when he resigned Oct. 25 amid state and federal investigations of the agency, will now have their applications reviewed by U.S. Housing and Urban Development officials. It’s unclear what the new ED’s compensation package will be — the LHA is among the largest in the state. The LHA's board of commissioners will ultimately make the decision on which candidate lands the job. The five-member board, however, currently consists of only two members, Donald Fuselier and Shirley Vige; three others were removed for a second time this year by City-Parish President Joey Durel and are again appealing their dismissal.
“We have not even considered what the salary and benefits package will be,” Dan Rodriguez, the HUD monitor who has been overseeing the LHA for several weeks, writes in an email. “But I assume it will be comparable to the public housing arena.”
Rodriguez says preliminary evaluations of the applications start next week. “We are also planning on having of committee to conduct the interview[s] and [make] final recommendations to the board to interview and decide on,” he says. “I don’t anticipate that HUD willl play a role on the final recommendations and decision."
The majority of applicants have little or no housing authority experience. In posting the job opening, the LHA's board stated that it is seeking “a skilled administrator with proven leadership ability who is committed to public service, organizational integrity, and innovative solutions. Top candidates will have excellent interpersonal and communication skills combined with a hands-on approach to managing the Authority.” The job description, which requests six professional references, also noted:
The Board of Commissioners have a high regard for ethical leadership and will place significant value on a candidate’s career history, personal and professional integrity combined with a strong commitment to public service.
The HACL has 572 Public Housing Authority units, approximately 1600 Housing Choice Vouchers under Section 8 and one Tax Credit development.
Requires a bachelor’s degree; master’s degree or other advanced degree is preferred and a minimum of five (5) years of progressively responsible work experience in a public housing authority, a non-profit housing corporation, non-profit organization, or in a related area that would include a successful track record of working with an active board, staff, residents, and government and/or community services organization.
Excellent salary with a competitive benefits package including a defined retirement plan through The Principal Financial Group (with 3% agency contribution) and participation in social security.
The Independent Weekly has posted the applications on its website. View them here.
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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