Bobby Jindal: Crony Capitalist or Merely Incompetent?

Mismanagement or Misfeasance?

Merriam-Webster defines the term misfeasance this way: "the performance of a lawful action in an illegal or improper manner." This is an important term that must be considered when assessing the performance of Governor Bobby Jindal and his administration in the wake of two devastating reports by the Legislative Auditor released this month.

One involves the collection (or, rather the non-collection) of severance taxes. The other deals with the lack of financial controls within the state's largest department — the Department of Health & Hospitals — during a time of great upheaval related to program changes, privatization and apparent and alleged criminal activity.

Part of the Bobby Jindal myth is that he's a tight-fisted, fiscal conservative who has somehow managed to keep the State of Louisiana's fiscal ship afloat through a daring race to sell off state assets from mental health facilities to public hospitals, laying of public employees by the thousands and having the private sector step up to the plate and deliver services more effectively.

Like most myths, there are elements of truth in Jindal's myth, but two recent reports blow gaping holes in the tight-fisted part of his.

The first story revolves around a report by the Legislative Auditor which found that the state, under Jindal's leadership, had pretty much failed to collect severance taxes on oil and gas produced in Louisiana, starting in 2011. Here's the executive summary.

NOLA.com summarized the core of the problem identified in the Auditor's report this way:

In an effort to streamline government functions, the Department of Revenue transferred much of its severance tax auditing to the Department of Natural Resources in 2011. The result was that Louisiana identified far less outstanding severance tax revenue in 2012 than in 2010.

In 2010, the Department of Revenue found $26 million in potentially unpaid severance taxes. By 2012, under the new audit arrangement, the state only identified $40,729 of back severance taxes. 

A couple of things stand out about this information and these dates. First, 2010 was the year of the BP Gulf Gusher and the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater drilling. During much of 2010, Scott Angelle served as interim Lieutenant Governor until a special election was held to fill the vacancy that had been created by the resignation of Mitch Landrieu who had been elected mayor of the City of New Orleans.

Angelle then returned to his position as Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources, the agency that ostensibly regulates (among others) the oil and gas industry. Angelle was the head cheerleader for the oil and gas industry against the moratorium in 2010. He was the public face of the Gulf Economic Survival Team, which built a grassroots campaign across the state to fight the moratorium.

Angelle took a week off between the end of his stint as Lieutenant Governor and returning to his DNR job to raise a little money for what would eventually become his 2012 campaign for a seat on the Louisiana Public Service Commission. It was a highly profitable week for Angelle. Friends of the oil and gas industry were very appreciative of his work.

The question that the Legislative Auditor's report raises is this: Did Angelle cozy relationship with the oil and gas industry continue when he returned as DNR Secretary?

The 2012 severance tax collections were based on oil and gas extracted in 2011, Angelle's first post-moratorium year back on the job at DNR.

The Auditor's report notes that about 10% of state revenue is generated by severance taxes — but only if they're actually collected.

The drop in collections since 2011 can be attributed to Jindal's relentless push for efficiencies in government. The Advocate reports:

Problems arose not just when the department switched off GenTax but when changes were made in the name of efficiency. For example, to streamline services across state government, severance tax field audits moved from the revenue department to the state Department of Natural Resources.

According to The Advocate, the Auditor recommended in his December 2 report that responsibility for severance tax audits and collections be sent back to the Department of Revenue, and that the Department agreed with the recommendation.

While steps appear to be underway to end that money hemorrhage, another one was revealed a week later, this one in the scandal-plagued Department of Health & Hospitals (DHH).

It turns out that Jindal had all but eliminated internal audits at DHH back in 2011, according to NOLA.com:

In recent years, Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera's Office has documented fraud and improperly paid claims for services at DHH, repeatedly citing the lack of an internal audit division as a problem.

The department eliminated all but one internal auditor job in January 2011, and the remaining auditor retired a month later, leaving the agency without the internal checks-and-balance system until Root was hired in May.

DHH distributes about $9 Billion per year but had no internal controls for two years. What could possibly go wrong? Other than, say, the CNSI big rigging?

Well, there is the case of the now former accountant for DHH who was charged with stealing more than $1 million from the Medicaid program.

But that could be small potatoes. The two year window when DHH had not internal auditors also coincides with the launch of the problem plagued (for patients, any way) Bayou Health and with Jindal's privatization of Louisiana's Charity Hospitals which were taken away from LSU and awarded to private companies (at least one of which has never run a healthcare facility).

With the big money deals now cut, Jindal has agreed to put controls back in place at DHH, agreeing to do what The Advocate calls 'rejuvinate' internal audits.

Put together, these two stories paint a picture of an administration that hides behinds claims of tough times and austerity for the public while letting its cronies and friends loot state programs and revenue.

Severance tax collections represent the legal expression of the Commons on our mineral wealth. That is, those taxes represent our common claim on a small share of the mineral and resource wealth of this state. When the state exempts those taxes, it refutes our claim. When it flat out refuses to collect the taxes, it is denying the legitimacy of the claim at all.

For the state's largest department, DHH, to have no internal audits in place during a two-year period when there were several major transitions under way is wreckless and approaches malfeasance.

Bobby Jindal's myth consists of many strands, but the dominant one emerging in the wake of these two reports is that of a Governor committed to allowing a looting of the public treasury of this state through brazen crony capitalism.

The Ethical Gold Standard was a distraction — and a lie.

Citizen Self-Reliance

(This post is part of the 30-day Self-Reliance writing project organized through Seth Godin's Domino publishing project.)

Americans live under a constitutional republic which provides a great number of rights and responsibilities to its citizens. Everyone is hot for their rights, but for a number of decades now too many of us have neglected our responsibilities.

We have enjoyed (in fact, insisted upon) the right to make a good living, have a nice house, live in a good community, get a good education, all to the end of living 'the good life.'

The enjoyment of all these rights have distracted us from the imperative of holding up the responsibilities end of the bargain that won us those rights.

We have allowed ourselves to become distracted by the lives we lead at the expense of letting our neighborhoods, our cities, our states and our country be left in the hands and to the interests of others.

The result is a once great country that refuses to invest in itself, educate its young, take care of its infrastructure, care for each other. We have so focused on ourselves that we have become terrible stewards of the very thing that enabled us to become so self-absorbed — the country that gave us those rights.

'We've got ours' has replaced 'out of many, one' as our national motto. The very idea of sacrifice is alien to us, despite the fact that we celebrate the sacrifice of those who came before us so that we might have the opportunity to celebrate.

When we abandon the civic space, as we have so clearly done for the past four or more decades, we leave our country to others. That space has eroded and corroded. It is no longer vibrant. It has the tawdry feel of a seedy downtown in a fading city.

What can bring it back? Only our active involvement and engagement. Our active commitment to make it better. To pull the weeds. To sweep the walks. To wipe away the cobwebs. To pick up the trash.

We must turn now away from those personal pursuits and face out into the commons to reassert our presence there. In doing that we will renew that place and we will renew ourselves. We will recognize each other. We will get to know each other again — and we will get to like each other again.

Stereotypes flourish in ignorance. We have been turned inward for too long. What we know, we know by second- and third-hand accounts. We can change that. We can break the binds that hold us back, that undermine our efforts, that paralyze our communities.

We do that by engaging. By getting out to a meeting. By taking up a cause. By joining a group. By staking our claim on our neighborhood, our city, our state and our country. That is how we renew. That is how we return to greatness.

My Letter to the LCG Council: Ignore The Chamber

On Friday afternoon, I hand-delivered a letter to all nine members of the LCG Council to the Council office. Subsequent to that, I emailed each councilman a copy of that letter.

The core argument is this: The Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce has no special standing on the issue of Charter Repeal. Their concerns about the potential impact are legitimate, but those concerns are best discussed in public with the only entity with standing to decide the form of government we will live under here — the voters of Lafayette Parish.

The process that got us here was legitimate and straightforward. Any attempt to delay or defer putting this matter before the public will undermine the credibility of the Council, the Charter, and those organizations seeking to stop this from going to voters.

Here's the full text of the letter:

Friday, February 26, 2010

Council Chair, Jay Castille, District 2

Councilman Purvis Morrison, District 1

Councilman Brandon Shelvin, District 3

Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux, District 4

Councilman Jared Bellard, District 5

Councilman Sam Doré, District 6

Councilman Donald Bertrand, District 7

Councilman Keith Patin, District 8

Councilman William Theriot, District 9

Gentlemen,

I write today to urge you to vote on Tuesday to preserve the integrity of Consolidated Government and the current Charter. You can best do this by voting to approve the proposed ordinance that would call a November parishwide referendum on the question of whether or not to repeal the Parish Charter.

By voting to proceed with the ordinance and the referendum you will instill voter confidence in you, your processes and in the Charter amendment process that will serve the parish well regardless of the outcome of the vote on Charter repeal.

The credibility of the Council and Consolidated Government are at stake here because of the manner in which this issue was raised and the sole route the current Charter provides for resolving this issue.

The Charter Committee formed with the approval of the full LCG Council was duly constituted and charged with reviewing a range of issues relating to the functions of government under the current Charter. This committee was anything but radical; in fact, some argued that the committee was stacked with those with vested interest in the current Charter for any significant change to come from its work. After all, three of you were members of that committee; City/Parish President Durel was a member; two members of the original Charter Commission, Jeannie Kreamer and Nelson Quebedeaux, were members; and Greg Davis, a public employee who manages the Cajundome, was a member.

I attended both meetings of the committee. This was no wild-eyed bunch.

Importantly, the committee vote on this issue was unanimous. There was no dissent. There was no split vote. Your duly appointed and constituted committee charged with reviewing and addressing deficiencies in the Charter voted unanimously to recommend that you let the voters of Lafayette Parish decide whether they want to continue under this present form of government or not.

That is the issue that will up for consideration on Tuesday: will you allow a credible process for reform and/or repeal of the Charter run its course by allowing the people to vote; or, will you succumb to the special pleadings of The Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce to delay this matter?

The Chambers concerns about the possible impact of deconsolidation are valid. Their request for a delay in action calling the vote is not. At no point has the Chamber or anyone else suggested that there was anything suspect about the manner in which the Council created the Charter Committee or in the way that Committee conducted its business.

Cynics would argue that The Chamber's request to table the matter for 90 days is an attempt to reduce voter participation in this matter while enhancing the organization's relative power in a low-turnout election.

By The Chamber's own admission, if you vote to table the ordinance, the election cannot be held in November when turnout will be relatively high due to the referendum sharing the ballot date with federal elections. A spring ballot would ensure lower voter turnout for this election the critical nature of which The Chamber accurately assesses.

Viewed in this light, The Chamber is trying to shape the outcome of the election by shifting the election date.

The Chamber says they want to slow this down because there are too many unanswered questions. This is precisely the reason to proceed. Here's why: The form of government that we chose to live under is, by definition, the Public's Business. This requires a public debate. Not a series of closed door meetings involving Chamber operatives and members of the Council or the administration.

This debate belongs in the public square and a referendum is the only way to force it to take place there.

Because no procedural, legal, or ethical questions have been raised by anyone regarding the process through which this proposed ordinance was arrived at, there is no legitimate basis for The Chamber's request to be honored.

The Charter does not give the Chamber right of first refusal on reviewing Charter amendments. They have no special standing in this matter, other than the fact that their representative Bruce Conque has been the source of a series of poorly though-out suggestions — freezing current council districts for five years, extending the current council term to five years, and, now, letting the Chamber sit as a sort of House of Lords, deciding on the appropriateness and timing of matters under consideration by the council and which of those that might be allowed to find their way to the voters.

The power of changing, even repealing, the parish Charter is reserved exclusively to the voters of this parish. Acting in good faith, you created a committee and set in motion a process that produced repeal of the Charter as a unanimous recommendation to you. Doing anything less than allowing this issue to go to the voters as quickly as possible would call into question your credibility and the credibility of Consolidated Government.

You are not being asked to vote your opinion of repealing the Charter. You are being asked to call an election on this question that will not only allow, but force proponents and opponents of change to make their case to the voters of Lafayette Parish — the ultimate arbiters of this matter.

Like any other citizen of the parish, you will have the opportunity to study the facts, make a decision, pick a side, and argue your case. That is one thing the framers of the current Charter got exactly right: the real power of government in Lafayette flows directly from the people.

Your credible process resulted in this matter being elevated to a matter of public debate that can only be properly resolved by a vote of the people. Trying to now stifle or cut off that debate would demonstrate contempt for voters and their judgment that so far only the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce seems willing to publicly express.

The Charter says that Lafayette voters have the final say on this matter. The issue has been raised through a credible process. The Chamber has no special standing that could justify their request for a delay in putting this matter up for public debate and vote. Call the vote, let the debate begin, and let the facts on consolidation and de-consolidation come out.

This will provoke the kind of vigorous discussion this issue needs and cries out for.

Honor your processes. Respect the work of the committee you appointed to handle this matter. Trust the voters. Ignore The Chamber. Pass the ordinance.

Sincerely,

Mike Stagg

His Louisiane

Donnie Picou and Bas Clas performing his original composition, "My Louisiane," at the Blue Moon Saloon in Lafayette, Louisiana, on the night of November 1, 2008. Performers are: Donnie Picou — lead vocals, rhythm guitar; Steve Picou — lead guitar, back-up vocals; Geoff Thistlethwaite — bass guitar; Ted Cobena — drums; Mike Picou — back-up vocals.

New video for Bob Robira Song

Here's a new video I shot and edited for the title cut on Bob Robira's new CD, "Too Far Gone."

It will be available via CD Baby in early June.

You can hear the tunes on Bob's Myspace page by clicking here.

Bas Clas @ The Blue Moon

When Bas Clas played at Downtown Alive and The Blue Moon Saloon on Holloween and All Saints Day, respectively, I recorded the sessions with the idea of doing a DVD.

That is still in the works, as work on the final audio mix continues.

Here, though, is a cut of original tune by Donnie Picou — "Allons Danser" — for your listening and viewing enjoyment. If you click through to the YouTube home of this video, you can view a High Definition version — much better resolution on the video.

Bas Clas "Get Back To Work"

These guys should take their own advice!