Citizens deserve analysis, not posturing, in budget talks

Because of the asymmetry of information that exists between Louisiana’s executive branch and its legislative in the matter of budgeting – the former knows far better the intricacies of program operation – when legislative committees get together some members end up using the occasion more for trying to score political points than any substantive discussion of the material. It’s particularly lamentable when an officer of the committee pursues this strategy, but that’s what we got in the Senate Finance Committee’s recent meeting over several categorical areas within Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget.

Perhaps more than any other department in state government this year, streamlining is shaping the Department of Social Services with the transfer of several functions out of it. However, it also is facing some resource cuts as well, which raised the hackles of committee Vice Chairwoman Democrat state Sen. Lydia Jackson. Told that, among others things, summer programs for “at-risk” youth and tax preparation help for low income individuals is being cut, she declared there was forming a “a gap in services,” implying the necessity of government spending in these areas.

But just what are these “services?” For one, last year the state spent $1.2 million on telling low income people how to fill out tax returns. This comes as a result of encouraging them to take the two earned income tax credits, the federal and state. Essentially, this redistributes money from taxpayers to individuals who make little money and do not pay taxes. And the state devoted this money to telling them how to apply for it.

Although both federal and state tax forms are needlessly complicated because of needlessly complicated tax codes, if you make little money, the rudimentary schedules are very simple to fill out. So why spend government money on a very basic thing just to help people get more government money? After all, if you can hold a job, it means it should be able to read and write. Oh, and, actually, the state version of the EITC began just a couple of years ago, the legislation authored by none other than – wait for it – Lydia Jackson.

Another service facing cuts are after-school activities – a notorious budgetary haven for nongovernmental organizations to get money from the state. Last year, budgetary legerdemain incident to a tax increase tried to shift hundreds of thousands of dollars to these organizations, which Jindal wisely vetoed. Is this the “gap in services” Jackson wishes to defend? Are these the kinds of things that the state and its people, as Jackson implies, really can’t do without?

Jackson also got exercised about a hike in personal drivers’ license fees from $21.50 to $36.50 over four years, the current charge for a commercial driver’s license. This is permitted under a state law passed almost two decades ago to provide funding for the National Drivers Registry, which aids in identifying illegal aliens, sex offenders, and bad drivers but was not charged by the state on these kinds of license until yesterday.

However, Jackson called it a “tax increase” because she claimed it cost more than the service being provided. Saying Jindal had often said he would not go along with tax increases, she sniffed “It must not be a tax because it’s coming from the Jindal administration.” Never mind, of course, that a tax is an involuntary payment collected incident to an activity, while a fee is collected for performing a voluntary service – nobody is compelled to operate a motor vehicle which is considered a privilege, not a right.

State police head Col. Mike Edmondson defended the increase for the value it added to the licensing process. In addition, the estimated $13 million extra collected annually would offset general fund money of slightly more that had been going to this operation. He said he did not know the exact cost of processing and maintaining the value of a license and was asked by other legislators to look into that.

Citizens deserve more out of their legislators than pithy bromides that lack logic, don’t look at all the facts, and are more boilerplate than analysis. Jackson would do service to her constituents and the state if she adopted that attitude.

In Blanco/Rove dispute, verified facts rest on his side

Because she so thoroughly botched the state’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – and maybe because even with nothing to do for the past couple of years she has made apparently insufficient progress on her promised tell-all book – Democrat former Gov. Kathleen Blanco has to use strong language in her quest to rehabilitate herself in the eyes of the public. Regardless of whatever words she uses, however, they do not alter the historical record that differs decidedly from her description of it.

Blanco lashed out as a result of prepublication releases of former Republican White House Special Counsel Karl Rove’s memoirs of his time working for former Pres. George W. Bush. Rove wrote that the ineptitude of and infighting between Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin hampered responses and the most effective strategy would have been for the federal government to have found a way to take over managing the situation.

She retorted that Rove “lied and played games, putting lives at risk for the sake of politics,” and claimed that even before the storm hit she spelled out in a letter what kinds of assistance would be needed, and confirmed the request in a timely fashion, claiming she has documents to prove all of this. Unfortunately for her, the verifiable, historical record suggests that between the two of them Rove is not the liar.

First, the federal government never received a written, detailed request for a response that comported to federal law. The only explanation that could then reconcile both views was the old got-lost-in-the-mail ploy. Which begs the question: why didn’t Blanco, in the search for the crucial immediacy of the request, choose the postal service over a FAX or e-mail message? Conditions weren’t so bad on Sep. 2, 2005 (three days after landfall) or earlier that somewhere in the Capitol complex in Baton Rouge there wasn’t a working computer or FAX machine. And if the letter was ready before the storm hit, why not send it then? That she would not take such obvious routes immediately casts doubt on her veracity.

Significantly, in the days right after the disaster unfolded, Blanco acknowledged she had done a poor job at the official request that was received. She did make a vague and confused request she later complained about that she didn’t know how it properly should have been done – despite the fact that only a year early there had been a whole drill about a very similar scenario and a few months after that real-life Hurricane Ivan that provided a real-world drill opportunity. Then, no mention was made of any, more formal and detailed request that had been sent by mail.

Second, this is fueled even more by her subsequent behavior. She immediately began to worry about, as messages demonstrated, the political impact of her handling of the situation and within days was developing a strategy to deflect criticism from her. When Congressional investigations rolled around some three months later, Blanco then refused initially to provide some information, then, when it was given incompletely, it was peppered with odd redactions. None of it contained direct, primary documents authentic to the time period that would support assertions she made about her acting decisively and the federal government stonewalling.

In her comments about Rove, Blanco claimed documents secured from the governor's office verified her assertion. Was she referring to the original, unexpurgated documents that she never turned over to Congress? If so, why were they sent to Congress in incomplete fashion and expurgated? And does she include in this description the purported letter sent in a timely fashion with a detailed assistance request of which there was no contemporary corroboration of its existence?

Third, some days later Blanco testified in front of Congress in ways that charitably could be called confused, at worst mendacious, including stating she never had refused federal assistance when in fact, as Rove wrote it should have insisted on doing so despite her, the federal government did offer to take over the entire situation and send in troops immediately early on but did not at her dithering refusal.

Since then, Blanco has crusaded for historical revisionism of her role in the initial days of the disaster. She has offered up plenty of denials and alternative interpretations of events. But she never has produced publicly irrefutable and authentic evidence that exonerates her fumbling of the situation that contradicts the lengthy record that supports Rove’s statements. Thus, her vitriolic rhetoric of political bromides about Rove masks the deep anxiety that she must feel about it all, perhaps unwilling to admit to herself that her poor judgment and execution not only cost her political life, but maybe the lives of others.

In dueling polls Melancon's, his chances found wanting

Only a couple of weeks ago, one poll showed Sen. David Vitter continuing to open up what already appeared to be an insurmountable lead even further on. Rep. Charlie Melancon’s bid to wrest the seat away from him. The last week, Democrat Melancon had one released showing that he was “only” 10 points down. What explains how the Republican can be up 24 points in the other?

First, understand that while Melancon’s poll was performed by somebody he picked and paid, a firm that specializes in working with Democrats, Vitter has no connection with the firm that has been tracking his (and many other candidates’ races), Scott Rasmussen. Generally speaking, independent pollsters such as Rasmussen produce results of greater validity because hired guns, even as they won’t admit this for obvious reasons, will pick question wordings and sampling strategies that tend to provide a small bonus for their clients. Their workers also tend to unconsciously alter emphasis, tempo, and even words in delivering questions, often subconsciously. As obviously they can’t introduce deliberately an unmistakable bias into their results (at least in the numbers they give their clients, which may be different from the ones reported) because then inaccuracies would show and they would lose business, but wordings and sampling frames can be subtly shaped to present typically a bit more optimism into the scenario.

Second and much more significantly, it appears that (because while Rasmussen’s are done on his own time and he reports extensively and publicly on them Melancon’s pollster’s information is proprietary so you can go only by media reports of it), as opposed to Rasmussen’s using likely voters, Melancon’s used all registered voters. Historically, this overestimates voters for Democrats and that looks particularly risky to do this election year as Republican-leaning voters seem far more enthusiastic than Democrat supporters to turn out in November. (Another bit of evidence and/or consequence of the presumed use of all voters by Melancon’s firm is it only got 86 percent of respondents to state preference while Rasmussen got 90 percent – unlikely voters are much more likely to call themselves undecided.)

Third, Rasmussen has built quite a reputation for accuracy over the years. The latest round of elections found his organization in the top spot for the top job. This is true even as Rasmussen often employs automated methods, as opposed to Melancon’s pollster who did not appear to do so. While there are a number of variables, all other variables outside of the live vs. recorded debate held constant, that might produce variance between the two methods (here is a good layman’s discussion), the fact is there seems to be no inherent bias in the direction of any party’s candidates using either method. Specifically in this case, that means use of interactive voice response polling would not inflate Vitter’s numbers, nor depress Melancon’s, and vice versa (if the interviewers are well-trained, experienced, and not themselves biased) for live-voice calling for inflating Melancon’s and depressing Vitter’s.

In any event, to some degree at this point the discussion still is moot – so what if Vitter is just a half rather than whole landslide ahead, he’s still going to win comfortably even with Melancon’s numbers. And while if it were a year such as 2006 with strong Democrat tides it could be argued Melancon could overcome a 10-point gap in the next eight months, when in fact conditions are the opposite as they are this year it would take extraordinary optimism and audacity to think that could happen.

Thus, weighing the evidence, the reality is much more likely to be closer to the Rasmussen numbers than Melancon’s.

Objections discarded to make worthy state pay plan

Wisely, the State Civil Service Commission passed new standards regarding Louisiana classified civil service employees, over the objections of a few commentators. To understand the merit of the new regime, it is instructive to review it and the weakness of the complaints against it.

Slightly modified from a proposal rejected by Gov. Bobby Jindal earlier in the year, whose final approval must come to enact the new standards, it gives agencies discretion to give annual pay raises to these employees of up to three percent for employees evaluated in the middle category of merit, up to four percent for those evaluated in the second-highest category, and up to five percent for those evaluate in the highest category. Employees in the two lowest categories, which are the ones designating less-than-satisfactory performance and typically comprise less than one percent of all rated employees, receive no raises. Agencies may give lesser percentage hikes as long as levels from lower eligible categories do not exceed higher ones, for budgetary reasons.

Currently, typically almost 60 percent of employees are rated in the two highest categories.

Clearly this system better matches pay to performance than did the old one, where the 99 percent or so rated at least satisfactory except in times of high budgetary stress got four percent raises regardless of rating. Now, financial incentives will exist to motivate better performance and to guide less enthusiastic workers out of the state employment. The improved performance will provide better service delivery at reduced costs (even if the current bias towards unrealistically-high evaluation remains, which hopefully will be the next matter that the SCSC reviews for change).

But a few complained about this among the comments gathered pursuant to the drafting of the new regulations. One argued that the change really needed was addressing unclassified employees, specifically political appointees, that there were too many. Yet the fact is that fewer than five percent of all state full-time employees are appointees so savings would be pretty marginal by their reduction in numbers. At the same time, dealing with that does not mean then you don’t have to deal with compensation reform; they are not mutually exclusive.

Another opined that the new system would allow agencies to adopt informal policy not to give out ratings in the highest categories, which was echoed by a union flak at the hearing who added then raises may not be granted at all. However, that can be done already (and the failure to grant happened last year) under the current system so that is irrelevant as to why the new system would not be as good. And, as noted above, the evaluation system does need work precisely in the direction of realism that should cause fewer high evaluations to be given out.

Also, one seemed to be confused by calling potentially smaller increases “a cut in pay” when in fact no pay cuts are proposed (they are illegal without cause or when part of a reduction in force, in any event) and they were “a slap in our faces.” To which the appropriate response would be that if the remuneration was found inadequate and the organization demeaning, perhaps exiting the organization and finding a job elsewhere would bring the assumed deserved pay and respect. If enough quality people leave, then pay scales will rise to attract them back if this new compensation plan truly is flawed.

Finally, a note lodged by another union hack named Rodney Dufrene showed he neither understood the purpose of a classified civil service nor could use math as part of his critical thinking. He wrote, in advocating higher maximum levels of increases that “Any less than a 4 percent raise is in reality, a hardship on an employee, denying him or her the possibility of a true living raise.” Perhaps only he knows what a “living raise” is, but he certainly doesn’t know that the inflation rate for the past decade has been on average just about 2.5 percent, so what he suggests at 4.5 percent or better is almost twice the rate of cost-of-living increases.

Further, he wrote, “Please remember that the Civil Service Commission’s original goal was to protect the state’s workforce,” which is not in the Constitution as a duty of the SCSC. Even the broader concept, that of a civil service, is to provide protection for workers from political interference, not from salary increases lower than some would like.

This incoherent whining fortunately did no good as the SCSC astutely moved on, and by approving the resolution Jindal will allow the state to start saving perhaps tens of millions of dollars annually and to get better service from its bureaucracy. Jindal needs to sign this version and with that another hidebound institution would be reformed for the better under his watch.

Caddo Parish avoids blunder on debt unlike Bossier City

Recently, the Caddo Parish Commission voted to send, and then not to send, to voters on May 1 a $25 million bond issue devoted to road, park, and building maintenance. In essence, it would have renewed a pair of 1991 issues that are serviced through 1.95 mills dedicated to the Debt Service Fund. Passage of this effectively would have more than doubled the amount of debt of the parish and, in terms of proportion of debt service to all general expenditures would be at an all-time high. To sweeten the deal, the Commission also voted to reduce gradually the rate over 20 years millages dedicated to funds to pay for health care, detention facilities, and public works from 10.4 to 8.45 mills.

If all these needs are genuine, there might not have been any controversy – except that the parish is sitting on over $30 million in its Oil and Gas Fund which holds the proceeds from royalties derived from this kind of activities on parish lands, or about half of the annual intake of the parish excluding royalties and intergovernmental revenues. Every indication is that, thanks to the discovery and exploitation of the Haynesville Shale, several million dollars a year will flow into this fund, meaning if the $25 million was extracted for capital needs immediately (which is unlikely) it would not be emptied and would be replenished in only a few years.

Yet commissioners voted for the issuance anyway, with Lindora Baker saying savings should be maintained as the reason why. This is despite the fact that the interest expense from the debt almost certainly will be higher than any interest earnings from the full fund. Only Commissioners John Escude and Matthew Linn who originally voted against this seemed to understand initially it made more sense that, in essence, servicing debt no longer is necessary because capital projects no longer will require debt for the foreseeable future. The entire Commission agreed eventually and pulled the item.

Proponents may argue to vote down the measure means an immediate loss of around $2.7 million a year (as of 2008) and a gradual loss of the same again in constant dollars. However, if they are so concerned about revenues, why borrow so much with a gradual tax cut? Hopefully, Caddo voters will figure out they don’t need this extra expense and won’t be fooled into thinking a renewal is inextricably linked with a tax cut – the parish can afford things both without the former and with the latter so they must defeat it at the polls.

Across the river, the $30 million figure has held prominence now for nearly 15 years. Among Bossier City politicians, it is a figure cited in sacred tones as it was the magic number proclaimed when riverboats pulled into town as to how much revenues from them had to be held in reserve (in the Riverboat Gaming Special Revenue Fund) before amounts past that could be spent. It was invoked by several elected officials when discussing the budget meltdown of last year caused by the city’s profligacy concerning money-losing, unneeded capital expenditures.

Thus, dipping into this to resolve the $6.5 million, 13 percent shortfall never was discussed, nor the tactic of paying of debt early with it to release debt service money the need for which will cripple the city for years to come. Yet this was despite the fact that there is no provision by ordinance nor in the charter that mandates such a lockbox.

Where it comes from is a mystery. The 2008 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report states that funds collected prior to 1999 were required to follow this by city ordinance – which not longer appears on the books (through the Municode update of Jun. 2, 2009). It reported nearly $32 million in the account.

Seeking the legal basis for it, over the span of a month beginning at the end of last year I made repeated inquiries of both City Attorney Jimmy Hall and members of his staff for an explanation. Perhaps befitting a government whose willingness to provide information makes North Korea look transparent, I never received any reply. (One request to the Council was acknowledged, recommending that I ask Hall.) Apparently not only is the Bossier City taxpayer overburdened, he can’t even get his employees to give him a straight answer about their tax dollars.

With even more long-term financial problems coming down the road, Bossier City must look to emptying this account to reduce debt and certainly before it acquires more debt. It will be the final chapter to the squandering of riverboat bounty engineered by the ego-driven coup counters that have filled the city’s elective positions since the opportunity arose, matching the bankruptcy of public trust already frittered away, but it regrettably is the best course of action to save the city from themselves. Caddo Parish wisely avoided the same ruinous road.

Thompson prefers saving govt than taxpayers or disabled

One reason why Louisiana struggles to provide efficient services, where the failure to do so retards economic development and shortchanges overall service provision, is that certain policy-makers prefer to protect government and special interests before people.

One such dinosaur is state Sen. Francis Thompson, famous for such abuses of taxpayers’ trust as getting the state to spend tens of millions of dollars to build a reservoir for which his brother was convicted for corrupt activities surrounding it, trying to add fees to milk to facilitate oversupply in the milk production industry, and forcing fuel consumers to send subsidies to ethanol producers. Now he’s whining about trying to save taxpayers more than $8 million without any deterioration in government service provision.

Earlier this year, and confirmed with Gov. Bobby Jindal’s presentation of his budget, the state plans to close 31 state government-run community homes for the developmentally disabled focusing on residents who cope with what used to be called mental retardation. This would result in the relocation, mostly to homes not run by government, of about 155 clients at a savings of about $57,000 annually each – more than enough to pay for an additional client currently without services to receive services through a waiver program for every current client transferring out of a state-run home. These non-government homes, many in existence for decades, are fully authorized by the state for this kind of care and also are by the federal government, allowing Medicaid to pay for services.

Yet this seems to be a problem with Thompson. In the Senate’s Finance Committee, he complained about why this is happening now and insinuated cost savings was the only reason, to the detriment of clients. He also indirectly took a slap at the non-government providers, implying through his saying that the state used to hold out state-run homes as ideal institutions so therefore somehow other providers come up short.

Of course, as is typical with Thompson, it was hard to find any logic in his meanderings. On the one hand, he seems to believe that government provision in this is superior – why else bring up cost savings as an issue, implying that reduced costs meant reduced service? Yet on the other hand, he is questioning the same administrative structure that runs the houses currently. So how is it that the same agency that performs this task so well in caring for clients in his eyes is now accused of selling them out for lucre? Which is it – government provision and oversight is good or bad?

If Thompson is arguing that other providers can’t do as well as the state in this area, he needs to say it and defend that accusation. If he doesn’t, that provides a clue to his real motivation in questioning the move – the fact that state government will be smaller as a result. Some of the homes are in his district and these are state employees who will be out of government work – jobs that Thompson can claim he helps maintain.

The Jindal Administration’s plans on this issue will save the state money, provide more services to those who need them, and hardly disrupt the lives of those being transferred from state-run to non-government community homes. Why Thompson seems perturbed by this only can be explained in that he’d rather protect big government than serve the disabled or taxpayers.

Tax hike chance spurred by inability to admit mistakes

March has arrived and time has just about run out on Bossier City as to whether it wants to try to make taxpayers foot the bill for the mistakes of its politicians.

At year's end, more unintentional humor wafted from the Bossier City Council chambers as it concluded its 2010 budget deliberations under the rarest conditions: actual debate and dissent forsaking its typical Politburo-like unanimity behind Mayor Lo “Obama Lite” Walker. But at least the end product and comments about it showed some awakening from the dream its members blissfully and ignorantly have lived in for the past dozen or so years.

The passed version took a more nuanced approach than Lo Ob Lite’s meat cleaver approach in hacking away at the debt-induced deficit. In the end, it eliminated only five line fireman, so if attrition isn’t too bad over the next year with a hiring freeze in effect, the city may yet avoid losing its Class 1 firing rating and prevent passing its mistakes on to property owners in the form of higher insurance rates. Freezing many salaries, especially at the top levels, also was welcome and another year or so of this might actually bring top bureaucrats’ salaries in line with their counterparts in Shreveport who typically have more responsibilities to deal with.

However, the black comedy continued when the Council pledged throughout 2010 to monitor the budget to forestall any unpleasant surprises such as happened late this year. It’s a wonder that the audience did not then stand and break into sustained applause for the Council’s members saying they’ll actually do their jobs for once, rather than spend their time celebrating their names going onto plaques and signs on city buildings and roads. Anytime this past year, as each of them knew the national economy was going into the tank, they could have made a few calls and found out from the city, which keeps regular tally on this, how far behind its revenue projections were running.

(If they were actually in the dark. Since the city does keep regular tabs on revenues and it was clear to all the decline in the economy, do not be surprised if LOL kept a deficit projection quiet, and even warned councilmen running for reelection to do the same, so that word would not leak out prior to qualifying for city elections, information about which surely would have drawn many more opponents to perhaps send them and Walker packing as a result of the spring election.)

But while common sense has been in short supply on the Council for ages, at least there are faint signs at least some of its members are acquiring some. No such luck is evident from LOL and some sycophants in their support, however, of his idea that the city call an election to raise property taxes. Yet before dismissing this stupidity as a classic case of cognitive dissonance, understand the political motivation behind this thinking.

As by now is well known, Bossier City doesn’t have a revenue problem, but a spending problem. This is because by the end of 2008 it had taken on more than $317 million in debt, or more than $4,900 per capita (with more on the way – looks like the city will have to spring for a sewerage fix that will cost $21 million). Repaying this equates in the neighborhood of a quarter of the city’s total revenues annually – for the next 15 years, then it slowly begins to diminish. To put it another way, the total receipts minus earnings by the U.S. government budgeted for 2010 are about a fifth of its total debt; Bossier City’s total receipts minus business operations are about a seventh of its total debt – and Bossier City can’t print more money to mask its deficit. Repaying debt has sucked away resources that could have gone to financing sensible current operations.

Although Bossier City is exceptional in its huge debt, by contrast it is average in its property tax level. Among its four peer cities in Louisiana, two are higher, two are lower (and all noticeably lower in debt), shattering the myth that it is “under-taxed.” LOL’s plan rests on this assumption, as he is asking the Council to approve an election that if successful would raise property taxes to the rate prior to constitutional reduction.

Of course, after making repeated statements that he would not raise taxes, LOL has to make his backtracking look like it isn’t by trying to put the political onus on, respectively, the Council and citizenry by having them approve of the election and then pass the measure. It would give the Council cover as well, as it already can unilaterally raise rates to that level, in taking this route by having voters ratify.

All of these machinations leading to a tax increase are to dodge reality: it was inane capital spending decisions by the city that made the debt bomb what it is. Plowing around $112.5 million into a money-losing arena, a parking garage gift that is unlikely ever to be repaid, and into part-ownership of a high-tech office building that is even less likely ever to recoup expenses and opportunity costs set the stage for the crisis. Without this spending, absence of the principal and interest payments would mean no yearly deficit would exist now or for the foreseeable future.

This LOL, the Council, and stenographers parroting their line cannot ever acknowledge. For to do so becomes an admission of their own bad judgment in their enthusiastic backing of these wasteful projects and of others of much smaller scale. Thus, they must pretend the consequences of these mistakes don’t exist to legitimize the wish to export their costs to taxpayers

Fortunately, even the Council probably has figured out the political price is too high for as torpid as Bossier City voters as a whole may be, so much resentment has developed over the arrogance of the city’s officials that this measure could not pass and the Council would not want to be seen as supporting it and wasting the money on an election it knows it can’t win. Still, the public must keep the reminders coming over the next three years that the best solution to the crisis, in addition to efficiency measures in the works and others (for example, has anybody checked on the expenditures of the City Marshal’s office recently?), is by debt reduction through sales of unneeded assets and privatization, not by needlessly squeezing the citizenry for more resources in a time of national economic difficulty.

Regardless, the deadline for putting an item on the May 1 local elections fast approaches. and with LOL in charge and a critical mass of moronic councilmen available, the citizenry may have to go to battle this time not against stupidity, but deprivation of property and therefore liberty.

Jindal, Legislature must act to support legal integrity

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell will make the right move in appealing the decision made by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that would impose New York law on Louisiana, and now it’s up to the Legislature and Gov. Bobby Jindal to back him up.

The case involves a couple of men who, according to New York law, legally could adopt a child, who was born in Louisiana. They requested a copy of his birth certificate to be out with their names as the “parents.” However, state law permits only a married couple, defined constitutionally as a man and a woman, or a single person may adopt, thus only one name could appear on the certificate in the view of the attorney general, whose office recommended that the Louisiana Supreme Court hear the case to determine whether by implication that the constitutional provision defining marriage and the law regarding adoption meant that only one name had to appear on the certificate.

The panel agreed with the lower district court decision that the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution decide in favor of allowing New York law to trump the implicit relationship in Louisiana law and indirectly in the Constitution, negating any need to have the Louisiana Supreme Court deal with the matter. That clause is interpreted to mean that states reciprocally honor laws from other states unless they explicitly conflict with an existing law in an area in which states are assumed to have express power as in this case regarding what is termed the general police power of states.

So Louisiana would strengthen its argument by passing a law that makes the linkage direct. State Rep. Jonathan Perry tried to do so last session, but after House passage Senate leaders kept the bill from moving forward until the end of the session when it was too late to overcome apparently sufficient opposition in the Senate. This additional clarity will either entice higher courts to deal with the constitutional question of the meaning of the full faith and credit clause instead of the procedural use of it, or to overturn lower court decisions altogether now satisfied Louisiana has the power to make the refusal.

Perry or another legislator needs to take the initiative to get a similar bill going again, and Jindal needs to give his explicit support for this kind of bill and make efforts to get it passed into law this time. Unfortunately, last year those in the Legislature who wanted to make this case into a political football as a backdoor attempt to chip away at the state’s same-sex Constitutional prohibition got away with using intellectually unsound and emotive arguments that did not convince the House but may have led to enough senators to feel they could prevent the bill from passing. Some resolute legislators and Jindal’s intervention can preserve the integrity of Louisiana's law and Constitution by preventing this allowance of their degradations from potentially occurring.

Ethics members still push flawed retrenchment idea

From the statements that continue to emanate from members of Louisiana’s Board of Ethics concerning the possibilities of political interference in ethics adjudication, you have to hope they bring the a higher level of information and logic to their roles on it.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, they keep pushing this fiction that allowing the Board itself to adjudicate cases, as was the case until a couple of years ago, contains less possibility for political interference than the present setup where administrative law judges with civil service protections deliberately designed to minimize political interference perform this function. The latest reiteration of this erroneous view comes from the Board Chairman Frank Simoneaux from a larger discussion about Board reform.

Simoneaux argues that another board to perform adjudication with political appointees should be created. This follows a model suggested by the Public Affairs Research Council and is one followed by several other states. But that only would create the same potential for political interference if the same method of selection is used.

The Board has it members selected for fixed terms directly separately by the governor, House, and Senate, from nominations produced by presidents of independent (that is, private) accredited universities in the state. Even if nominations come from sources outside of state government, this does not mean that they are nonpolitical (nor that their nominators cannot be pressured – there are plenty of ways the state can regulate these institutions) nor that those who get nominated do not bring their own agendas to their potential jobs that may align with certain political forces in the state. The selection process then clearly invites the chosen to get their jobs on the basis of politicians’ beliefs, if this is part of their agenda, based upon who would be most favorable to them in any potential ethics case.

Contrast this with the selection process for the judges. Several dozen of these civil servants (an example job description is here) are employed in the Division of Administrative Law at any given time. They must meet merit qualifications in the hiring process and after their probationary period have full civil service protections. After a couple of layers of bureaucracy, their ultimate agency boss is the DAL director who approves of the hire and is appointed by the governor for a fixed six-year term with Senate confirmation. Among their many potential duties are to adjudicate ethics cases.

To adjudicate in ethics cases, further insulation is present. Of the judges, annually seven are chosen randomly to hear cases that year. For each case, three of the seven are randomly chosen. Supervisors have no authority over them in these matters. And it is worth reaffirming that civil service regulations prohibit any outside interference with standards that make it impossible to cut pay and virtually impossible to fire them as means by which to pressure the kinds of decisions they make.

It’s worth restating because Simoneaux doesn’t appear to have a clue that these regulations exist, which is the only thing that can explain how he possibly could think there’s a greater chance of putting political pressure on ALJ’s than on Board members. Consider the following scenarios:

Under the present system, in order to exert political pressure on a decision, let’s say a governor wishes to do so, and thus makes contact with the DAL director. Subtly, his representative tells the director a case that has been sent over by the Board must be decided a certain way or he won’t reappoint the director.

First of all, given the long length of her term there’s a decent chance that governor won’t even be in office when the director’s term expires, and with Senate confirmation required the governor can’t even assure that nomination again is tantamount to retaining the job. Second, in order for the director even to have any influence over assigning the case to presumed “favorable” judges, she would have to go through an extraordinary amount of corrupt and hard-to-disguise behavior in (if it’s coming up the next year) rigging the selection of the seven judges and/or rigging the three-judge panel selection. Finally, in tandem with this or alternatively, she would have to undergo a very risky course of action which could result in legal action against her to try to pressure judges to decide a certain way when it is strictly prohibited by regulations with many recourses by employees so threatened.

Contrast this with a similar scenario under the old system, which is proposed as the selection method for this new adjudicatory panel. The governor’s agent calls up the Board member, subtly says he cannot expect to be reappointed later this term or after the governor’s reelection if a case gets decided a certain way … and that’s all there is to it. Instead of four layers of insulation (chain of command, two randomizations, regulations that protect), there are zero. And Simoneaux (and PAR) seriously believe the new system is more open to political manipulation? (Not to mention they cast aspersions on the integrity of the entire DAL which decides cases in many different areas besides ethics using procedures which are actually less insulated.)

Apparently, so does Board member Scott Schneider who at least tries to find a different rationale to argue the same point. He asserts that because making these decisions is part of a job, that the “livelihood” of the ALJ’s could be pressured, whereas less ability to pressure exists because the Board appointees do not serve in those positions as their employment.

Apart from the facts that, as demonstrated above, it is nearly impossible to exert political pressure on judges and it’s a bit unsettling to imply unintentionally that Board service is a hobby by comparison, Schneider’s argument also logically fails. Lack of being employed by an institution does not mean that other avenues to put pressure on a person serving for that institution do not exist. Board members are there obviously because they want to be, so any hint that they might not be pending a certain decision certainly is a nontrivial inducement that, by comparison with the protection afforded judges, has much more potential to influence a decision.

Simoneaux is right about one thing, that the Legislature is unlikely to revisit this aspect of ethics adjudication – because it’s a better system also currently used by several states. While some other changes would be beneficial, going backwards on this is not the answer.

Good Jindal plan for higher education needs refining

Legislation backed by Gov. Bobby Jindal regarding finance and performance of Louisiana’s higher education is welcome and necessary, but questions remain about it that must be answered satisfactorily for it to truly revolutionize the provision of this service.

The bill would allow any institution of higher learning to raise its tuition 10 percent a year until it reached the level of its southern peer average, and after that five percent, with a special higher level set for Louisiana State University Baton Rouge. In exchange for being able to have this power, institutions must raise admission standards and hit graduation targets within the next six years.

This is an excellent answer to a system that has lacked coordination that misallocated resources through a failure to demand enough excellence from students, interjected too many marginal students into the system or into inappropriate places in it, and did not demand enough accountability. Still, for it to work optimally, several aspects must be addressed.

First, rather than educate better at reduced costs because of the efficiencies forced into the system, costs may not go down at all. This is because the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students will continue to pay for all but fees at the highest level of tuition for a state school, LSU’s. For those students that qualify, in taxpayer terms it’s a wash: extra money coming in from higher tuition is picked up by the taxpayer.

Savings might occur because of reallocation of students: some that were starting their careers at LSU may now start at a place like LSU Shreveport because of increased admission standards and thereby make a tuition claim at a lower level to TOPS, and some that had been starting at LSUS now may start at Bossier Parish Community College with its relatively lower tuition level, etc. The allowed increases in tuition may – or may not – be compensated for by this reallocation process.

But also to consider is that TOPS pays at the weighted average of all awards for public schools for the state’s private institutions. This may encourage some students now that entered the public system to choose private schools, since now relatively more of the private school tuition will be covered. Therefore, legislators should tinker with TOPS on this and set the reimbursement to the tuition charged by a state four-year institution that is the lowest – why subsidize maximally private schools when they have their own resources and students interested in attending them have access to scholarships, grants, and loans?

Second, vital to making this work better for less money is something not in the proposed bill but which Jindal recommended legislators address, raising TOPS standards in conjunction with increased admission standards. Right now, it is not a true scholarship program in that to pay tuition at a baccalaureate-granting institution all a student has to do is earn a 20 on the American College Test or the higher of the state average on the test, rounded down (currently 20.1, so they are the same). This is a score well below the national average and, frankly, not very demanding (for example, the highest TOPS award level for a regular Louisiana high school graduate is 27 which is the average score for incoming students at Texas A&M).

This means that TOPS is seen by some as a near-free opportunity to indulge and “find” themselves after high school. That’s understandable, but not something that should be subsidized by taxpayers. If 18-year-olds need to get themselves motivated and figure out what they’re going to do with their lives after they graduate from high school, they need to do it on their own resources. It also means some students are of marginal capabilities to succeed in quality higher education programs and the extra incentive of paying for it on their own may be what’s required for them to concentrate enough to become better students and to succeed (the proposal also addresses increasing need-based financing for students).

With these marginal students either in a sense starting lower at the community college level or delaying entrance if they ever attend college at all, resources will be used more efficiently. Yet this will work only if TOPS standards are raised with admission standards because they two are linked.

Third, while the removal of marginal students and more precise placing of student to school should increase graduation rates significantly, the measurement tools for institutional evaluation must be refined. The metrics to measures these are as yet unclear but must take into account things like, for example, how transfer students are counted in terms of an institution’s overall graduation rate. Without valid and comprehensive measures, this defeats the evaluation.

Finally, the question of system reorganization is left unanswered. Jindal is nudging the transformation of the current system of its four management systems and one supervisory system into two management/supervisory systems of baccalaureate-and-above schools and of all others by budgetary means, but no formal plans exist yet for merging existing systems or for merging individual schools (the state has about 90 of them, most being community and technical colleges).

Oddly, in a seemingly-uninformed fashion some interest groups in the state have argued against this, stating that tasks would become too numerous and confusing for the Jindal idea of two systems to work. In fact, similar models are used by peer states such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma whose educational delivery is considered at least as good as Louisiana’s. Efficiency and savings can be realized by this and it also must be pursued.

Satisfactory answers to these things in the legislative process can produce a much superior environment for higher education in the state with costs that promise to be lower. Jindal and his allies on this should be applauded for progress to date, but they need to do more and make sure it all gets done.