It turns out that former Gov. Bobby
Jindal had it right. Now if only Louisiana’s current Gov. John Bel Edwards would
follow through.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice gigged
the state for excessive institutionalization of mentally ill individuals. A
letter to
Edwards noted that Louisiana maintained too few options to treat such
individuals in the community rather than in hospitals or nursing homes.
Moreover, the document noted that unless the state came to some kind of
agreement that began expanding community placements at the expense of
institutionalization, the federal government would pursue legal action.
The problem begins with Louisiana having too many
nursing home beds. Historically, public policy has favored nursing home
interests, to the absurd point now that the state pays tens of millions of
dollars annually to maintain
empty beds in private facilities. This has given the state one of the
highest per capita number of beds in
the country, ranking fourth highest among the states (2014
data) and thereby diverts dollars that could go to home- and
community-based programs.
Reaction
to a provision in the recovery action plan for 2016 in Louisiana highlights the
moral hazard involved in disaster relief, and suggests how the state can reduce
that by judicious future policy-making.
Through next Tuesday public comment remains open
regarding the Gov. John Bel
Edwards Administration plan
to deal with the flooding that occurred mainly in northern part of the state in
the spring and in the southern part in the summer. As the funding for relief
comes not in the typical fashion – instead of through the Disaster Relief Fund
administered by the Federal Emergency Management Administration rather by way
of a Community Development Block Grant through the Department of Housing and
Urban Development – the state must develop a plan according to HUD rules and solicit
for two weeks’ commentary from the public. This approach also makes likely much
higher payouts per home than through the standard FEMA use of the DRF.
As far as distribution eligibility, HUD has few
rules, but given what state policy-makers consider a low amount appropriated for
the size of the disaster in the first tranche of money, it established
additional rules that it plans to submit to HUD. One is that aid will go only
to those individuals who live outside the 100-year flood plain; that is, the
area in question has a less than one percent chance of flooding in any given
year. This rule has riled some who lived in such areas but declined purchasing
insurance, who now must hope the second and any later tranches include them.
You can whine about a problem or get busy trying to
solve it. Louisiana State University’s leadership prefers the former approach
while some students affected by reductions in Taylor Opportunity Program for
Students awards have opted for the latter.
When appearing earlier this month in front of the House Appropriations
Committee as part of its budget vetting, System Pres. F. King Alexander moaned
about how that cut, which causes in the case of LSU a couple of thousand fewer
dollars made available for each student to pay his tuition, might discourage
LSU students in the spring. He used this as another example to argue that
taxpayers must fork over more to higher education, who collectively want $100
million more in general fund money and $89 million put into TOPS to allow it to
pay at 100 percent again.
That view ignores the facts
that, when considering the per capita income of Louisiana and its relative
ranking to other states (34th), its average tuition and fees for
senior institution (29th – but this doesn’t include TOPS that would
lower its placement several positions even if less than half-funded), and state
support per full-time enrollee (33rd), these balance pretty well.
While taxpayer ability to pay seems fairly maximized, if anything students
could pay more.
This column publishes usually every Sunday through Thursday after noon (sometimes even before; maybe even after sundown on busy days) U.S. Central Time except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Monday through Friday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Independence Day or Christmas or New Year's when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, there are six of these: New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas. My column for The Advocate will run on Easter Sunday.
With Sunday, Dec. 25 being Christmas Day, I invite you to explore this link.
The actions of Slidell may end up shaping First
Amendment jurisprudence, as result of an ordinance it enacted requiring
licensing for panhandling.
Interpretation regarding this area of law went
topsy-turvy last year in the case of Reed v. Town
of Gilbert, which did not even involve panhandling. But the constitutional standard
made in that case, dealing with signage, quickly became applied to a host of
municipal ordinances that had prohibited various permutations of panhandling.
In essence, almost all instances of panhandling acquired automatic
non-neutrality in speech content, meaning that almost all regulation of it unjustifiably
restricted freedom of speech.
A wide swath of challenged laws, often by a
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, fell as a result. In response,
Slidell abandoned its own ordinances restricting the prevalence and venue of
the practice and instead turned to licensing, an approach that then had no
challenge in the few places with something similar. The ordinance requires that
48 hours prior to commencing of begging that prospective solicitors obtain a
free annual license that aims to provide some kind of positive identification
of the holder. Information gathered for that purpose the city may use to
conduct background checks.
While current students receiving Taylor Opportunity
Program for Students award got
a curveball thrown at them this year, in the long run future students and
taxpayers will benefit from the state’s failure to fund the program fully.
The decision by policy-makers to cover only about
93 percent of tuition due for this year and only around 41 percent for the remainder
of the academic year caused consternation, but many of the state’s senior institutions
found ways to mitigate costs for some or all of their award recipients. In some
cases, this meant dipping into university monies or receiving one-time gifts
from benefactors that clearly serve only as stopgap measures.
However, it’s on the student end of things where
the shortfall can assist both them and the citizenry as well as make the
program run more efficiently. Technically,
applicants must fill out the Free
Application for Federal Student Aid as part of the process, where any
no-cost aid a student receives from the federal government offsets TOPS dollars.
With state Treas. John
Kennedy ascending to the U.S. Senate at the start of next month, the job he
has held for 17 years comes open. Since now it has catapulted upwards its last
two occupants who won reelection to it, ambitious politicians reasonably view
it as a stepping stone to higher office, attracting
a number who have voiced consideration for the job.
But as a state whose population votes center-right
ideologically, the electorate would prefer certain candidates over others. Even
though the job itself provides little room for policy-making, featuring largely
technocratic and arcane functions to most voters, because it can act as a
launching pad to higher, more issue-driven positions, candidates who stake out
issue preferences on fiscal matters appealing to conservatives have every
incentive to publicize these and force the election to play out in this
territory.
This makes certain candidates more acceptable than
others: those who have conservative fiscal ideas and can demonstrate at least
minor expertise in the area of the treasurer’s job functions (not that Kennedy
had a lot of this background before his election, and prior to the guy he beat
former Sen. Mary Landrieu held the job, who had zero qualifications on this
account). Thus, listed below in order of acceptability to conservatives are
major figures not fairly unlikely to run.
Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards threw overboard
outgoing Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Charlie Melancon because the latter’s
use as a political instrument became too costly to the former’s political
future.
Last week, Edwards announced
the departure of Melancon after less than a year on the job. Melancon
latter clarified, saying he
had been dismissed but would stay on the job until completion of an audit
of past agency practices.
Melancon’s stormy
tenure included shilling for national Democrat interests in fisheries
policy against the will of all other Gulf states and congressional majorities,
aligning himself with commercial fishing interests against recreational users,
firing an apparent whistleblower that came forward concerning unseemly
management practices that earned
him a law suit, and feuding with the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, the
other part of the duopoly that runs the department. The audit also had overtones of
politicization, perhaps as a method to subjugate the agency and Commission that
clearly have resisted Edwards’ influence in the department.
