LA chooses wisely to reward performance, not credentials

Wisely, Louisiana continues to shift its philosophy in delivery of elementary and secondary education from assumed ability to actual performance by its abjuring to reimburse districts for teachers certified under a national standard.

Over a decade ago, R.S. 17:426.1 made obligatory the provision of a $5,000 annual bonus for teachers that picked up a certification, using their own resources, from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. It required the expense of local school boards but invited state reimbursement, subject to appropriation. Until fiscal year 2010-11, that was forthcoming.

But as the state’s budget tightened, Gov. Bobby Jindal and Legislature decided not to fund the stipend, thereby passing the cost on to local school districts.

Election administration needs more efficiency, not money

Sec. of State Tom Schedler whines about how his office will need more money to conduct elections before the first half of next year is out. Instead, he needs to become proactive and start lobbying policy-makers to change Louisiana’s election code to reduce inefficiency and waste in the conduct of elections.

After having asserted that he foresaw a deficit in the operations of his department approaching a half million dollars for the rest of fiscal year 2011-12, Schedler further was disconcerted to learn that recent mid-year shortfalls meant $1.5 million was getting chopped from his budget, or less than two percent of the total. Since elections must go on, by all indications some time before Jun. 30 the sum of those totals must find its way back into the Department of State’s coffers. It must pay in total almost all expenses for elections with federal and/or state candidates and/or issues on them, half of many others, and a portion of most of the remainder. It also pays half of expenses regarding equipment storage sites, equipment, and drayage, and also pays portions of local elections full-time personnel as well as that for commissioners and their training.

But whether the money currently spent on elections should be is another matter. There are several statutory and procedural changes that could be made that would reduce the cost of elections in Louisiana without compromising the quality of their administration:

Attempt to subvert fund likely to fail, but without consequences

Prosperity in Louisiana has forced austerity, in a sense, putting the state on the hook for a rash action of a couple of years back, but that same prosperity might end up saving the state from the consequences of that decision.

Voters wisely rejected this past fall’s Amendment 4, which would have loosened up requirements on use of money in the state’s Budget Stabilization Fund. Under narrowly-defined circumstances defining its use the BSF acts as a savings account. It gets deposits from a variety of constitutionally-defined sources, which is where the state got into trouble in budgeting for the 2010-11 fiscal year.

One source of funds is when severance tax revenues, most of which is from oil and gas extraction, exceed a statutorily-defined figure of $850 million.

Dardenne again whines about not spending more

It's the unfortunate nature of government to always want more of the people's resources, usually the amounts demanded inversely related to the actual usefulness of the matter to be funded. Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne regrettably demonstrates his acquiescence to this trait with his latest lament about how he can't get enough money to spend.

Dardenne has complained before about how the state does not dedicate all of the 0.03 percent sales tax it rakes off does not get used completely for the department he nominally heads, Culture, Recreation, and Tourism. He fingers as the worst culprit using those proceeds to subsidize special athletic events. Now he has a solution -- reaching into taxpayers' wallets.

He proposes establishing a fund for financing of these events, paid for by possibly diverting more of the proceeds from the sales tax or, worse, perhaps some kind of increase. Even if the tactic only was to divert, this locks away money that is needed for more pressing concerns and would compound the bad problem of too many dedications, too little discretion in the state's budgeting.

New candidate illustrates dishonesty of Roemer's bid

There’s the honest way to go about running for president, and then there’s former Gov. Buddy Roemer’s way, illustrated by another announced contender’s proclamations about his anticipated campaign.

Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson recently declared his candidacy for the nation’s highest office through the vehicle of a new political party, mouthing the same conspiracy theories about moneyed interests controlling America, and in doing so trumped Roemer’s on credibility in three ways. First, Anderson, although like Roemer personally wealthy, made his fortune the old-fashioned way of liberals, as a trial lawyer, not through the system that Roemer used to supplement his family’s wealth and now criticizes. Second, he’s been a hardcore, fringe leftist his entire political career, not shifting views as has Roemer.

But, third and most relevant to the current election cycle and the issue on which Roemer has asserted purifies him relative to other candidates, Anderson also says he’ll accept no campaign donation over $100 and actually means it by running for this new party.

Election market suggests LA judicial spots priced right

Who’s gotten the biggest pay raises in Louisiana among its class of employees over the past 11 years? Statewide elected officials have gotten a small increase, and so have legislators, if you count their per diems, but it isn’t either. Not even state classified employees, until the last two or three years (depending on what your job was) did get hikes of four percent annually in most cases. Don’t even consider unclassified employees, the majority of whom work in higher education and have seen little in the way of any salary increase in this century.

No, it’s judges, whose salaries have about doubled over that time span, although they did not get anything in the past year. And now the body, largely represented by members of the judiciary or those of the profession whose members comprise it, lawyers, charged with recommendations on this matter thinks there should be another hike over the next two years, although it graciously wants to hold their size to about, in aggregate, half of the typical rate of the past.

The Judicial Compensation Commission, whose recommendation needs legislative approval for anything to happen, argues that Louisiana’s elected state judges are falling behind their comrades in other similar states. One of its judicial members decries that salaries are so low it discourages people to serve in these posts, as “They can't afford to be judges” on the current salary.

Response to challenge LA higher education improvement

The Louisiana Board of Regents made the right call in holding Louisiana State University – Eunice accountable for its decisions, but the episode demonstrates the perils the policy-makers and educators face in trying to improve delivery of higher education.

School and LSU system officials petitioned the Regents to exempt LSU-E from meeting requirements voluntarily entered into by the college in order to get increased state funding and higher tuition rates. While almost every requirement was met, one fell distinctly short, and administrators asked that, under the agreement’s “extraordinary circumstances” clause, for next year the failure not abrogate its chances to receive at least a portion of almost 25 percent of projected funding. They argued that budget cuts, in part causing larger class sizes that theoretically would have a negative impact on the problem area, retention, and a general slow economic climate justified the request.

The Regents refused, rightly noting that all institutions were on the record knowing that state budgetary tightness did not constitute an excuse and that LSU-E had been told that, if in doubt, to lower its projections of retention.

Rates set ignoring risk bad for LA consumers, investors

My friend Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell pitched an idea to members of the press concerning electric utility rates in Louisiana. Here’s why in the long run it would be injurious to both Louisiana ratepayers and (some of whom are also) investors.

Campbell mused that the average rate of return allowed by the PSC, the five-member board that sets these rates in Louisiana, at 10 percent allowed too great of a return to providers. He thought more like 8 percent would do, but, of more interest, he thought then pegging that rate of return on equity (even with the state’s current average being in line with regional and national averages) to other investments’ rates of return would do a better job of producing what he considered a reasonable rate of return for utilities, with the implication that today’s allowed rates were too high.

(As a side note, the figures he quoted as comparison benchmarks – 1 percent return on a certificate of deposit and 3.5 percent on a mortgage – if that’s what he gets, he’s got some pretty sweet deals. The average 30-year rate on a mortgage yesterday was 3.96 percent, while the average 1-year CD earned 0.75 percent.)

Media finally conceding wisdom of Jindal berm strategy

One wonders why it took the mainstream media so long to realize what readers of this space knew well over a year ago, that the leveraging opportunities of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s decision to build sand berms as a defense against potentially polluting oil made the decision wise.

When the Macondo well explosion erupted to begin emptying oil into the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana’s coast, one of the parties involved, explorer and producer BP, asserted it would pay for all damages. Assured of a funding stream at no cost to taxpayers, the Jindal Administration began an ambitious plan to build sand berms to catch any oil that might threaten ecologically-sensitive areas.

As a bonus, the choice had real value added for it could be designed in a way for the berms to double as barrier islands to aid in coastal preservation and restoration; in other words, at no cost to Louisiana, hundreds of millions of dollars could go years ahead of schedule for improving the coastline, saving even more by stopping any deterioration faster. Regrettably, at a time when these considerations should not have mattered, because it was conservative Republican Jindal taking the lead, the plan baselessly caught flak from partisan and ideological opponents.

LA GOP success may moot party governance controversy

The Louisiana Republican State Central Committee met yesterday. Talk may have focused on the fact that only 16 of 230 vacancies occurred when qualification for seats on this body for the next term ended the day before, two fewer than for the 2008 election and certainly better than the 38 of 210 vacancies for their Democrat counterparts, demonstrating the former’s ascendancy and the latter’s decline. But by qualification for the 2016 election, because of this ascendancy Republicans might be like Democrats and thereby sidestep a controversy about their districts that nearly derailed this election.

Last month, longtime RSCC member (and the man holding the singular distinction of losing to David Duke for elective office) John Treen sued to prevent the election. He contended that the official schedule for submitting boundaries of districts had not been followed, and therefore the default according to R.S. 18:443.2 of a member per legislative district would have to be followed. While he argued on legal grounds, he indicated the request also would have the effect of decreasing representation on the SCC from more ideologically social conservative elements.

However, the federal judiciary disagreed, in the form of (interestingly, the former head of state Democrats) District Judge James Brady, and elections and qualification for these districts proceeded as the state party had planned.