The Inquisitor column, Dec. 27, 2019

Tax and spend Red River cities face new reality
https://www.theinquisitor.com/columns-opinions/tax-and-spend-red-river-cities-face-new-reality

Links:
https://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2017/07/bossier-city-squanders-without-term.html
https://www.theinquisitor.com/columns-opinions/cross-bayou-deal-must-win-both-taxpayers-and-developer
https://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2018/10/tarver-assent-key-to-shreveport-mayors.html

LA public defense needs to help itself first

It’s a new year, but the same two stories for the Louisiana Public Defense Board and the system it oversees: a need for additional resources, but also a failure of its districts to help themselves.

This year, dire warnings of system collapse came in front of a task force set up to review criminal justice changes that went into effect last year. About 57 percent of all indigent defense funding comes from local sources, which comes from a $45 fee assessed to those convicted and those who forfeit bonds, a $40 application fee, $2 of a $15 fee for every bond posted in a district, a cut of bond license proceeds paid by bailsmen, another bond forfeiture fee, partial reimbursement by clients, and any monies provided by grants or local governments.

In recent years, system representatives have stressed the precipitous loss of fees from a decline in writing traffic tickets that go to court. With a growing number of jurisdictions opting for diversion strategies that bypass courts, the $45 fee has shrunk as a source for funding. In the 41^st District (Orleans Parish), for example, in the busiest jurisdiction in the state in less than a decade the number of such tickets has shrunk (through 2017) by almost three-quarters.

Christmas Day, 2019

This column publishes every Monday through Friday around noon U.S. Central Time (maybe even after sundown on busy days, or maybe before noon if things work out, or even sometimes on the weekend if there's big news) 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 Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Christmas, or New Year's Day when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, in addition to these are also Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.

With Wenesday, Dec. 25 being Christmas Day, I invite you to explore this link.

Data reveal another Medicaid expansion myth

But, Medicaid expansion!

As the data pile up, that has become a less and less satisfactory answer supposed to solve for several issues facing Louisiana:

• It supposedly created greater access to care. It never did for many, because the proportion of clients having to wait to see a doctor on Medicaid rose by a factor of 14 after expansion
• It supposedly saved money. It never did, because it wasted so much on ineligible enrollees and the increased wait times still had people flooding higher-cost emergency rooms
• It supposedly paid for itself. It never did, not only because of the waste but also because it relied on tax increases that, beginning next year, won’t even cover additional taxpayer costs
• It supposedly brought economic benefits. It never did, because the alleged benefits have fallen far short of the money extracted from the people to pay for it that could have gone to more economically productive purposes
• It supposedly gave the uninsured health insurance. It never did, not only because of Louisiana’s anachronistic free charity care predated expansion, but that a third to a half of enrollees already had insurance

Clarify process to tame Edwards law breaking

As has become his habit, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards showed the Louisiana Constitution his index, middle, and ring fingers and said to read between the lines. Now it’s up to the Republican-majority Legislature to respond to that in a way differently from the past.

Just as he did earlier this year, Edwards last week declared he would ignore the state’s governing charter and said he planned to introduce a budget not conforming to its rules. This continues a pattern where Edwards consistently has tried to operate outside the law, only to have constitutional checks imposed by Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry and the judiciary slap him down.

That happened last spring when Edwards tried to introduce a budget that included revenues beyond what the state’s official arm for forecasting these, the Revenue Estimating Conference, had established. Put into the Constitution in 1990 to ensure reliable budgeting that didn’t depend on fantasy numbers, the panel’s four members that include representatives of the governor, House, and Senate, and an independent economist must agree unanimously to change an existing prediction.

The Inquisitor column, Dec. 20, 2019

Auditor reports on Shreveport insurance, you decide
https://www.theinquisitor.com/columns-opinions/auditor-reports-shreveport-insurance-you-decide

Links:
https://www.ktbs.com/news/audit-no-appropriate-process-was-followed-in-perkins-administration-s/article_84837b0c-1de9-11ea-935c-d3a516617eda.html
https://www.scribd.com/document/439688814/Final-Report-Audit-of-City-of-Shreveport-Insurance-Procurement
https://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2019/02/perkins-sacrificing-one-openness-for.html
https://www.shreveportla.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/1997

Edwards wastes with politicized census panel

While Louisiana’s state government should strive for as accurate a census count as possible, state taxpayers shouldn’t have their money wasted on a matter infused with partisanship that is best left to local governments.

This week, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards issued an executive order creating a complete census count committee. These, urged by the federal government, strive to engage in activities that maximize citizen participation in the census for 2020, and almost every state plus many local governments have established these.

Census data serve many purposes, although three have implications far beyond the rest. These determine the number of House of Representatives seats for each state, create the baselines through which state and local government reapportionment take place, and underpin the distribution of $675 billion in federal grants.

On budgeting, LA GOP lawmakers face choice

On the budget, Louisiana’s Republican legislative majority will have to choose.

The strong majorities in each legislative chamber know that Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards will spend everything he can to keep inflated state government a reality. The outgoing Legislature gave him the chance by foolishly extending a temporary sales tax increase seven years. Occurring simultaneously with federal tax law changes that boosted state income tax receipts, the state likely for the next few years will take too much money from the people.

But for use the excess collection, constitutionally, must garner recognition from the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference. Here, as Republicans demonstrated earlier this month, the veto power each legislative chamber has can prevent this, in effect forcing the spending of fewer dollars. In essence, if not recognized officially even if in fact collected, the money would just pile up.

Potential insular LSU choices risky or worse

For its upcoming presidential search, the Louisiana State University System may take a turn towards insularity that could produce a pick either risky or unsuitable.

With current Pres. King Alexander preparing to vacate the premises, by spring the System hopes to have a new leader in place, who also will head the Baton Rouge campus. Two familiar names quickly surfaced in connection with the job, neither fitting the traditional model of a doctoral holder with substantial academic experience.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Reviews of the term of Sean O’Keefe, who led LSU through the hurricane disasters of 2005, were positive. He holds only a masters degree and had spent just a few years in academia prior to his appointment. However, he had served in a couple of high-profile George W. Bush Administration posts and had years of prior government service in high-level Department of Defense positions. (He also had insider status as part of a politically-prominent family – for better and worse – from New Orleans.)

Edwards flunky complains of separated powers

In its latest spiel of demagoguery, the Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards Administration now attacks the concept of checks and balances.

That spleen venting came courtesy of Commission of Administration Jay Dardenne, who took umbrage at the Revenue Estimating Conference’s unwillingness to approve of revenue estimates higher than the current standards from April. Although economists from his office and the Legislature said they expected higher collections for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, with three members of the panel (including Dardenne) willing to raise the official estimates by $170 million and $103 million, respectively, because the House of Representatives’ designee Republican state Rep. Cameron Henry objected, that didn’t go through.

Henry noted that waiting longer would improve forecast accuracy. History backs him up. A recent study of REC forecasting showed a typical error of 1.7 percent (excluding 2006-07 affected by the hurricane disasters of 2005), which translates over time into an $83.3 million error. About four-fifths of the time the error came on the low range, but errors have come a fifth of the time in overestimating – and four times in the past decade – and in the past decade have averaged an overestimation of about $100 million.