Obama budget blows to LA subvert his fiscal agenda

Louisiana can’t help that Pres. Barack Obama served up a one-two punch to the state’s economy. What can be dealt with is its response, with some clues as to what that might be.

The state’s Revenue Estimating Conference met Tuesday to ratify that in the fewer than 70 days left in this fiscal year the state was short $210.5 million on what it had been budgeted for. Even with that lower baseline, it also said next year’s budget would still have to be constructed with $92.8 million less than even that, compared to the previous forecast.

State budget analysts noted one problem as a lingering national recession. That was the first punch by Obama, whose economic policies have caused this. His follow-up was with the placement of ideology over people with policies designed to slow the extraction of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, in order to throw some red meat (maybe tofu in some cases) to environmentalists and to make a greater case to shift energy production to alternative energies (and all the crony capitalism that involves). While the former has hurt the entire country, the latter additionally persistently has hurt disproportionately Louisiana.

Normally compliant voters send Bossier schools message

It was a tale of several northwest Louisiana local governing authorities this weekend concerning funding propositions for local governments, with very different fates. Of around 140 ballot propositions across the state for a dizzying variety of jurisdictions and purposes, only nine failed to pass. Interestingly, five of them were in this part of the state.

Some authorities around here won, and big. Multiple propositions renewing nearly half of the projected revenues for the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office breezed by the voters by margins that make Russia look like a healthy democracy by comparison.

This is a testament to the leadership of Sheriff Steve Prator, whose tenure now of over a dozen years has featured putting a brake on spiraling costs while expanding services. He even did something seldom seen around these parts by governing authorities with property tax renewals – rather than renew them at their previous authorized millages, he put up to the voters the millages at which they had been rolled back.

Image before issues backfires on LA Democrats

It seems very likely that Pres. Barack Obama will wrap up the Democrats’ nomination for the presidency after today, regardless of the eventual outcome of an incident in Louisiana where the state branch of the party, famous for its ability to construct omelets on its face, just went and cracked a few more eggs to add to its embarrassment.

Last month, ironically driven by voters who will not support the party in the general election, a hard leftist Tennessee lawyer named John Wolfe appeared to have won delegates in the state’s presidential preference primary, the rules stating that anybody who earned more than 15 percent of the vote in a state congressional district was entitled. By the rules, he seemingly won three, the first that would have been awarded not to Obama.

Democrats at all levels, knowing Obama faces trouble in reelection, desperately want every advantage they can muster and strongly desire the appearance that Obama has perfectly solid support within the party, thus making it imperative that nobody but Obama wins delegates to their national convention. With Wolfe’s results threatening this chimera, the state party decided to shut him out, announcing that his failure to file relatively simple if somewhat tangential requests regarding his candidacy (although no forms are provided in the delegate selection plan) that it claims was available prior to its due dates (an assertion disputed by another candidate) voided his opportunity to receive any delegates.

Electioneering note reminds educrats need supervision

Passing reform legislation is one thing. Getting it implemented when those who have benefitted from the previous system are part of that equation is another thing, as a recent incident reminds.

About the time Gov. Bobby Jindal was readying himself to sign Act 1 and Act 2 of the 2012 regular legislative session, which among other things would reduce school board influence over certain decisions made by school superintendents, Livingston Parish School District Superintendent Bill Spear stood up before the local Chamber of Commerce and lied about activities of the Jindal Administration, making the fantastic claim that, according to the Livingston Parish News, it “already made a public records request for e-mails sent out to Livingston Parish school employees concerning proposed changes.”

Apparently, the reporter lacked any critical perspective on the matter and accepted the charge at face value (nor did she show much accurate knowledge about the whole issue, such as claiming charter schools “are public schools run by private businesses” when in fact most in the state are run by nonprofit organizations). More on the ball were Gannett News Service reporters Mike Hasten and Barbara Leader, who actually investigated the claim and found it, if not outright fabricated, badly distorted. Instead, they learned the request had been about electioneering activities by Spear in the fall elections and from a law partner of a state Republican Party official.

Populist hypocrisy should not stop prison privatization

Populism and hypocrisy can make for a potent mix, but it still may not be enough to derail efforts to improve Louisiana state government efficiency, as long as Gov. Bobby Jindal stays committed to achieving it.

Jindal and his legislative allies had to trim sail a bit on a measure that would allow for selling the Avoyelles Correctional Center that could have pumped $35 million into the Budget Stabilization Fund, but have retained the option for it to be operated by the private sector, as are Allen and Winn Correctional Centers presently, at an estimated $7 million a year. Unfortunately, legislators don’t get much political mileage out of telling the folks back home they stuffed away more money into a savings account for a rainy day, as compared to what small but intense constituencies can bring to oppose such items. It’s those special interests that want to scuttle the savings as well.

The leading loudmouth in this regard is state Rep. Robert Johnson, who has Avoyelles in his district. In floor debate on HB 850 that would set the stage for that facility’s private sector operation, Johnson said of private correctional facilities operators, “They're trying to make profits, they're not worried about safety,” and claimed staff turnover was almost nonexistent at Avoyelles, compared to high turnover at Winn, thereby arguing that as the profit motive encouraged lower wages, therefore higher turnover that resulted led to less safe conditions.

Anti-bullying bill ready to overcome political posturing

The issue of school bullying deserves better than to be used as a political prop by one state legislator, but, fortunately, another appears ready to tackle the substance of it.

State Rep. Pat Smith had sponsored HB 407, which would define measures that constituted bullying and marginally increased notification and reporting requirements. Unfortunately, in its original form, the bill carried consequences that could have conflicted with free speech advocacy; for example, the bill’s language could have caused prosecution of a student arguing against the concept of same-sex marriage to another who favored it. Additionally, by assuming to come up with a complete list, it risked creating classes of individuals the bullying of whom under current law would not be covered. Finally, other than specify protected classes of individuals by both characteristics and behaviors, it did little else to beef up notification and reporting.

To deal with free speech issues, an amendment was offered that pared away the list of specified protected classes, which succeeded. Smith then voluntarily deferred it rather than proceed – even though the bill didn’t do much else to address the issue it did more clearly define behavior that constituted bullying and more amendments could have improved it further. Given that action, it’s hard not to conclude that she seemed more interested in trying to make a political statement than actually support a law that would increase the chances of preventing and prosecuting bullying.

Debased rhetoric again appears to try derailing reform

As the debate over changes to the Louisiana State Employees Retirement System, one particular red herring has come up in an attempt to stymie this legislation and avoid argument over the merits of an increased contribution of three percent employees would have to make. Unfortunately, it gained credence because of political reasons, and now must be batted away as a distraction from the real issues.

Some opponents to the increase claim that it is a “tax” and point to a ruling made last year by then-Speaker Jim Tucker concerning a bill that asked for the same increase that it was a “fee” or “tax,” in order to rule whether it needed just a majority or two-thirds vote to advance. No doubt a similar choice looms on the horizon for current Speaker Chuck Kleckley, with two other considerations also thus in the balance: this being an even-numbered-year sessions, tax increases are prohibited, and in any year they cannot originate in the Senate, as the current bill is.

It was a politically-motivated decision for the term-limited Tucker then had his eye on higher office, so seeming to cut off any increase might win him favors among state employees who voted (apparently not enough, as he subsequently lost a bid for secretary of state). As it was, the legal reasoning behind his opinion was exceptionally shoddy.

Different Senate outcomes in NW LA provide same lesson

Louisiana's Legislature has reconvened for a new term, with few incumbents of any kind running for office not winning. State Senate contests in northwest Louisiana proved exceptional and instructive in this regard, and deserve review as to why incumbents and psuedo-incumbents do lose -- and this already has made a difference in policy.

After the general election in October, Caddo and Bossier Parishes had the singular distinction of having the only legislative district in the entire state where a current incumbent was defeated by a non-incumbent, when Sen. Barrow Peacock took just more than half as many tries for elective state government office as had state Rep. Barbara Norton to notch a win. On his fourth try, the Republican became the senator-elect for District 37 by defeating former state Rep. Jane Smith in a contest many observers had thought was hers to lose.

Smith of the GOP carried the backing of many state Republicans all the way to the top, having been one of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s floor leaders.

Compromise hopefully will not moot LA education reform

Perhaps although necessary for bill success, a potential poison pill provision in the recently-passed incipient law that permits Louisiana’s scholarship voucher program to expand carries the future risk of abrogating the very intent behind the legislation.

HB 976, among other things, might dramatically expand the number of students who receive an amount of state money, one considerably less than the state spends per student in public schools that could pay for schooling at a non-public school. Children from families whose income is 250 percent of the poverty limit or below and who attend a D or F ranked public school are guaranteed placement in one of these schools – if there’s room for them.

Those schools entirely voluntarily will supply the space, which over the next few years may amount only to several thousand slots, perhaps two percent of the total now eligible, where their willingness to do so in large part comes from how heavy of a hand the state will cast in regulating regarding these students. Understand that the reason these private schools exist, most of them having some religious affiliation, is because they wished to teach certain subjects and in certain ways that public schools for various reasons would not or could not do. Too much regulation that makes them unable to operate in the manner they see fit will discourage them from accepting these students.

Paranoid, misinformed column validates reform need

Gov. Bobby Jindal hasn’t yet signed the two bills that serve as the centerpiece of his latest round of education reforms, and already some affected see the sky as falling – with such responses demonstrating why this batch of changes combined with others made previously are so necessary to improve the state’s elementary and secondary education systems.

One current teacher named Madeline Cole gave us a trip through her fears about the changes. She sees the new law’s permission to make it easier to discharge underperforming teachers combined with 2010’s Act 54 that created the value-added assessment regime – where teacher performance is graded half on student academic growth and half on a few hours of administrator observation – as unfairly threatening sinecures. She called the achievement of tenure now hostage to “unrealistic” expectations, bemoans that no longer can automatic pay raises be forthcoming every year, whines that it’s hard to achieve a “perfect score” under the new system, places faith in rumors that teachers subject to corrective actions will be paid less if at all, argues that there’s too much whimsy in evaluation because “evaluation is based on how this year's kids did in comparison to last year's kids,” and chafes that under the new way of doing things no “one cares or notices that every one of my kids improved their personal best, went up in reading level, increased their GPA, and became overall more successful as individuals.”