T-P creates no-go zone for local conservative columnists

Perhaps Gov. Bobby Jindal went a bit hyperbolic on the issue, but there’s no doubt that as far as the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s editorial page goes that’s a “no-go zone” if you’re a conservative columnist willing to stand on your feet and present heterodoxy when writing about state and local issues.

This week, the T-P announced that James Varney had been reassigned to report on the Northshore beat. Varney was moved from the opinion pages, where for nearly two-and-a-half years he had presented a perspective rarely seen on those pages about state and local political issues, with some forays into national events as well. When he started, this space wondered whether it signaled a change in the thinking of the newspaper, then on the cusp of transforming itself into a more Web-centric media outlet that put many of its stories into print, rather than act as a dead tree publisher than on the side posted its stories to the Web.

Orthodoxy reigns when it comes to Louisiana newspapers, enthralled to the political left that corresponds to the state’s recent history of populism. Only the Houma Courier and its sister publications and the Alexandria Town Talk among the larger outlets have anything close to ideological balance with opining in their pages about state and local issues while, among the smaller, the Hanna Publications chain, to which I contribute, does yeoman work in presenting alternative conservative viewpoints. At the time of Varney’s debut, the two hardest left editorial pages were the state’s two largest newspapers, the T-P and the Baton Rouge Advocate, with the latter the farther out there.

Inefficiency sinks privatization of LA higher education

Over four years ago this space conjectured about the privatization of Louisiana State University. Now that it seems that some on the Louisiana Board of Regents and others have caught up to this, then the time has come to revisit the idea – and such an inquest shows why it likely would fail without major restructuring of the state’s higher education system.

The post stemmed from a move at the University of Oregon to accomplish this. Since then, not only UO, but also Oregon State University and Portland State University all headed in this direction, commencing last summer. The other then-existing four state universities were given a similar option and some have moved to take it.

These institutions no longer participate in almost any state grouped settings, such as for risk management, but handle most of their own organizational maintenance. Revenues generated by participating schools now accrue to a separate fund that schools draw upon for expenditures, including issuing revenue bonds for capital items. A minimal state general fund contribution continues and they must ask the state’s coordinating commission for higher education for any tuition increases above 5 percent. They also have independent boards to govern each, although their members appointed by the governor. In short, they have almost entirely detached themselves from state government, with its flagship UO able to do this on an endowment only about 50 percent higher on a per student basis than LSU Baton Rouge’s.

Bill falls short in letting market forces price college

If state Rep. Franklin Foil knows what’s going on with his HB 62, he’s the only one.

Foil’s bill would amend the Constitution to get rid partially of the odd artifact that any new fee imposition or existing fee increase by a state agency needs a two-thirds vote in each chamber of the Legislature to go through. As it applies specifically to academia, this includes both fees and tuition.

While falling short of asking for repeal that thereby exempts all of government from this to grant added flexibility to administration, where oversight could be conducted by running every proposed increase or new charge by the Joint Legislative Committee of the Budget which then could veto these by a majority within a certain time span, at least HB 62 removes entirely fees charged in higher education, with no oversight at all. This makes sense as the marketplace will punish an institution that raises fees too much, if there’s some concern that the Legislature must conduct oversight on these matters out of fear that otherwise that runaway government will jack all fees sky high (even though oversight already exists in that policy-makers accountable to the electorate always can pass laws and resolutions vetoing these hikes or new ones).

Case dismissal clarifying flood board politicization to all

Fool the Baton Rouge Advocate’s editorialists once, shame on you. Fool it twice, shame on them. And maybe that’s enough, as their eyes now seem wide open to understanding the unavoidable political nature of any government agency, no matter how allegedly protected it is and/or should be “independent” of politics – at some cost to the taxpayer.

After the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East sued nearly a hundred petroleum extraction companies or their successors for reputed damage to the Louisiana coastline over decades and the Louisiana Legislature responded by legislating to negate that and Gov. Bobby Jindal began using his gubernatorial powers to pick members to the SLFPA-E opposing the suit, howls came from some about how such tactics produced (in the words of one Advocate opinion writer) a “loss of independence” concerning a board that many wished somehow was above politics. The suit now functions on life support after a federal judge routed it out of court in a way that almost nobody believes it has any of chance of survival on appeal.

Except, of course, for the lawyers who, with renegade former members of the SLFPA-E’s governing board Tim Doody and John Barry, concocted a contract approved by the board that means any attempt for the agency to stop the suit before it is concluded means it owes a huge payday of taxpayer dollars to the Jones Swanson Huddell & Garrison law firm and the discretion to pursue the suit lies totally in the firm’s hands, which the firm has chosen to continue despite the Advocate's pleading to desist. The nature of the contract leads to disputation over the final disposition, but that could be anything from, at worst, losing or withdrawing and the agency (read "taxpayers") owing the firm perhaps into the eight figures of dollars to, at best, doing either and losing nothing monetarily.

Family cap would aid LA taxpayers, client families

In all the talk about finding ways to bring Louisiana’s fiscal year 2016 budget into balance, through spending cuts and/or revenue additions, an obvious policy change of the former should stand out – limit welfare receipts to those who already receive some forms of assistance if they have another child.

Colloquially termed “welfare queen” laws, about half of all states place family caps on recipients in a variety of programs. While a few states offer either a flat amount regardless of children or a voucher spendable only on certain items, a couple reduce incremental payments as the number of children goes up and the rest deny the entire increment when a receiving family has another child.

In Louisiana, an unlimited number of children related to a head of household by blood, marriage or adoption may qualify for higher Family Independence Temporary Assistance Program dollars; 10 family members, for example, qualify for $512 monthly with roughly a $36 addition for every additional qualifying child. Another cash benefit program, the Kinship Care Subsidy Program, awards $222 per month for a child. Naturally, income for the family cannot exceed certain amounts.

Lack of courage prevents reform of any LA budgeting

As talk of the state’s operating budget dominates Louisiana political discourse, highlighting how a failure of will by policy-makers makes this an annual exercise in contortion, an enterprising piece reminds how the capital outlay budgeting process suffers from the same.

Jeremy Alford writes about that latter exercise, which, while just a couple of billion dollars in cash and about twice that in bonds of which only a few hundred million goes to new projects compared to the operating budget that is over four times that combined total, itself nonetheless causes dysfunction. Unlike with the operating budget, the bizarreness of which comes from a straitjacketed fiscal system that poorly matches revenues to expenditures on the basis of need largely because lawmakers have given themselves so little discretion over it, with the capital outlay process legislators have a great deal of discretion but then in effect hand it over.

In both cases, these convolutions have evolved because they suit the needs of legislators. With the operating budget, passing so many statutes and along to eventual voter approval so many constitutional amendments has set aside about four-fifths of all state-generated revenues for particular purposes. Many years this manufactures a crisis among the few areas unlinked to money, causing great agitation as some portion of funds ends up backing low priority needs while those considered most important face cutting and tremendous gymnastics to get covered whatever of them can be.

Avoid convoluted funding scheme with tuition increase

Why go to all this trouble? Peripherally attached to a budget somewhat contortioned, perhaps the most convoluted item of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s fiscal year 2016 effort is a request (not actually in the budget) that cuts in state monies for higher education could be offset partially by an extra fee put upon students, the cost of which would be claimable as a tax credit, financed by an increase in cigarette taxes. Why such a Rube Goldberg device when there’s a far less complex answer to bolster higher education’s resources?

Administration and higher education officials have put forth preliminary ideas on the subject, pegging an amount of $2,000 per student (per what unit of time left as of now unsaid, but it may be for an academic year), although that could vary by field of study and institution. Whatever structure it takes, for this to happen it would take two sets of two-thirds majorities in each legislative chamber, one to add the fee and one to increase the cigarette tax, while then needing a majority vote in each to introduce the tax credit. And then it would cost extra to administer the complicated thing and probably (the history of tobacco tax hikes show) take in fewer dollars than anticipated, meaning taxpayers pick up the tab to pay for the credits – which may not do much or any good for the small portion of households whose tax liability does not equal the fee.

The far more obvious and elegant solution to bring in more money to higher education is to raise tuition. As noted previously, with average Louisiana tuition and fees the fourth-lowest among the states and the District of Columbia for baccalaureate-and-above institutions and 39^th overall for community colleges, with the state ranking in proportion of family income going to pay for higher education 38^th and 32^nd, respectively, with its former students having the lowest proportional student loan debt of any state in the south and among the lowest in the nation, and with a per capita income ranking 29^th nationally, clearly the ability for Louisiana families to pay more for their members’ education is present – especially as historically taxpayers have disproportionately paid for higher education in Louisiana compared to the rest of the country. It’s time the major beneficiaries of higher education – the students themselves – pay their fair share as a response to the lowering of the taxpayer subsidy instead of finding another way to have a portion of taxpayers make up the difference.

Commissioners must stop suit, withdraw from program

As if the Caddo Parish Commission wasn’t getting enough unfavorable publicity in January, in February more came down the pike that reinforces the notion that service on the body seems more in self-interest than in the public interest.

The Louisiana Legislative Auditor issued a letter that questioned the legality of parish commissioners – at least 15 since Art. III, Sec. 2-52 of the parish’s ordinances went into effect in March, 2000 – being allowed to participate in the Caddo Parish Employees Retirement System. The Louisiana Constitution was amended in 1996 to prevent elected after beginning of 1997 any part-time official, mentioning by name kinds of bodies that serve as governing authorities, from participating in a retirement plan run by that subdivision. Every present sitting member of the Commission was elected after that date (with Ken Epperson and John Escude having breaks in service even as they had served prior to that date).

Ridiculously, the parish wasted taxpayer dollars by filing for a declaratory state court judgment about the ordinance (which was amended in 2005) even though Art. X, Sec. 29.1 of the Constitution seems very clear about this. Only absurdly concluding that as the literal wording excludes members of a “police jury” or “parish council,” somehow a “parish commission” would be exempt, extraordinarily contrary to what is meant by and the spirit of the law (as argued in two separate attorney general opinions).

Couple inventory tax credit change with broader reform

Thrust into the spotlight by becoming the crucial fulcrum on which Louisiana’s fiscal year 2016 budget balances, the state’s inventory/ad valorem tax credit reflects the inefficient, strange outlier tax behind it where the abolition of which would promote fairness and better potential for economic development.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has asked the Legislature to remove the refundable portion of this tax, or about three-quarters of its take and equals about $377 million, in its upcoming regular session. This could take the form of a suspension lasting around a year, which may require only simple majority votes, or outright repeal, which would need two-third supermajority votes from each chamber. It rebates back to corporations not only part or all of their income and franchise taxes, but also part or all of local property taxes.

This odd element that state taxpayers forgo revenue on the basis of parish taxing decisions, and the lack of clarity and accountability for voters in understanding the impact of policy, may be the strangest aspect of the credit and its underlying tax. Only 10 states have such a comprehensive tax on the value of most movable property, comprised of domestic, non-transitory resources, and finished products, and only Louisiana oddly does not levy the tax at all at the state level, but allows parishes to do so; only a couple of other states allow levying at the local level even as they also levy one at the state level.

Tepid restructuring in budget can induce more reform

If readers, like myself, missed at the annual meeting of the Louisiana Political Science Association today the discussion of Louisiana’s fiscal year 2016 budget submitted yesterday by the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration, this space will try to substitute in part for that.

This budget was in rickety shape from the moment the FY 2015 budget went into effect, courtesy of the bizarre fiscal structure of the state where four-fifths of revenues are dedicated to some purpose (state- or federal-determined) and the remainder of these responsible for health care, higher education, and constitutional offices. As problematic as that is, it was manageable, but the legs got kicked out from under it when extraction royalty and severance tax revenues took a nosedive due to sharply falling oil prices.

Thus spurred ideas to balance, leading to three interrelated aspects of the FY 2016 budget, which drops total state spending from enacted levels for FY 2015 over a billion dollars – although notably that amount still is higher than actual spending of two years ago by about $800 million, which is an increase about at the rate of inflation. In order to accomplish this, higher education was reduced from FY 2015 enacted to FY 2016 budgeted almost as much in that year as the entire $228 million (not adjusted for medical education) decline from FY 2009-15. Only because of an assumption built in that the Legislature would excise the refundable portion of a dozen tax credits did it not amount to an additional $526 million cut. And the budget turned in also suggested that the Legislature and higher education combine forces to infuse perhaps $100 million or so more in revenues into that system through various operational means and fees.