SPENDING OUT OF CONTROL BY SOME STATE AGENCIES!

Tuesday, May 23nd, 2023

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

SPENDING OUT OF CONTROL BY SOME STATE AGENCIES!

 

Sometimes, you just want to roll down your car window and let out a scream. No, not because someone is passing you in road rage. The kind of wrath I’m talking about is the outrageous spending that takes place in many agencies of Louisiana state government.  Here is what has gotten my dander up. US News and World Report just released their state rankings. Where is Louisiana? Right where it was last year. Dead last. 

 

Here are the various rankings by US News. Crime and corrections ranked number 50. The economy ranked number 50. Infrastructure rank number 49, natural environment ranked number 49, education ranked number 46, and opportunity ranked number 48. Really makes you proud, doesn’t it?

 

Now here’s how some agencies in state government can really rub salt into the wounds.  Spend, spend, spend.  In fact, certain state agencies are spending your tax dollars like drunken sailors. Want a few examples?  Here you go.

 

There is a state board that oversees private security firms whose employees really know how to rip off state funds.  By state law, the board is charged with hiring and keep an eye on an executive secretary. Supposedly I said.  But the board failed miserably in their job. The former secretary bilked the agency for almost $300,000 by compensating himself overtime pay even though there was no legal justification for him to do so.   There also is a list of questionable legal expenses charged, as well as payments to relatives.    

 

But hey, it gets much worse.  After firing the guy who swindled all this money, the Board of Private Security Examiners hired a new executive secretary. Not only did she illegally paid herself unauthorized expenses, but she was also arrested on felony drug charges after she was caught by police selling drugs. No, I didn’t make this up.

 

 Now I know that a few employees will sometimes cross the legal line.  But here’s my question. Where was the oversight?  Where was the board that hired these employees? Weren’t they supposed to be keeping an eye on these people?  Or were they just rubberstamps?  And where were the state auditors who let these state employees run wild for years? The board itself should be abolished, and the state police should handle the licensing and oversite of private security firms in the future.

 

Then there is the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, the state created organization that Senator John Kennedy has called the worst agency in state government. Because of its negligence of years back, Louisiana policyholders have been billed over $1 Billion to pay off Citizens’ debt. That’s Billion with a B.  

The agency used to be housed in a small Baton Rouge office.  Not anymore.  It now wants the high life, and has signed a long lease at the Galleria, the plush 21-story office building located near Interstate 10 and Causeway Boulevard in Jefferson Parish.  Citizens will occupy 21 thousand -square-foot space, more than twice what it needs, for another 125 months.  But these hardworking employees need perks.  Lots of perks. The lease includes a fitness center, food service, (and get this) even a car wash service.  And just because Louisiana policyholders are picking up the tab, who could begrudge Citizens’ employees from receiving a free car wash? Right?

No other state in the south has a public property insurance company of last resort that is anywhere close to Citizens.  The spending on salaries and other perks are way out of line.      Citizens needs to be abolished, and a new method put in place that protects Louisiana policyholders, not bilks them every month.  All of our surrounding states, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi, have a much more efficient system, and property rates are much lower.

These are just a few examples of outlandish spending in state government.  I could offer many more.  Legislative oversite has been lax. Controlling all this unnecessary spending should be a top priority for the next governor and legislature. 

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also listen to his regular podcast at www.datelinelouisiana.com.

 

 

 

 

 

LIVING A FULL LIFE AS WE GROW OLDER!

Wednesday, May 17^th, 2023

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

LIVING A FULL LIFE AS WE GROW OLDER!

 

     I just had a birthday. My 83^rd. No, no, no, I’m not looking for any more congratulations. Like most of you who are on social media, I’ve been overwhelmed with good wishes. Yes, I do have to realize that I’m not going to live forever. So like anyone else reaching my age, I want to be realistic about setting urgencies. 

 

     Do I think about death?  Let me quote Shakespeare. In the “The Tempest,” the bard’s last play, his character Prospero is asked in the last line of the last speech, “How often do you think about death?”  Prospero answers: “Every third thought.”  My response to Prospero and Shakespeare?  Bunk.  I never think about death.

 

     I do update my will from time to time.  And yes, a few years back, I wrote a memo to my family giving suggestions about what kind of funeral I would like to have. Oh and no, it’s not nearly as detailed as my Mother’s.  Bless her soul, she planned every detail of her funeral, right down to the kind of cookies she wanted at her funeral reception.

 

     Two things keep me engaged about the end of life.  First of all, I have given a number of eulogies in recent years. Too many.  I have stood by gravesites and offered tributes and reflections of my father and mother, my brother, two brother-in-laws, and a number of friends as well as rock and roller Jerry Lee Lewis, my first legal client when I moved to Ferriday.  When I was a Senator back in the 70s, and for many years thereafter during the time I was in public office, I was asked by a number of ministers both black and white to share thoughts about one of their parishioners. Maybe I knew them well, maybe I didn’t. But I never turned down a request to offer thoughts about someone hopefully on their way to an afterlife.

 

     The second reason I stay engaged with the end of life, and maybe this does come with growing older, I’m trying to carve a path to determine my own thoughts about an afterlife.  I was baptized in the Pentecostal church, joined my family during my teenage years in attending the Presbyterian Church, married the first time in the Catholic Church, and a second time in the Episcopal Church.  And I’ll bet you do not know that I have even preached a bit.  That’s right.  Preacher Brown.

 

My family and I have been going to the North Carolina mountains for a number of years. The All Saints Episcopal church is located in the small village of Linville, quite close to our family home.  The church is open in the summertime when there are many tourists in the area but closed up the rest of the year.  But the doors are always left open, so I continue to attend alone each Sunday for time to read and meditate.  After a few Sundays alone, I missed the sermons and the singing.  So why not just do it myself? After all, there was no one there to oppose me and I do have a good gift for gab, even on religious issues. 

     Instead of just sitting there meditating each Sunday morning, Preacher Brown took to the pulpit with no one else in the church, spoke up about Biblical references the related to him (that’s me of course), and then burst out in hymns that have been with me for many years. “Let the Circle be Unbroken,” “I’ll fly away,” “The Old Rugged Cross,” “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” and of course a hymn that everyone knows, “Amazing Grace.”  They were quite lively services if I do say so myself. 

 

     What I’m trying to say is that we cannot ignore death, and we all hope for an afterlife.  It is certainly OK to plan for the sake of one’s family.  But I’m not going to set around like the Shakespeare character, thinking about death. I would hope it is much more productive for all of us to make the most of our current state in life.  Play the cards we are delt. Then anticipate a lingering good life.  That should pertain to all of us. Even if you are 83, like me. 

 

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also listen to his regular podcast at www.datelinelouisiana.com.

 

 

 

 

 

LEGISLATORS GOTTA HAVE A PAY RAISE!

May 8^th, 2023

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

LEGISLATORS GOTTA HAVE A PAY RAISE!

 

In case you missed the news bulletin, a number of legislators in Baton Rouge say they just have to have a big pay raise to survive.  The initial proposal was for legislators to see a pay bump from the current $16,800 to $60,000.  But it could be a big election issue.  “Some people, if they vote for this, it could cost them an election,” said Rep Barry Ivey.”

 

Let me say right up front that I think current legislators ought to have a raise. But we need to put their total compensation into perspective.  Besides the direct income of $16,800, legislators also receive $168 a day every time they come to Baton Rouge to do business. There’s also a mileage allowance to and from Baton Rouge.  Then a full-time staff assistant paid for in their district office along with expenses for that office including a nationwide telephone watts line. So the total income is not particularly high, but he fact remains that the pay received is significantly above $16,800 a year.

 

Let me make a comparison as to how much things have changed. I was elected to the Louisiana state senate and took office in 1970.  I was a sole partitioning country lawyer in Ferriday and struggled to make a living. My senate district had been reapportioned in the previous legislative session, and the new district covered six parishes across northeast Louisiana.  It took me three hours to drive from one end of my district to the other.  Several times a week, I drove to various meetings with police jurors, school boards or various civic organizations.  And I received no millage or any other allowance for this travel.

 

In Metropolitan areas, there were then, and now, a number of legislators who represent just one parish. They could attend a district meeting and still be home for the 10:00 news, where I often did not return home until after midnight.

 

Here is my total compensation that I received for representing these six parishes. A total of six hundred dollars. That was it. No other compensation of any kind. There was no per diem for coming to the state capitol, no milage reimbursement, no office allowance, no legislative aide, no telephone reimbursement, nothing else.  Every phone call in my district, outside of my hometown of Ferriday, was a long-distance call.  I was paid no reimbursement for any of these calls. So I received a total compensation of six hundred dollars.  And my average telephone bill was nine hundred dollars.

 

Of course there were no cell phones back then.  I paid the local motel in Ferriday to answer my telephone when I was at the capital on traveling throughout my six parishes.  If my phone did not answer after six rings, the night operator of the motel would answer and say I was not available. I would often stop by a local sheriff’s office on the long drive back to Ferriday from a legislative meeting. The sheriff’s office was always open around the clock, so it was good place to get a hot cup of coffee to get me home as well as to call and check on my messages. 

 

When the legislature was in session, there were no telephones in the Senate at our desk. There was one telephone booth that all 39 senators had to use.  I was receiving 215 to 20 calls a day on average, and often stood in line for a good while waiting for my turn to use the telephone in the enclosed booth.

 

That was then. I do not begrudge legislators today wanting to receive adequate compensation for carrying on the state’s business, both at the state capital as well as in their district.  They need to be reimbursed more than the current amount.  But they ought to count their blessings that they are not serving back in the days when I was in the legislature.  It was a great deal worse back then.  No one knows that better than me.

 

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also listen to his regular podcast at www.datelinelouisiana.com.