Trick or no treat

It has finally become clear to me why Bobby Jindal is opposed to the adoption of the Common Core Standards.   Apparently he has created his own educational standards and already field tested them by self-schooling himself and some other state staff in the area of mathematics.   The fruition of this task is evidenced in his latest fiscal report to the state legislature.

By law the administration is required to issue a ‘general fund balance’ report to the Legislative Budget Committee in October of each year.  Using the Jindalian Math Standards, Bobby reported a $175.5 million state budget SURPLUS from last fiscal year.  The report itself did NOT disclose how the figure was derived or the source of the leftover cash. 

Our state treasurer, John Kennedy, who apparently was schooled utilizing a more traditional set of educational standards, claims the state has a $141 million DEFICIT and has the figures to support it.

Gee, that’s a $316.5 million discrepancy.

It appears that Kristy Nichols, our clairvoyant Commissioner of Administration, has also adopted the Jindalian Math Standards because she concluded that $319 million from, and I quote, “a variety of funds” carried over from several PRIOR state fiscal years should be added to last year’s figure to create this surplus.

She further demonstrated her expertise in fiscal management by stating that these monies had been sitting around for over 12 years and never included in any previous public revenue reports.

So let me try to understand this accounting procedure.  If previous governors had a surplus of money left in their budgets but failed to report that figure, we can take that money that no longer exists and use that figure to off-set a real deficit for the past fiscal year under Jindal’s leadership.

Using Nichols' methodology, for example let’s suppose that governors Edwin Edwards, Mike Foster, and Kathleen Blanco had a combined total of $500 million surplus funds for some of their state budget years that failed to be included in year-end balance calculation reports for whatever reason.  Nichols, utilizing Jindalian Math Standards, claims that if Jindal’s budget many years later showed a $200 million DEFICIT, she can report to the Legislative Budget Committee that there is a $300 million SURPLUS based on this money that was not formally reported.  However, the ability to actually put one’s hand on this money remains a mystery.

I must admit  Jindal’s folks continue to awe me with their smoke and mirrors budgetary tactics.  They are quite resourceful with their bag of tricks.  But then again this is the ‘trick or treat’ time of year.

Basically, Nichols is using the responsible fiscal management skills of PREVIOUS governors to mask the fiscal incompetence of the present administration.

Prior to issuing this fiscal report Jindal and Nichols advised legislative financial experts by conference call about this NEW way of issuing the state ‘general balance report,’  and the really sad part about all of this is, Nichols claims the legislative representatives, “agree with us.”   However, some did admit that they weren’t provided enough information to tell whether it’s the CORRECT approach.

I think one of my favorite t-shirts pretty much summarizes all this - “When all else fails, manipulate the data.”

However, on a positive note, I guess the issue of reduced hospitalization coverage for members of the Office of Group Benefits plans can now be laid to rest.  Apparently now there’s enough surplus money to fund the original plans without any changes.  Don’t bet on it.

I can’t wait until all the Jindalian Educational Standards are implemented statewide in our schools.