No real concern for cost savings accountability

There is no shortage of criticism when it comes to some of the actions of our state legislators, but it’s also important to praise them when they truly represent the wishes of their constituents.

So kudos to all the legislators that rallied against the attempted OGB Hospitalization scam dreamed up by Kristy Nichols and crew.  Their hard work has produced a truly workable hospitalization plan for state employees, teachers, and retirees.

However, let’s not forget the root source of this scam, which enjoys its anonymity in the shadows.

All this mess began with a $4.2 million contract with an out-of–state consulting firm known as Alvarez and Marsal.  They were contracted by Jindal’s crew to make recommendations on how to save $500 million a year.

Since there are people already hired in state government who could do this job, namely, the State Legislative Auditor Department composed of Legislative Auditor Daryl Pupera and his staff, the irony of spending $4.2 million more of state funds to save money is self- evident. 

In actuality, Alvarez and Marsal’s cost saving recommendations weren’t necessary, for this past year the state legislative auditors have repeatedly produced data demonstrating the Jindal administration’s inefficiency, wastefulness, and neglect of duty, which easily could approach the $500 million savings goal.

Reports have focused on prisoners receiving food stamps, state Medicaid funds paid to companies to care for dead people, millions of dollars in oil and gas severance taxes uncollected, lack of oversight for schools receiving school voucher payments, wide disparity in property tax assessments reviewed by the state tax commission, a failure to collect state income taxes, a failure to collect ethic violations fines, inadequate eligibility monitoring of tax incentive recipients, and recently, the lack of sound financial controls in the Department of Public Safety leading to the misappropriation of funds from the DMV.

Basically, this data demonstrates Jindal’s hypocrisy when he talks about his concerns with the federal government spending wastes, and his desire for result-oriented management.  Additionally, these audits point, not necessarily to corruption, but continually to an administration claiming to not having adequate resources, but not best using those that it does have.

So why does Jindal keep ignoring in-house reports and continue to implement a plan by Alvarez and Marsal?  Because Jindal has no control over the state auditors and they often focus on the inadequacies of his ill-fated creative plans to save state money.  And with Alvarez and Marsal he can continue to cut where he wants while hiding his failures.

Let’s be perfectly clear; our Rhodes Scholar governor is not about real cost savings for this state, but instead about his political image. Thus this state will continue to suffer and waste money on unnecessary contracts.