LFT president rails against DOE’s $128 million administrative budget

As the House Appropriations Committee began its study of the state’s $24.7 billion general fund budget on Tuesday, LFT President Steve Monaghan asked members to closely monitor the Department of Educaiton’s $128 million administrative budget.

Monaghan, the only representative of a teacher organization to address the committee, said that many aspects of the department’s budget are problematic. As an example, he cited a “lack of transparency” in the way the department hires highly paid administrators.

“Once upon a time we at least know who was being hired to do what,” Monaghan said. “Now it seems that we discover those things without any rhyme or reason.”

Monaghan noted that funding for public schools through the Minimum Foundation Program has been frozen for the past five years, even as the department brought in minimally qualified administrators at high salaries.

“The department’s priorities seem to be more ideological than instructional,” he said.

Monaghan’s complaint echoed published reports that top hires at the department are being brought in to sell the administration’s privatization and voucher plans at the expense of traditional public schools.

“There was a time when research drove decisions,” Monaghan told the committee. “It doesn’t seem that research is driving decisions now.”

“I bring a message from the classroom that conditions are getting much worse,” Monaghan told lawmakers. “Please be watchdogs and help us with this fight.”

To view Monaghan's testimony, please click here. His testimony begins at about the 2:17:52 mark.

Jindal slashes mental health program for children

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s fiscal irresponsibility is causing real damage to people most in need of assistance from the state. For the fifth straight year the governor’s budget requires mid-year cuts to avoid a deficit, and he is inflicting the pain on children with behavioral problems.

Advocate reporter Michelle Millhollon pays attention to the irony of the governor’s actions in this story, which begins “At the same time Gov. Bobby Jindal is launching a study committee on school safety, his administration is cutting a program that helps children with behavioral health problems.”

Millhollon writes that the 76 employees of the Early Childhood Supports and Services program will be fired, and the program will “stop providing assessment, counseling and case management to young children in low-income families…”

In a prepared statement for The Advocate, Jindal brushed off concerns about the at-risk children, saying they should seek help from “pediatricians, family resource centers or nonprofit groups.”

The program, which serves children in six parishes, is supported by federal funds which the governor will shift to other areas of the state budget to forestall a looming $166 million shortfall.

Children who took part in the program were there because of “aggressive behavior, anxiety issues of post traumatic stress disorder,” Millhollon writes. Those are widely considered as danger signs that a child could grow up to become the kind of person who would go on a violent rampage like the one in Newtown, Connecticut.

If Jindal’s statement about seeking alternative sources of help seems insensitive, a comment from his Secretary of Health and Hospitals Secretary, Bruce Greenstein, is positively bizarre.

“My interest is to be able to provide the services not just to six parishes but across the state,” Greenstein told the reporter. This after cutting services to those six parishes without providing any more protection for children anywhere in Louisiana

Advocate calls 'baloney' on higher education budget

Today's editorial in The Advocate calls 'baloney' Gov. Bobby Jindal's claim that his proposed budget spares higher education from further budget cuts.

Baton Rouge's own Gray Lady gets it right: "Behind a bureaucratic façade, the reality is that Gov. Bobby Jindal has again proposed cutting state government’s support for higher education, forcing colleges to make up reduced state aid with increased tuition and fees."

Advocate editorialists point out that the governor's budget, which they call "Category 5 political spin," includes a $50 million mid-year reduction from this year, and relies on tuition increases to avoid going into negative territory.

"Louisiana’s future is the poorer for this," the editorial concludes. "But it will provide endless material for college courses of the future, in which the political abuse of language is discussed."

Layoffs, privatization and increased employee costs in state budget

For the fourth year in a row, Gov. Bobby Jindal proposes a state budget that freezes public education’s Minimum Foundation Program funding at the 2008-09 level.

In an effort to close a looming $895 million budget gap, the governor also plans to privatize and consolidate prisons, eliminate more than 6,000 state jobs, cut funding for health care and raise retirement costs for state employees.

While the governor says that his $25.5 billion state budget will not cut funding for higher education, that pledge depends on higher tuition for students and increased retirement costs for college and university employees.

In a memo to LSU system higher-ups, system President John Lombardi explained what he termed the Jindal administration’s “good treatment” of higher education, which has suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts in recent years.

In exchange for that good treatment, Lombardi wrote, the governor expects higher education officials to “avoid negative messages about higher ed funding” and to recognize that the additional $100 million that employees will have to pay into their retirement plans is good for colleges and universities.

Areas outside of education will be hit hard to absorb the proposed cuts.

If the governor’s budget is approved, employee contributions to the Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System will increase by three percentage points, which will equate to a cut in take-home pay.

Division of Administration Commissioner Paul Rainwater said that no changes are proposed for the Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana this year because the Jindal administration plans so many other public education “reforms.”

Some of the most governor’s controversial plans that failed last year are back in this year’s budget proposal. Once again, Jindal has plans to sell the Avoyelles Correctional Center to a private company. He also wants to fire state employees from the Office of Group Benefits and hire a private management company to manage the public employee health plan.

Baton Rouge Advocate reporter Michelle Millhollon has more on the proposed budget in this story.

Will our schools take another budget hit?

What does this year's looming $250 million state budget shortfall portend for the coming legislative session?

According to this article by Advocate reporter Will Sentell, the governor says it is too early to tell if ongoing budget woes will force yet another freeze on public education's Minimum Foundation Program.

The MFP, the funnel through which state aid flows to public school systems around the state, has been static for the past three years. Just once in the administration of Gov. Bobby Jindal has the MFP received its traditional 2.75% inflation factor boost.

In The Advocate's article, Gov. Jindal repeats his claim that public education spending has increased by better than nine percent during his administration.

Some of that increase came before the big freeze, but the bulk of it is simply because the number of public school students has risen. The MFP is based on the number of students in our schools, and and must be raised as the student count goes up.

Outside the MFP, Gov. Jindal has sliced some $80 million from vital programs like after school tutoring, literacy and numeracy initiatives, early childhood education and stipends for nationally certified teachers.

It's deja vu all over again...

They're saying that Gov. Bobby Jindal's plan to cut another $250 million from the state budget "could be worse" according to this article by Gannett reporter Mike Hasten.

Of course, they've been saying that for the past three years, as our colleges and universities fall apart, roads and bridges crumble and health care shrinks.

So higher education will lose another $50 million, and all UL System President Randy Moffett has to say is that cuts will be made with a "careful and conscientious approach."

Not to beat a dead horse, but Louisiana still has over 400 tax loopholes on the books, that add up to a staggering $7 billion in lost revenue. Couldn't we take a closer look at just a few of them, and stop strangling our state's quality of life?

Budget cuts threaten pre-K program

A very successful pre-kindgergarten program in one of the state's top school districts is being reduced because of state budget cuts, according to this article by St. Tammany News reporter Suzanne LeBreton.

Data show that early education programs are very important in helping students succeed in school. That is increasingly important because the state keeps raising the standards for schools that are considered academically acceptable.

Members of the St. Tammany Parish school Board are plainly upset that the state is cutting funding at the same time that standards are being raised.

Said board member Mike Dirmann, "This is one of the best program the state has come up with, and for them to start cutting our funding I think is just ludicrous.”

Board member John Lamarque added, "This program was started by a school superintendent that cared about educating the children. Since (Former Superintendent of Schools) Cecil (Picard) passed away, we don’t have anybody up there that is putting forth the effort for the La4 program and all of the other programs that are important to educating the children of this state.”

One of the least educated, unhealthiest, and poorest states in the nation

The legislature did its work and went home. Louisiana has a budget - that was the main goal of this year's fiscal legislative session - but it ain't pretty.

The political posturing and crowing aside, Louisiana's $25 billion state budget leaves us "as one of the unhealthiest, least educated, and poorest states in the nation," according to this new report from the Louisiana Budget Project.

Chief among the victims of this year's budget are those least able to fend for themselves. The LA Budget Project reports that "funding for families and children that suffer from incapacitating poverty, abuse, and homelessness " was cut by some $53 million for the coming fiscal year. That means Governor Jindal has sliced the Department of Children and Family Services by 40 percent since coming into office.

Higher education has borne the brunt of Louisiana's budget problems for the pat few years, having been cut by $491 million during Jindal's term. This year, in order to claim that funding for higher education has been protected, lawmakers and the governor raised tuition and fees for students. This, they claim, does not amount to a tax increase.

Then there's K-12 education. The governor and his allies like to claim that they did not cut funding for public schools, but that is a prevarication at best.

Public education's Minimum Foundation Program base per-pupil amount has been frozen for three years, while costs have risen dramatically. That amounts to a cut all by itself.

But cuts outside the MFP have strained some local school board budgets close to the breaking point. The governor cut $5.5 million for nationally certified teacher stipends, and $7.2 million more for the transportation of private and religious school students. The governor also cut nearly $70 million in state funding for classroom technology, student remediation, and reading and math initiatives - programs that local school systems will either have to eliminate or fund themselves.

LBP's report further slams state leaders for reductions in health care and youth services.

But the worst news in the report is that lawmakers and Jindal once again cobbled together a budget that depends on one-time money and millions "swept" from existing funds. So without facing the real issue and identifying revenues that can fill the recurring budget gap, we will all be in the same leaky boat when the legislature convenes again next spring.

Jindal called on fake "efficiencies"

When Gov. Bobby Jindal announced his budget plans last March, lawmakers immediately noticed what one senator called the "imaginary dollars" that plugged holes in the spending plan.

They were less skeptical at the time about the proposed savings, or "funding efficiencies" that Jindal's advisers said would reduce the anticipated shortfall by some $225 million. After all, Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater and his assistant, Ray Stockstill, told the joint legislative budget committee that the savings were indeed available, and that they would provide a list.

But as Advocate Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Ballard reports here, after all these weeks, and after numerous requests, the list has yet to appear. Writes Ballard:

It’s gone on so long that Jindal’s inability to deliver The List has become a
punch line among legislators, roughly synonymous with “when pigs fly.” It’s
always good for a chuckle, when delivered while waiting in line for lunch or
talking about Baton Rouge traffic.

Lawmakers might joke about the missing list, but it's a nervous laugh. It will take real money, and a real willingness to face the state's fiscal crisis, to write a budget that will provide state services as well as meet the constitutional standard of balance. In the waning weeks of this fiscal session, both are in very short supply.

Coalition calls legislature on bad choices

The state is facing a $1.6 billion shortfall (raise that to $1.8 billion after lawmakers subtracted Gov. Jindal's imaginary dollars from the budget). Lawmakers are turning down every effort to raise new revenues at the same time that they advance new tax cuts.

What could make things worse in Baton Rouge? Slashing over $3 billion a year from the state's general fund, for starters.

That would be the ultimate impact of three bills making their way through the process. HB 633 and HB 634 by Rep. Hunter Greene, and SB 259 by Sen. Rob Marionneaux, would abolish all personal and corporate income taxes in the state.

That, of course, would make it impossible to provide even the most basic services to the people of the state.

Then there's House Resolution 27 by Rep. Brett Geymann, which would require a two-thirds vote of the legislature before any non-recurring funds could be used to plug budget holes.

Taken together, these pieces of legislation reveal a dangerous game of chicken underway at the capitol.

The Better Choices for a Better Louisiana coalition has called out lawmakers on what it calls "political theater" in this news release:

According to the Better Choices coalition, this radical and ill-timed
political maneuvering risks driving Louisiana’s budget over the cliff. At
a time of unprecedented state deficits, Louisiana needs a balanced approach to
resolving its fiscal problems. That includes additional sources of revenues as
well as prudent cuts in spending, spokespersons said.

Shoe on other foot: cuts pinch RSD, vouchers

The biggest story so far in this legislative session has been the disastrous budget cuts proposed by Gov. Jindal, reductions that affect health care, education, recreation, public safety and other important quality-of-life issues.

At the same time, legislators are proposing more and more expensive tax cuts, without asking for any new revenues to fill the budget gaps.

A sideshow in this disastrous legislative session has emerged. There is a budgetary tug-of-war underway between the governor's office and the legislature. In the process, some sacred cows are getting bled.

Last week, the House Appropriations Committee slashed the Department of Education's budget, taking aim at programs favored by Governor Bobby Jindal.

In response, yesterday Gov. Jindal sent a couple of his minions out to defend his personal favorites.

Acting Superintendent of Education Ollie Tyler made an impassioned plea to restore funding for nearly $10 million in public funds that are funneled to religious and private schools in New Orleans.

Tyler said that defunding the voucher scheme would force 1,600 New Orleans students "to return to failing schools."

That statement required an amazing reversal of logic. Only moments before, Tyler had told reporters that the state Recovery School District - which would presumably absorb the displaced voucher students - has made "remarkable" progress, and that "gains in the RSD are significantly higher than the state average."

Tyler also complained about a planned $11 million reduction in the RSD budget. The money would be used to pay for mandatory building insurance in the district. She said, "it's unreasonable and unfair to shift this burden to schools and students who are already struggling to overcome very difficult circumstances."

It seems that if there is one thing the governor and legislature agree upon, there will be no new revenues adopted during this session. The unfairness that Superintendent Tyler perceives is a direct product of that agreement.

Gannett reporter Mike Hasten covered the press conference for this story.

LFT Weekly Legislative Digest - week 1

They’re off: session opens to grim fiscal news

Despite a looming $1.6 billion deficit, Governor Bobby Jindal opened the 2011 legislative session with a promise to allow no new revenues, saying that he would veto any bills that close any of the state’s 441 tax loopholes or call for new taxes.

Maintaining that curbing tax breaks would amount to a tax increase, the governor said “Tax increases kill jobs. Tax increases kill opportunities. Tax increases hurt economic development. Tax increases hurt our ability to attract new businesses into Louisiana.”

The problem is that it's just not true. If cutting taxes and slashing services was the right strategy for success, we would have high employment, low poverty, a healthy population and a robust, growing, well educated state.

To read more, please click here.

Better Choices coalition slates May 4 rally on capitol steps

In response to the governor’s speech, the Better Choices for a Better Louisiana coalition made a powerful case for raising new revenues for the state and announced a lobby day on the steps of the capitol at noon on Wednesday, May 4.

With Louisiana facing a $1.6 billion budget shortfall, coalition spokespersons said that Governor Bobby Jindal’s plan for more cuts without any new revenue cannot solve the state’s problems.

“Doing more with less” is a hollow promise,” Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan said. “The state is not doing ‘more with less’; it’s doing less with less. The current budget proposal sacrifices education, health care and the quality of life issues that could provide a better future for the families of Louisiana.”

To read more, please click here.

Education coalition condemns Jindal’s education policies

Members of a public education coalition took issue with the Jindal administration's education policies at a press conference on Monday, April 25.

Following the governor's opening address to the legislature, members of the Coalition for Public Education said that Jindal and State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek are taking public education in the wrong direction, basing decisions on political ideology instead of good educational practices.

"After listening to the governor (in his address opening the legislative session) that the future is so bright, I had to put on my shades," LFT President Steve Monaghan said. "There's a different Louisiana out there. Class sizes are going up and salaries have been frozen."

To read more, please click here.

Jindal budget calls for selling the Office of Group Benefits

Lawmakers appear hesitant to endorse Governor Jindal’s plan to privatize the State Office of Group Benefits, one of the elements of his budget plan.

OGB, as it is known, handles health insurance coverage for about 250,000 current and retired state employees. That includes teachers and school employees in a number of school systems. The office, one of the best run and scandal-free operations in state government, has built up a $500 million surplus over the past few years. If the office is sold to a private company, insiders say the surplus could become available for appropriation into the state general fund.

Opponents say that privatizing OGB would hike insurance premiums for state employees and retirees. The office currently spends about three percent of its income on management costs. The same costs for a private company could be in the 10% to 15% range.

To read more, please click here.

Roemer calls for abolition of tenure

Chas Roemer, who represents the Baton Rouge area on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, sent lawmakers a letter requesting that they support the abolition of teacher tenure.

Roemer said that tenure “protects poorly performing teachers” in public schools.LFT President Steve Monaghan quickly responded, saying that Roemer’s statement shows an alarming ignorance of the facts on teacher tenure.

To read more, please click here.

Jindal gets it wrong on revenues

Give Gov. Jindal's speech writers credit - they came up with great sounding phrases for his address to the legislature on Monday. The promise of his rhetoric is surpassed by the emptiness of his ideas, however.

Often derided for his staccato speech delivery, Jindal's style was a good fit for the machine-gun diatribe produced for the opening session: “Tax increases kill jobs,” he said. “Tax increases kill opportunities. Tax increases hurt economic development. Tax increases hurt our ability to attract new businesses into Louisiana.”

The problem is that it's just not true. If cutting taxes and slashing services was the right strategy for success, we would have high employment, low poverty, a healthy population and a robust, growing, well educated state.

We know better. In fact, since the massive tax cuts approved by the legislatrue in 2007 and 2008, our unemployment rate has gone from 4% to 8.1%. Our population is not growing, as evidenced by our loss of a congressional seat.

As Louisiana Budget Project Director Eddie Ashworth said in this paper, "The state has lost over 16,000 manufacturing jobs. Louisianans continue to be among the least healthy (ranking 49th) and poorest educated (ranking 49th) in the country."

The truth is that Louisiana needs a balanced approach to the budget, one that includes new revenues along with reasonable budget cuts. We need to take a look at the $7.1 billion in tax exemptions offered by the state, and make sure that all of them either serve a purpose for the people of the state, or else are repealed so that funds are available to create the quiality of life our citizens deserve.

Better Choices coalition and LFT announce legislative agenda and lobby day

In a series of press conferences around the state, the Better Choices for a Better Louisiana coalition made a powerful case for raising new revenues for the state, and announced that the coalition will have a lobby day on Wednesday, May 4.

With Louisiana facing a $1.6 billion budget shortfall, coalition spokespersons said that Governor Bobby Jindal’s plan for more cuts without any new revenue cannot solve the state’s problems.

“Doing more with less” is a hollow promise,” Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan told reporters. “The state is not doing ‘more with less’; it’s doing less with less. The current budget proposal sacrifices education, health care and the quality of life issues that could provide a better future for the families of Louisiana.”

To read more, please click here.

Advocate reporter Will Sentell covered a Better Choices press conference for this article.

Privatization and imaginary dollars do not a budget make

Just the FAX is a newsletter sent to state legislators each Friday from the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. Issues are available online at http://la.aft.org.

The holes in Governor Bobby Jindal’s proposed $24.9 billion budget are showing. We know that the budget depends too heavily on imaginary dollars and the sale of state assets—one-time cash infusions that will probably cost the state more in the long run than they gain right away.

The imaginary dollars pose a big problem for lawmakers who must adopt a balanced budget by June 23. Before that money comes available, the legislature will have to approve constitutional amendments, and voters will have to adopt them at the polls in October. Can the budget be considered “real” if its revenue sources are unclear from June to October?

The sale of state assets is also problematic. The sale of prisons, for example, might produce a temporary windfall. But history shows us that over the long haul, privatized services often cost much more than those provided by government.

Legislators should be very wary of the governor’s plan to privatize the Louisiana Office of Group Benefits. That is a well-run, scandal-free operation that provides insurance for a number of state and local public agencies, including many school systems.

The Office of Group Benefits has a $500 million accrued surplus, which makes it a tempting target for the Wall Street types who drove our economy off the cliff in 2008.

To read the rest of the article, please click here.

More proof of decline in Louisiana

A recent issue of the fax newsletter that LFT sends to members of the legislature posed the question, "Is Louisiana a state in decline?"

The article asked if the $24.9 billion budget proposed by Gov. Bobby Jindal is causing long-term damage to the state's quality of life.

Students graduating from Louisiana's colleges and universities "face life in a state with closed parks, shuttered museums, rutted roads and rickety bridges," the article said. Some wondered if that was an exaggeration.

In answer to that question, Advocate reporter Michelle Millhollon has this article in Sunday's edition:

State government’s money problems are translating into fewer hours to tell the story of the pirates, idealists, rock legends and political powerhouses who once called Louisiana home. The cutbacks to some of the state’s museums began in January with slashed hours and terminated student workers. Now another round of reductions is threatened because of the $1.6 billion shortfall facing the state in the fiscal year that starts July 1. Officials are worried about the impact on communities and culture while visitors are concerned about the decreased access to buildings that tell Louisiana’s history.

April 1: No joke in Baton Rouge and Washington

Just the FAX is a newsletter sent to state legislators each Friday from the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. Issues are available online at http://la.aft.org.

While the Louisiana Legislature prepares for a session that will consider devastating budget cuts, Washington is already well on the way to adopting a budget that promises major pain for our country’s working families.

The plan working its way through Congress will eliminate Head Start funding for 200,000 children, cut Pell Grants for 9.4 million college students, eliminate primary health care services for 11 million Americans and delay Social Security benefits for about 500,000 eligible citizens.

The national situation is disturbingly like our own. In Louisiana, big businesses avoid paying more than three-quarters of the taxes on the books. At the same time, our governor is cutting funding for services that the people of the state depend on.

To read the rest of this legislative fax, please click here.

Rapides schools to feel the axe

Rapides Parish is joining the list of school districts that will lay off teachers and cut educational programs because of the budget crisis, according to this article by Alexandria Town Talk reporter Warren Hayes.

Included in the cuts are are 27 teachers with temporary certifications, alternative education and special education programs, paraprofessionals and extracurricular activities.

Also on the block are elementary school guidance counselors. Their loss could jeopardize the system's SACS accreditation.

Is Louisiana a state in decline?

Just the FAX is a newsletter sent to state legislators each Friday from the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. Issues are available online here.

Governor Jindal released his budget plan last week, and it does not bode well for Louisiana. The $24.9 billion proposal sacrifices education, health care, and the quality of life that could provide a bright future for the families of our state. While promising to “do more with less,” the plan guarantees that there will simply be less of everything that makes a state attractive.

Communities are already in crisis as a direct result of fiscal policies over the past few years. In recent weeks, school systems in Livingston, Tangiphoa and Webster Parishes declared financial emergencies. In the past few days, school boards in St. Martin and East Baton Rouge parishes announced that they will lay off employees.

The loss of those jobs will have a ripple effect that is felt throughout local economies, as former teachers and school employees cut back on their spending, trying to make ends meet. Local businesses will suffer, and sales tax collections will go down. It seems like the beginning of a death spiral for communities across the state.

To read the rest of the article, please click here.

More school districts announce layoffs

The East Baton Rouge School Board has now announced that there will be a reduction in force (story here by Advocate reporter Charles Lussiere), and so has the St. Martin Parish School Board (reported here on Lafayette's KLFY-TV).

Three other school systems - Webster Parish, Tangipahoa Parish and Livingston Parish - have declared financial emergencies, and may lay off teachers and school employees. (Click here for more information on declarations of exigency or crisis).

These job losses make a mockery of Gov. Jindal's glib assertion that he has protected K-12 funding. Truth is, we've lost millions, and now people will lose their jobs. That will ripple through local economies when teachers and school employees lose their ability to spend.

This is not an economic crisis that can be solved by cuts alone. Revenues must be part of the solution. More information is available on the LFT Web site here, and from Better Choices for a Better Louisiana.