He fell down and hit his head

 I'm sure it was just like this. 

Hammond Police said they pulled over a vehicle on the evening of Feb. 10 near Magazine and Apple Street that was registered to someone with an outstanding felony warrant. 

McCaskey and a passenger jumped out of the car, and officers chased them, police said. 

“The officer says he believes that he was reaching towards his waistband, at which point he tased the subject. Upon tasing the subject, it was Bobby McCaskey," Bergeron said, "Mr. McCaskey hit the ground. Upon hitting the ground, he hit his head.”

I do not like it when, upon hitting the ground, I hit my head. It's happened a few times. It hasn't happened to be while being tased, but I suppose it's probably similar.  It's not nice.  Of course, I don't think I've experienced any of these symptoms.

McCaskey's family said he's had to have multiple surgeries, including facial reconstruction. Plus, the family said he swallowed his partial teeth plate and is spitting up teeth. 

“From the MRI reports, it showed that he had multiple strokes, and his C-Spine was crushed," Hunter said. 

The family doesn't know exactly what happened before they found him in the hospital the night of February 10th, but they believe police used excessive force. 

“The phone call we got was that he was dead," Hunter said. 

The normal things that happen when you fall down and hit your head. 

Jeff Landry is an asshole

 Pass it on. 

The Public Service Commission on Wednesday removed commissioner Davante Lewis as its vice chairman after he called Gov. Jeff Landry an "a**hole" on social media. 

On a 3-2 vote, the commission chose to replace Lewis with Commissioner Eric Skrmetta in that role on the board. The vote followed public comment from a line of people arguing the move violated Lewis' right to free speech.

How thin is the Governor's skin? I mean asshole is not even that out of bounds.  The WBRZ version of the story doesn't even censor it. 

BATON ROUGE — The Public Service Commission voted to remove Davante Lewis as vice-chairman at a Wednesday morning meeting after Lewis called Gov. Jeff Landry an "asshole" on social media last week. 

The commission voted 3-2 to remove Lewis and named commission member Eric Skrmetta vice-chair.

Of course there is also the possibility that this is about a little bit more than just hurt feelings.  It might, for example, have more to do with protecting Entergy and Meta from public oversight than with people using rude words.  

Two environmental and consumer protection groups are challenging Entergy's plan to power a massive AI data center for Meta, Facebook's parent company, in northeast Louisiana. 

 The Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists have filed a motion asking the state's utility regulators to deny Entergy's request to build three gas power plants at a cost of over $3 billion until it follows standard procedure. If the regulators side with the advocacy groups, Entergy would have to scrap the proposal in its current form and resubmit it after proving the gas plants are the best option available.

The regulator being appealed to here, of course, is the Public Service Commission. And the ousted co-chair seems to have a different approach to the issue than the person who will replace him... on behalf of the Governor's hurt feelings, of course.  

PSC commissioner Davante Lewis said that it was too early to comment on the motion, but that the filing raises questions that the commission should look into.

"Having a review process is important to ensure we are building generation that is needed that is also the most cost-efficient," Lewis said.

Eric Skrmetta, another commissioner, similarly declined to comment on the motion specifically, but said that he believed the concerns over fast tracking the process or massive power needs to be unfounded.

There's no law anymore

He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2025

There are four constitutional amendments that will appear on your March 29 ballot in Louisiana. They're all very bad.  

One of them would allow the legislator to create something called a "business court." In practice, that will likely mean the state can take civil matters out of the hands of locally elected judges and move them into more corporate friendly venues whose scope is defined by the legislature. 

One of them would allow the legislature to greatly broaden the list of crimes for which children under 17 could be sent to adult prison. 

And another one would step up the timeline for special elections to fill judicial vacancies. 

There's no good reason to support any of these. But one, in particular, turns out to be such a mess that a lawsuit has been filed to take it off of the ballot.  Tyler Bridges explains.

During a two-week special session in November, Landry and the Legislature reduced income taxes, abolished the corporate franchise tax, raised the sales tax and kept tax credits used by film productions and developers of historic buildings, albeit at lower spending levels.

The net savings would disproportionately benefit the wealthy and big companies, who, Landry said, would use the money to invest in Louisiana and grow the state’s economy.

At Landry’s behest, the Legislature also passed House Bill 7, which in 115 pages authorized a series of other changes to the constitution if approved by voters on March 29.

The lawsuit says the 91-word question is hopelessly complicated.

“There is no person in the State of Louisiana – including the legislators who passed HB7 – who understands all of the proposed changes to the constitution,” the lawsuit says. “The voters, however, are to be asked to vote on the proposed changes.”

The lawsuit also says the 91 words include only the sweeteners in the proposed amendment – language aimed at drawing favorable votes.

“None of the unappealing changes are included,” it says. “The ballot language is all dessert, no vegetables.”

That article goes on to explain that even the "dessert" part of the menu is misleading.  For example, the ballot language implies that voters would be enacting a teacher pay raise. But what the amendment actually does is pay down a certain amount of debt on the teachers' retirement system to free up enough money to extend a one time stipend for another year. 

The rest of the amendment is incredibly complicated. It lowers income taxes on high earners. It adds a cap to mandatory spending on education and health care. It eliminates the so-called "rainy day fund." It also makes several convoluted changes to multiple taxation rules at once. It really is a lot to put to voters in one ballot item. 

But is it legal? Well that's going to be up to the judges, isn't it. So anyway, about those judges... 

The Louisiana Supreme Court is about to receive a second new member, following a series of moves orchestrated by Gov. Jeff Landry, who has reshaped the court more than any governor in decades.

Cade Cole, an attorney, former prosecutor and tax judge in Lake Charles, will join the court next month after winning election to an open seat because no one opposed him.

The seat for Cole opened up after Landry paved the way for then-Justice Jimmy Genovese to resign from the Supreme Court last year to become president of Northwestern State University.

John Michael Guidry, who had been the chief judge on the Baton Rouge court of appeal, became the other new justice in January after winning his election unopposed.

The seat for Guidry opened up after Landry got the state Legislature to redraw the Supreme Court district boundaries last year in a way that favored a Black Democrat for an open seat that Guidry would ultimately occupy.

Because the map Landry pushed now has two Democrats – Piper Griffin from New Orleans is the other Democrat besides Guidry – the other five districts favor the election of White conservatives in the coming years.

Landry has sought to undermine the influence of Chief Justice John Weimer, a maverick who is a no-party registered voter without a clear ideological line.

Anyway, there's more background on how Landry is working to re-shape the courts in that article.  Suffice to say, though, it's going to become more difficult to appeal his legislative shenanigans there in the future. 

President Grok

One thing I think this article does a good job of doing is providing the context for understanding the AI takeover of government. Rather than a sudden jolt of revolution, this is just the next step in a long process.  It's half a century of movement conservatism fully automated. 

But the biggest issue with using AI is twofold: the routine wild inaccuracy of AI tools, as well as the particularly haphazard manner in which DOGE wants to use it. The Biden administration had been slowly integrating AI into government tasks, but it was pretty clear about guarding against potential risks: errors in coding, for example, or added security vulnerabilities. The Musk team is not going to care about that at all. If a one-line code error flags billions of dollars in “wasteful” spending improperly, that’s probably seen as a feature, not a bug. If the AI goes haywire and starts making things up, or the code breaks systems that need to be redundant and reliant, oh well, government isn’t supposed to work well anyway. And if back doors are opened up to allow hackers or adversaries to poke through, maybe they’ll develop a patch later.

That’s the Silicon Valley mindset: move fast and break things, like Social Security. And it has merged with the MAGA mindset. Without transparency in what AI is supposed to look for, you can bet it will be reverse-engineered to spit out a desired result, whether about climate change or DEI or whatever.

So on one level, you can expect the inexperienced coders trying to find trillions in cuts by lazily feeding government data through AI tools to make mistakes, trigger cybersecurity breaches, and neglect AI hallucinations. On another level, you can expect government data to be highly politicized. The White House plans to make chief information officers at the agencies political appointees, who would have loyalty to the president and a willingness to manipulate data for ideological purposes. We’ve already seen this with the installation of Musk ally Tom Krause overseeing the Treasury payment system.

For more background, here is a recent interview with the historian Quinn Slobodian.  The main insight here has to do with ways in which the techno-feudal impulse unfolding under Trump II is in line with the natural course of the neoliberal order and not a radical departure from it. 

 

Finally, one more point about this Silicon Valley "move fast and break things" ethic. There is an accelerationist argument from the left that supposes this all works out for the best in the end. But this is a gross fantasy.  Here is a recent Adam Johnson column pointing out that Elon is never going to "break" the things we might actually like to see broken. 

It’s worth noting that not all of Musk’s attacks on the administrative and liberal state are equally pernicious. There are real issues with USAID and its role as a soft power arm of meddling US imperial bureaucrats, as well as a political shield for U.S. atrocities, from Yemen to Gaza, as I’ve noted here and elsewhere. But USAID also does objectively useful work because many countries grow dependent on them, and it’s very clear that, based on recent statements made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, what is most likely going to happen is the sinister activity USAID does will simply be folded back into the State Department directly or the CIA (as it used to be) while the Incidentally Good Stuff USAID does will be be eliminated. Despite his faux libertarian posturing, Musk, of course, doesn’t care about the anti-imperialist argument. He hates USAID because he thinks it helps keep black and brown people alive, which—by virtue of the US being a largely unipolar empire—it very much does, regardless of motives.

But it does no good to cheer on the looting of the entire social contract by Nazi robber barrons because of some bank shot hope that it ushers in the "real class war" or whatever.  It doesn't work that way. The US is just Russia in the 90s now.  The tech oligarchs mean to put us through a decade of "pain." They have literally said as much. 

American politics and its glorification of the individual "yeoman farmer/homeowner" tradition is easily poisoned by narcissistic millenarism.  The internet age, particularly the post-COVID internet age, makes that process happen all the more smoothly.  But even in the context of extreme alienation and parnoia we live in, it still stuns me that we can't know or do better. There's no reason anyone who has lived through the events of this century; Katrina, the financial crisis, COVID, etc etc; can't have figured out by now that none of these calamities ushers in the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.  They just form the context for the next round of looting. And thre's always another one of those on the way. 

Run gubmint like a bidness

 Always a scam proposition.  It's been modernized. 

In an essay dated April 2022, Yarvin updated RAGE to something he described as a “butterfly revolution.” In an essay on his paywalled Substack, he imagined a second Trump presidency in which Trump would enable a radical government transformation. The proposal will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Musk wreak havoc on the United States Government (USG) over the past three weeks.

Wrote Yarvin:

We’ve got to risk a full power start—a full reboot of the USG. We can only do this by giving absolute sovereignty to a single organization—with roughly the powers that the Allied occupation authorities held in Japan and Germany in the fall of 1945. This level of centralized emergency power worked to refound a nation then, for them. So it should work now, for us.”

(The metaphor of “full power start” comes from Star Trek and entails a risky process of restarting a fictional spaceship in a way that might cause “implosion.” The World War II metaphor casts the federal government as a conquered enemy now controlled by an outside force.)

Yarvin wrote that in a second term, Trump could appoint a different person to act as the nation’s “CEO.” This CEO would be enabled to run roughshod over the federal government, with Trump in the background  as “chairman of the board.” The metaphors clarify the core idea: Run the government as a rogue corporation rather than a public institution beholden to the rules of democracy.

The "children and families" mayor

It says something that, in a moment of crisis like this one, when people are trying to figure out if they have to march or if they have to strike, and their elected representatives are clumsily grasping at ways to respond to an apparent coup, LaToya Cantrell's instinct in a moment like this is... to cut funding to public schools.

On Monday morning, a crowd of 30 officials – including state legislators, City Councilmembers, Orleans Parish School Board members, District Attorney Jason Williams, and school leaders  –  condemned Mayor LaToya Cantrell for trying to torpedo a $20 million settlement with the school district, which is trying to plug a deficit of at least $36 million, maybe significantly more.

The settlement would have resolved a six-year-old lawsuit by OPSB, which had discovered that the city was skimming a portion off of the top of its OPSB tax payments.

Cantrell cannot now take the position that “the city cannot afford to stop stealing money from schoolchildren,” said OPSB member Carlos Zervigon, noting that the city has skimmed at least $100 million due to the district. “We need the mayor to get out of the way.”

We all thought the mayor had gotten out of the way.  A few months ago, she and members of her administration all got up and played hero. Their settlement announcement came to the rescue of a school district budget crisis precipitated by a still unexplained "accounting error."  

It's hard to tell what's changed since then besides the federal government's payment systems having been taken over by an unpredictable corrupt junta. Everyone is at least a little bit worried about that situation.  But one can't help but wonder if the mayor has special insight into the Trump administration's M.O. It does take one to know one, after all. 

In any case, it is remarkable to consider that a mayor who came into office branding herself around concern for "children and families" will be remembered for her efforts at de-funding public schools and libraries.

The wannabees

The only thing worse than what Elon is doing to the federal government right now are his pathetic emulators sprinkled across the states... including your very own.

Landry was inspired to create the commission by the federal Department of Government Efficiency headed by billionaire business owner Elon Musk.

“I think we in Louisiana are facing some of the same issues that President Trump is facing with his DOGE,” Hodges said. “We are very aware that the voters who elected us are demanding quick action. And we intend to deliver.”

State legislators, speaking privately, said they believe Landry created the commission to placate conservatives unhappy that they had to vote for a sales tax increase in November and that Landry has made no serious attempts as governor to reduce the state government spending that lawmakers control.

Conservatives are also miffed that Landry vetoed a high-profile bill that supporters said would reduce payouts to car accident victims and their trial attorneys.

Landry issued the executive order creating the government efficiency group on Dec. 12.

“In Louisiana, we always strive to have a government that is of, by, and for the people,” he said in a statement that day. “A government that runs efficiently and effectively is a government that best serves her people.”

His executive order called for Orlando to serve as its chair. Orlando made a fortune by owning an offshore supply company that he sold several years ago. He is a neighbor of Landry’s in Broussard and frequently accompanies the governor on fishing trips.

As far as anyone can tell they aren't monkeying around in the treasury just yet. The state does have an independently elected treasurer so it's not as simple a matter. (The state treasurer is ultra-MAGA sandwich magnate John Fleming, though, so it's not much of an improvement on the situation.)  Anyway, according to Bridges, this commission is just writing up a report for now. It is due at the end of the year. 

 

it's just tuesday

 what's happening now

The former executive did point to a meaningful difference between X and DOGE, however: The government is big and complex. This may be an asset during an assault. “Even if you try to take a flamethrower to the government, the destruction won’t be quick. There’ll be legal challenges and congressional fights, and in the months and weeks, it’ll be individuals who keep essential services running,” they said. The government workers who know what they’re doing may still be able to make positive incremental change from within.

It’s a rousing, hopeful notion. But I fear that the focus on the particulars of this unqualified assault on our government is like looking at X’s bottom line, in that it obscures Musk’s real ambitions. What are DOGE’s metrics for success? If X is our guide, health, functionality, and sustainability are incidental and able to be sacrificed. The end game for Musk seems to be just as it was with Twitter: seize a polarized, inefficient institution; fuse his identity with it; and then use it to punish his enemies and reward his friends. DOGE is a moon-shot program to turn the government into Musk’s personal political weapon.

tune in again tomorrow to see what burns and how 

Famous last words

 Ghassan Korban is talking about his legacy today.  

In May, Korban will leave behind an agency that is still challenged but in better condition than when he found it, he said in a recent interview. Among his accomplishments are two infrastructure projects to supply reliable power to drainage pumps and installation of smart meters he says will eliminate problems with water billing.

You sure about that, bro?  

Can't wait to find out

Inauguration Day

I've got my attention divided in several directions at the moment. Some personal dealings, also the city is getting ready to experience a massive BLIZZARD OF THE CENTURY (there's a city hall press conference scheduled for 11:15 that I think may be entertaining.) All of which is to say that I am well aware of that Trump II: The Trumpening is the major event of the day but there's only so much time I can spend with that just now.  

Anyway, enjoy the circus.

Someone should probably do something

Seems bad

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a report Thursday evening finding that Louisiana State Police employs practices that violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the use of excessive force, often unjustifiably using Tasers and escalating minor incidents with people who do not pose a threat.

The Justice Department began its investigation of State Police in 2022 after revelations about the 2019 death of Black motorist Ronald Greene at the hands of Monroe-area troopers who beat and Tased him after a high-speed chase into Union Parish.

“We also found that troopers use excessive force to immediately control encounters, often within the first few moments of encountering a person and without giving the person a warning or an opportunity to comply,” the report said. “Additionally, LSP uses excessive force on people who run from troopers, even when that person is only suspected of a misdemeanor.”

The findings were released two days after federal prosecutors said they would not bring charges in the deadly 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene, ending a lengthy probe into the white state troopers who stunned, punched and dragged Greene on a roadside following a high-speed chase outside Monroe, Louisiana.

 Hopefully the DOJ has some plan to rectify these abuses? Right?

The Justice Department also examined whether state police engage in “racially discriminatory policing” but made no findings “at this time” as to whether that contributed to the misconduct.

The report recommends — but does not mandate — a long list of remedial measures, while also crediting the agency with making ”much-needed reforms after video of Mr. Greene’s death became public.”

Oh well. Best of luck, everybody 

The pathetic reign of the dumb

This isn't really a post in that there are more notes to share about both of these figures which we'll get to later. But we really need to mark these quotes down right now for future reference.  Louisiana is at a specific conjuncture of profane stupidity right now. But also it is rich with examples of how even under fascist oligarchy, the leadership is still populated by insecure try-hard types who say and do stupid stupid things. 

For example, the hack bureaucrat installed by the fossil fuel lobby to ruthlessly gut the state's Department of Environmental Quality, despite her no-lose situation and guarantee of lavish personal wealth now and forever, is still this insanely image conscious.. and incredibly stupid about it. 

Louisiana's environmental chief is trying out a different spelling for her last name in agency statements — and it seems designed to strike a chord with residents of the Bayou State.

DEQ Secretary Aurelia Skipwith Giacometto changed the spelling of her last name to "Giacometteaux" in recent communications with the public and media because, she said, she loves Louisiana.

The shift appeared recently in a statement issued on Jan. 7 about the state Department of Environmental Quality's efforts to streamline permitting for the oil and gas industry.

Amazingly, the constitutional hollowness extends even further up the hierarchy.  The current King of Louisiana, for example, is "best friends" with the Governor and can buy or have gifted to him whatever he wishes with no responsibility to anybody for anything. But even from that lofty height, he still has a pathetic need to be liked. He even goes so far to compare himself with current King of America and consequently World's Most Despicably Desperate Man to make that point for himself and for us.  

Guidry also said that, though he is not elected or appointed to a position in an official capacity, he was providing his services to the governor and the levee authority pro-bono. He donated or raised $3 million to help elect Landry during his gubernatorial campaign.

“Look, I’m best friends with the governor. We talk ten times a day, seven days a week,” Guidry said. “Look at Elon Musk, right? There’s a reason why he’s doing something free for Trump — because he knows he can help him. And Trump wants that. There’s a reason why I do what I do free for Jeff because he knows I have nothing to gain.”

In a way, the analogy demonstrates remarkable self-awareness on Guidry's part. But it's also just so so sad.

Camp Bernhard

I've had less time to be annoying online lately. That should change soon. But 2025 has been a monster already. Not only because the world seems to be on fire in various ways but also because of a series of personal crises.  Hopefully that gets dealt with soon enough.  

Even so, it's hard to know what there is to say anymore. Nobody has to work very hard to explain the cruelty and corruption that happens every day.  It's all so blatantly on the table now. I'm not even going to say anything here. Just putting the relevant bits in bold for you.

As part of a sweeping effort to spruce up New Orleans before the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, Gov. Jeff Landry said Monday his administration will begin clearing homeless encampments downtown, moving some residents to a Gentilly warehouse miles away and others to undisclosed locations out of state.

The 70,000-square-foot shelter is expected to open by Wednesday, when state authorities plan to begin relocating those living on the streets around the Caesars Superdome, French Quarter, I-10 and US 90. Notices were being posted at some encampments on Monday, warning that failure to move to the new shelter “may result in enforcement action or legal proceedings.” The notices indicate that transportation and storage will be provided.

The warehouse, located at 5601 France Road, will serve as a temporary shelter and can accommodate 200 people, according to a proposal by Workforce Group, the company that Gov. Jeff Landry’s administration has tapped to operate the facility.

The building is owned by the Port of New Orleans and sits along the Industrial Canal across from Pontchartrain Park, far from the city's tourist-laden core. It will be subleased to the state for at least two months at an estimated cost of $11.4 million, with a possible one-month extension that would increase the price tag to $16.2, according to budget documents. That time frame ensures the shelter will be operational through Mardi Gras on March 4, another massive tourist draw. 

Okay I will say one thing to move the story forward. Many have pointed out that the state could spend 16 million dollars on the same people and probably get them all housed or well on the path to being housed. Instead they are putting them in a concentration camp. Are they doing that because they think its efficient? Probably not. Or they doing it because "the cruelty is the point"?  Maybe.  Is there some other reason as well? Well, see...

Baton Rouge-based Workforce Group is a disaster recovery firm that helps state and local officials with federal grants, data management, staffing and insurance claims, according to its website. Workforce Group is owned by The Lemoine Company, a Lafayette firm backed by Bernhard Capital Partners.

Yes, that Bernhard Capital. 

Hooverism

 A few months ago I posted some notes on a couple of semi-recent books, one of which was Ages of American Capitalism by Jonathan Levy.  One of the main takeaways from that book for me was the extent to which Herbert Hoover's ideology of the "associational state" continues to dominate the policy program of both political parties to this very day.  What that entails at its essence is: 1) an accession to the holders of concentrated wealth and their perogative to decide how capital should be allocated. 2) hoping that those decisions will sometimes accrue to the greater good if our elected representatives in government ask nicely.  Here's the same quote I pulled the last time I brought this up. 

On the telephone and at two White House conferences, the president personally pleaded with the corporate executives of the largest, most regulated industries to increase capital investment expenditures. In 1930 railroads and utilities obliged. Yet everywhere else, especially in residential construction, fixed investment kept falling. Hoover recognized that during the 1920s, corporate profits had run ahead of wages, and he believed that high wages would stabilize spending, a good thing. “The first shock,” he declared, “must fall on profits and not wages.” Whether because of Hoover’s promptings or not, the nation’s largest employers agreed not to slash wages, even as they continued to fire their less desirable employees, a pattern that would persist. Proudly, Hoover said the agreements were, “not a dictation or interference by the government with business.” Rather they were the result of “a request from the government that you co-operate in prudent measure to solve a national problem.” The president boasted, “This is a far cry from the arbitrary and dog-eat-dog attitude of the business world of some thirty for forty years ago.” Hoover believed his “associational state” transcended the Jacksonian sphering of public and private, state, and market, which under the banner of equal commercial opportunity, had withered state action throughout the Age of Capital. But he drew one line in the sand. He would not coerce capitalists to invest. 

To make the point about how little things have changed, I highlighted this statement from Joe Biden  shortly after Hurricane Ida. Biden publicly asked insurers and utitlity companies to please not exploit their policy holders and ratepayers in the wake of the disater.  

“I’m calling on the insurance companies at this critical moment. Don’t hide behind the fine print and technicality. Do your job. Keep your commitment to your communities you insure,” he continued. “Do the right thing. Pay your policy holders what you owe them to cover the cost of temporary housing in the midst of a natural disaster. Help those in need. That’s what all of us need to do.” 

Biden also expressed that, throughout the week, he’d expressed that same message to local officials and utility and energy company representatives during virtual meetings.

Like Hoover, however, Biden did not take any extraordinary steps to compel them.  

The reason I bring this up again today is because we read in this morning's news that a "frustrated" Governor Jeff Landry is taking a similar approach with Louisiana's out of control insurance rates. 

Landry, a Republican who took office in January, has convened lawmakers for three special sessions – on redistricting, crime and taxes – but hasn’t convened one for the insurance crisis.

In an interview, Landry said he’s open to holding another special session on insurance, but he has not seen a package of bills that would fix the problem. He called on insurers to offer up solutions that would lead to savings for homeowners.

The article goes on to point out that there are things the state could do in a legislative session to take on the problem. The easiest and least radical of these would be requiring insurers to discount homeowners who take advantage of a state subsidized fortified roof program.  (Those roof grants could be bolstered as well.) Alli pointed out last week that coastal Alabama's success at controlling insurance costs (relative to the rest of the Gulf South) is at least partially attributable to its fortified roof program. 

But so far, Landry would prefer that insurers "offer up solutions" themselves.  He does sound mad, though. 

Landry said he’s miffed that the package of bills pushed by the insurance industry that he signed in the spring hasn’t brought relief yet.

“I feel completely frustrated,” Landry said. “It leads me to believe the things the insurance companies told the commissioner of insurance, told the lawmakers, don’t seem to be coming to fruition.”

He means the package of bills that he himself signed at a high profile press event this spring.  The explicit purpose of those laws was to give insurance companies more power to raise rates and drop coverage without penalty. Could anyone have predicted this program would not produce fantastic results for Louisiana residents?  The Governor sure didn't.  Now he says he's miffed. Maybe someone should do something. Not him, though. Someone.  

While Temple supported bills to limit insurance companies’ exposure to lawsuits, Landry, who has support from prominent members of the trial bar, said insurers wouldn’t get sued if they didn’t delay and fight claims made by homeowners. And the governor said he’s open to a federal solution to the insurance crisis, given the global nature of the business that ties Louisiana premiums to reinsurers in London and Bermuda.

Gonna have to wait until we hear back from President Musk on that one.  In the meantime, we'll go back to asking the insurers to come up with solutions for us.  Maybe if we get them a nice Christmas card or something. 

The error that keeps on erring

They're going to have to tell us what this NOLA Public Schools "accouting error" actually is eventually, right?  Last month they tried to say an accountant forgot what a fiscal year is.  But that story didn't stick.  Now we're nowhere nearer to understanding what happened. But we do know that whatever it is, it's worse now.  

Because of the city’s all-charter school system, school closures have become one of the city’s ongoing winter traditions. This week, students, families and staff at four New Orleans charters were anxiously awaiting word on whether their schools will remain open beyond May.

This year’s closures are complicated by a surprise budget shortfall and declining enrollment.

Enrollment has steadily fallen over the last decade, leaving empty seats and strained budgets at under-enrolled schools across the city. There’s no way to resolve this problem without shuttering or merging some city schools, school officials have said.

The growing budget shortfall for the district is also at the top of officials’ minds.

The projected budget gap started at $20 million and rose last month to $36 million. This week, officials warned it could top $49 million.

While hired accountants are scouring the district’s books to get to the bottom of the budget shortfall, top district staff is focused on charter contracts — with renewals for schools with passing grades and closures for those with failing grades.

Meanwhile, about those charter contracts, they're closing schools again.  Here is how that is going to work this time.  

Separately, district officials want Dr. Martin Luther King Charter School for Sci Tech to close its high school grades at the end of the school year due to chronically low enrollment and poor academic performance. The district would allow the school to continue operating kindergarten through eighth grade.

If the high school closes, it will leave the Lower 9th Ward without any high schools.

There is an alternate history where we rebuilt stable communities after Katrina by investing in the social infrastructure that supports families and children instead of the chaotic "experiment" in privatization we have now.  That project has all but ensured the destruction of the neighborhoods.  Two decades after the floods, New Orleans feels like a poor shadow of what it once was. In addition to the mass displacement of people from the city, those who do live here now experience a disorienting alienation. The rooted sense of space felt by previous generations is gone. That's not all because of the annual school shuffling but certainly this does not help. 

This year, only 185 students were enrolled in the high school, reflecting a steep drop-off over the last five years.

More than 85% of its students live outside the Lower 9th Ward. Most high-school age students in the neighborhood attend other high schools, largely Frederick Douglass, Warren Easton, G. W. Carver and McDonogh 35.

Maybe the system shouldn't be set up this way. Maybe a more holistic and supportive investment in all of the city's schoolchildren is a better way to do things than playing an "accountability" Squid Game with everyone every year. Maybe someone in position to make policy should do something about that.  

Or they could just shrug their shoulders. They do like to do that too. 

Dale Simeon, the high school's counselor, warned against closing the school.

"When children are a part of the community and they are disrupted," she said. "Sometimes they never recover."

She argued King isn't "failing" and that data used to assess the school, including graduation rates and the rigor of classes, isn't accurate. She made the same claims at the school's renewal hearing but didn't present any evidence.

Other community members criticized the fidelity of the renewal process. They said they believed that no matter what the high school did, the board would close it, reflecting a lingering mistrust between some New Orleanians and the school district since Hurricane Katrina.

Parents from King and The Arthur School said they wished the board would intervene to help schools get back on track rather than shut them down.

(Olin) Parker, the board member, reminded them that's not how a charter model works.

"Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, the way our system is set up is schools are granted additional autonomy in exchange for accountability," he said.

"Unfortunately or fortunately."  It could be bad or good. We aren't really here to say. We're just the school board.  Stop asking us. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting accountants who can resolve a budget too.

UPDATE: I guess there's no way to know whether the accounting errors have anything to do secret payouts to departing executives.  

Both parties agreed not to tell the public about the settlement, unless legally required to do so.

"Unless required by law, the Employee and School Board agree not to disclose the terms, amount, or existence of this Agreement to anyone other than the Employee's attorney or financial advisor," according to the settlement, which Fox8 posted online. The news outlet said it obtained the agreement through a public records request.

The agreement was signed by Williams and board President Katie Baudouin. It was dated Nov. 14, the day the district announced Williams' departure. The agreement says both parties signed off on the language of the press release announcing her resignation, a copy of which is included in the agreement.

Quote of the day

 The thing I am always saying

Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson who is facing a slew of charges in Pennsylvania and New York arrived to court Tuesday, yelling.

Mangione is now in court awaiting his extradition hearing.

Mangione could be heard yelling, in part, “it’s completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people. It’s lived experience!”

Anyway, it's not on any of us to apologize for or reconcile with the fact that a guy who would shoot someone dead in the street isn't a perfect gentleman with entirely coherent politics.  That's not how anything in this country works.  At the same time, it's not hard to have some sense of solidarity with the notion that Americans have been extorted and left to die as a cold matter of course by a health insurance mega bureaucracy for decades. 

Corrupt politicians may shrug their shoulders at it all they want, but most of us would say this is a deeper matter than a "policy difference."

Update:  No need to go scouring the guy's social media or interview his high school classmates for clues. This seems pretty straightforward.

Over the rusty rainbow bridge right into Galt's Gulch

Oh no! A Bywater hotel project ran into some minor pushback from the neighborhood. What will we do when all the real estate vampires good entrepreneurs are driven away by the negativity of the pesky residents? Who will "create and build" all the STR hotels for destination weddings then?

In an email to council members early Friday, Fuselier said the city has "rigged the process against developers," and blamed neighborhood groups for being "manipulative" and driving economic development from the city.

"All of our good entrepreneurs and people that aspire to create and build leave. People that want to do business here leave. They are forced to shut down or not even try, and we are left with these negative types that don’t really add much to the equation," Fuselier wrote.

Anyway, what he's mad about here is City Council told him he could not build his hotel 4 feet taller than he originally said he would. Also he is still going to build the hotel. He's not actually being driven away anywhere.

Guess they dodged this bullet

NOLA.com: Auditor warned New Orleans RTA that paratransit issues could lead to federal oversight

An estimated 1,200 residents in New Orleans rely on the RTA’s federally-mandated paratransit service to get to and from work, doctor’s appointments and recreational activities.

The RTA, however, “engaged in patterns and practices” in 2022 and 2023 that limited the availability of that service, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to the report from the RTA’s Office of Internal Audit and Compliance.

A “significant number” of trips from Jan. 2022 to June 2023 were excessively long or had “untimely pickups,” RTA Manager of Audit Compliance Malon Thompson wrote.

The RTA also used incomplete data to “inflate” the paratransit service's performance metrics during that time period, Thompson wrote.

Under a heading labeled "exposure," Malon wrote: "Failure to adhere to ADA regulations and [Federal Transit Administration] guidelines can cause the organization to be subject to lawsuits, consent decrees, fines, and/or increased federal oversight."

Joke's on the auditors, though.  Pretty sure "federal oversight" isn't going to exist anymore by the time this would come across anyone's desk.

 

There's always money in the litigation stand (also some notes on the school board race)

They say you can't fight City Hall. In New Orleans, that has been especially true. For a long time, the city was notorious for refusing to pay up on court judgments against it. This year, the city council has begun to rectify that. Though, not all at once. 

Last month, the New Orleans City Council approved legislation requiring the city to almost immediately start paying out the oldest state court judgments on its books, those dating from the late 1990s until 2006. All remaining judgments must be paid off by 2027.

The payments will consist of only the original judgment amounts without interest — a caveat that has frustrated plaintiffs in some of the oldest cases, whose claims have accrued decades’ worth of additional interest fees.

Still, if you are in a hurry, there are some tricks to getting the city to cough up. For example, if you are the Orleans Parish school system, you can... commit an "accounting error" that blows a $36 million hole in your own budget.  Suddenly, the checkbook opens! 

Amid a massive financial crisis spurred by an accounting error, the Orleans Parish School Board has agreed to dismiss a years-old lawsuit against the city of New Orleans for $20 million in cash and $70 million in funding guarantees. 

While school leaders across the city may be reassured by the quick $20 million payment, which will help plug budget holes for the 2024-25 school year, charter officials are still anxiously awaiting final details on the district’s promise to directly support their school budgets and students in the face of the shortfall that remains, which is estimated at $16 million – but may be more, depending on what financial advisors find as they look through district ledgers.

This settlement has both short-term and long-term implications. By the end of this calendar year, the city will pay the school board $10 million, with another $10 million to follow by April 1; the agreement also directs the City Council to pay an additional $70 million through education-program funding over the next 10 years. A promise education advocates are happy to have in place with council and mayoral elections coming up.

The $20 million comes in concert with a series of last minute City Council additions to the municipal budget touching on a number of needs including homeless services, staffing needs in certain departments, and the Algiers Ferry. They also added some questionable items, like $5 million for Troy Henry's Six Flags grift and $12 million for.. whatever is going on at Charity Hospital now. (Or maybe not, actually! More on both of those topics in another post later.)  

There's a bit in the Verite article where members of the council and administration pat each other on the back for cooperating to solve these problems. But the reason they were able to be somewhat generous now is because the austerity cup and ball game the Cantrell administration has played in recent years has left an outsized reserve of unspent revenues. We've written about this quite a few times, actually. Even during the pandemic, the sales tax receipts weren't as bad as Gilbert Montano's budgets projected. But the imaginary projected deficit just around the corner kept us from even spending COVID relief funds in a timely and effective manner. I've argued, and continue to believe, this was an intentional manifestation of the Cantrell administration's conservative ideology. Anyway, the city has these funds available and the council is right to use them. The fact that they weren't included in the mayor's proposal is evidence that the council had to force it to happen.  Just imagine what they could have done if the school system hadn't set itself on fire. 

Speaking of which, did you know, there is one open seat on the Orleans Parish School Board waiting to be filled?  It's on your December 7 ballot. 

The only competitive New Orleans race in the Dec. 7 runoff election will pit a political newcomer against a long-time fixture in the city’s education sector for a seat on the Orleans Parish School Board. 

Gabriela Biro, a Gentilly hairstylist and first-time political candidate, said she decided to run for the 2nd District seat because she didn’t feel comfortable voting for the other candidates running in her district. The 2nd district includes New Orleans East, Gentilly, Pontchartrain Park and the Upper 9th Ward. 

“I had been tired of choosing between the lesser of two evils in many voting instances,” Biro said. “And I was like, I’ll just do this.”

Biro came in second in the Nov. 5 primary election, where none of the three candidates for the seat cleared the 50%-plus one threshold to avoid a runoff.

Biro’s opponent, Eric “Doc” Jones, came in first in November. Jones, who previously ran for a seat on OPSB and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, has worked in education for decades — first as a teacher and later as a charter school board member and education consultant.

It was a little bit surprising to me that the odd man out of the runoff, Entergy executive Chan Tucker, was the most heavily funded by the national charter school lobbying Death Star that has been placing candidates on school boards with relative ease for years now. Notice also that this article quotes BOTH candidates statements that suggest openness to taking more schools back from the chartering organizations.  Looks like twenty years of New Orleans's "experiment" with an all-charter school system hasn't been a fantastic experience for voters. 

Of course, anti-charter rhetoric in the runoff is a lot more believable coming from the union-endorsed newcomer than it does coming from the former charter school board member and "education consultant" who once worked as a recruiter for Teach for America. Especially now that he's adding equivocations. 

In an interview last week, Jones called the school district’s structure “dysfunctional.” He ran his initial campaign this year as a pro-district school candidate, saying that he would like the district to take over failing charter schools. His stance drew the attention of pro-charter groups, which spent over $200,000 against Jones and another pro-district candidate as they campaigned for the Nov. 5 election. Last week, Jones said the district should avoid taking over failing schools and should instead partner with them to avoid closures. Jones said he would adjust the accountability framework for schools.

Jones said he favors district oversight, but only to a point: “As long as the oversight doesn’t interfere with their day-to-day operations, it doesn’t interfere with hiring practices, it doesn’t interfere with their curriculum selection, it doesn’t interfere with their mutual contracts they have in their building.”

The district should do "oversight" that doesn't actually have anything to say about how a charter school operates.  Okay, got it. 

That article also features an amusing dialog between Jones and the reporter asking about a grade inflation scandal that got him kicked off of the Coghill Charter board as well as a series of ethics violations and resume discrepancies. To me, the funniest one was the part where we learn "pro bono" is the Latin for "give me $5000." 

Verite News confirmed that he has worked at the school, albeit in a pro bono position. In 2015, the Louisiana Board of Ethics filed charges against Jones over his employment at the school. According to the complaint, Jones worked as the school’s chief academic officer, a position for which he received no compensation. 

The ethics charge stemmed from $5,000 he invoiced the school for staff training, even though such training was part of his normal duties in the job for which he agreed to work for free. The ethics board later voted to issue a “letter of caution” to Jones, dismissing the charges.

But there's more in there I wouldn't want to spoil. Just know that Verite's questions to Jones definitely do not make him mad at all. 

Anyway, one of those candidates will be working on solutions to the school system's ongoing fiscal crisis next year.  Which one should that be?

Hard Terrier Get

The plot of the 1993 New Orleans shot Jean Claude Van Damme vehicle, Hard Target (1993) is kind of a "Most Dangerous Game" knock off.  A criminal organization sells "human hunting" trips to wealthy scumbags.  They select a homeless person as the quarry whose goal is to make across town alive for a $10,000 prize. The film is purposefully trashy but the artfully shot John Woo action sequences and 1990s New Orleans settings make for solid entertainment.  Varg and I talked about it on Catch Basin Cinema a couple of years ago! Check that out if you like.

Anyway, like I said, there are some memorable stunts and set pieces in the movie.  Van Damme dodges bullets, leaps from great heights, and evades capture by a motorcycle gang in a cemetery. Something tells me, this is ripe for a reboot.  Just one slight casting change..

Scrim, New Orleans' legendary runaway dog, eluded capture once again on Thursday, slipping out of an Uptown cemetery just as his pursuers closed in.

Based on multiple sightings, Scrim was traveling through the Freret neighborhood early Thursday afternoon, not far from the site of his most recent and most daring escape, according to Michelle Cheramie, owner of Zeus' Rescues. She spent months earlier this year tracking the dog, and had been keeping him in her home since he was captured in October.

At roughly 2 p.m. on Thursday, Cheramie texted The Times-Picayune to report that she and her team of dog trackers were closing in on the Crescent City’s favorite fugitive dog.

But the speedy pup eluded capture once again.

"We had him in the cemetery at the corner of Lasalle and Soniat. I had trailed him there from Napoleon. He was three blocks from my house, and it kind of felt like he was coming home," Cheramie said by phone.

Maybe an older, wiser, Valerio in the Wilford Brimley role?  We'll have our people make some calls.

Political problems

That's one way of putting it. 

Gov. Jeff Landry’s ambitious plan to overhaul Louisiana’s tax structure has largely been pared down to a more modest goal – cutting state income taxes.

 
Lawmakers are working on a way to make sure the state can pay for that desired tax reduction while not having to make damaging cuts to areas such as health care and higher education.

The paring down was part of the plan, though.

The idea here was always solely about affecting a massive shift in tax burden from the richest (corporate and high income taxpayers) to the poorest (people who pay sales taxes on every day essentials.) The feint at lessening the blow by cutting out special exemptions and tax credits was a ploy to establish buy-in to the scheme as various lobbying groups mobilized to save their own privileges. Mission accomplished. 

This week, the Senate declined to fully roll back some of the state’s expensive business incentive programs, such as its movie and television tax credits and historic preservation tax breaks that collectively cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

A plan to eliminate a state inventory tax credit, which covers taxes businesses pay to local governments, has been delayed until 2026, and a proposal to increase a tax on heavy machinery and equipment used by industrial employers has also been scrapped.

And now we're back to where Landry and Richard Nelson always planned for us to be. Legislators will approve a higher sales tax than their own bill originally targeted vs. the prospect of more cuts to health care and higher ed. A win-win for them despite the conventional reporting that posits it could lead to "political problems." 

If he doesn’t find a way to make up for that money, Landry runs the risk of revisiting the same political problems that plagued former Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Jindal also cut income taxes without replacing the lost revenue or finding a permanent way to cut government spending. His policy led to chronic budget problems for years and made the former governor deeply unpopular when he left office.

Bobby Jindal left office after having steamrolled to a second term and launching an ambitious (although comically hubristic) Presidential campaign. You could say he was unpopular, but he never seemed to notice that. He seems to be living well. More to the point, the income tax cut Jindal pushed through (quite similar in nature to the one Landry is proposing now) set the stage for budget cuts and the currently regressive taxation regime that are core elements of the Republican ideological project.

And now they are about to build on that. If those are "political problems" they're not "plaguing" Jindal or Landry so much as they are Louisiana's poor and working classes instead.

Scrim Update

By now everyone probably knows he got out again.  MacCash certainly knows, anyway.  As usual, though, Doug is not thinking his clever bits all the way through. 

With the ground floor of Cheramie’s house locked down as tight as Alcatraz, Scrim made his way to the second story, where he found an open window, gnawed through the screen, and recklessly launched himself into space like Wile E. Coyote, plunging to the ground below.

I know it's passe to bemoan the death of the copy editor in professional news gathering organizations. But someone really should tell Doug that 1) You can't use an Alcatraz image in the same sentence as a Wile E. Coyote reference. Wile E. Coyote is not known for escaping from prison. Stick to one metaphor at a time. Also 2) Scrim is not Wile E. Coyote in this analogy anyway. He is the Road Runner. Individual attempts to apprehend him can only result in causing one to appear foolish. 

Cheramie pleaded with the public to abandon any hope of catching the fleet dog and instead asked them to text her and her team immediately with the location of the Scrim sighting and the direction he is traveling (the number is 504-231-7865).

Cheramie is also quoted in that article issuing a corrective to the (hopefully toungue-in-cheek) popular sentiment that Scrim simply be allowed to roam free from now on.  Even if he is having difficulty adjusting, it should be obvious that a comfortable home life is much safer and healthier than what he will find out on the streets. (The two bullets he took during his last adventure should be plenty enough evidence there.) 

On the other hand, it's always possible we don't have all the information.  To hear Entergy tell it, it is the stray animals themselves that pose the danger to everyone else. 

NEW ORLEANS — Thousands of Entergy customers in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish are without power. Entergy confirmed to WDSU that an animal caused an electrical short and damaged equipment. The utility did not say what type of animal caused the outage that's impacting more than 12,000 customers on the Westbank.

Now I'm not suggesting that Scrim swam all the way across the river and took out a piece of Entergy infrastructure on his own.  That would be downright nutty.  But consider that he wouldn't actually have to act on his own. Not entirely. 

Consider that we may only be aware of a mere fraction of Scrim's capabilities. We already know he's an escape artist. What hasn't been discussed publicly is the possibility that, once free, he has quickly reestablished himself in the underground. He's got contacts in the squirrel, rat, possum, raccoon and crow communities with connections beyond that. He speaks all the languages, knows all the customs. He can hide and operate from anywhere. 

 

Now that he's at large, his network has reactivated.  And Entergy's could go down at any moment.  

On the other hand, that's not too different from the every status quo anyway, is it?

Maybe don't run your smash and grab privatization scheme through a nesting doll of pass through grifters

Nevermind. Actually, if you're already stripping the public education system for parts, it's only natural to have as many trucks hauling it off in as many different directions as possible.

The Louisiana Legislature has agreed to pay a private company $910,000 to oversee the rollout of the state’s new school-choice program, which is set to launch next year. 

The Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget voted overwhelmingly Friday to approve a one-year contract with Odyssey, a company founded in 2021 to help states manage grant programs like the one Louisiana lawmakers approved last spring that will give households tax money to put toward private-school tuition.

The tech start-up picking up this contract is pretty much your typical middleman arbitrage operation. Back in August, we learned, that it also comes with the typical... uh.. glitches? Let's call them that for now. 

During Tuesday’s board meeting, BESE members asked about reports of problems with Odyssey-operated grant programs in other states.

For example, in Missouri, parents have complained about delays in receiving grants and problems purchasing items through the company’s platform, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In Idaho, a state review found that Odyssey approved about $180,000 in ineligible purchases by families, according to Idaho Education News. And in Iowa, the state auditor found that the education department had improperly amended Odyssey’s contract to increase payments to the company.

Not that it matters at this point.  The "smash" part of this already occurred when the legislature approved the ESA scheme to drain all the money out of public schools.  The "grab" part is just.. the grabbing.

I can't believe Taylor Swift didn't fix it

Just yesterday, we were speculating about this "accounting error" committed by someone in the Orleans Parish School District. The original T-P report we cited there claimed that staff overshot their sales tax revenue projection by $36 million "because district staffers calculated tax revenue based on a full calendar year, rather than aligning it to the fiscal year, which begins in July." * That might be exactly what happened. But it feels unlikely. At the very least, it's got to be embarrassing for professional accountants to not understand when the fiscal year begins. Let alone, that they would look at a jump in revenue of that size and not suspect something was off. 

On the other hand, lay readers of the Times-Picayune might be forgiven for their confusion. Last week,  when we read that the board had announced a damage control plan to gradually pay back the deficit out of its (fortunately robust) fund balance, this item suggested that maybe the problem was already solved.

Schools would repay the $15 million over the next few years, hopefully bolstered by increased sales tax revenue from major events in New Orleans like Taylor Swift’s recent concert series, which generated an estimated $500 million for the city, and next year’s Super Bowl, Parker said.

Oh dear, here we go again trying to shoehorn an "economic impact of tourism" promo into a serious news story. Look, by all accounts, Swiftie weekend in New Orleans was a much welcomed success for the city's service industry and tourism facing retail.  Anecdotally, we've all heard the crowd was nice. They tipped well. And unlike some of the mega-corporate events, like the Superbowl, they spent money with local small businesses.  But mentioning the $500 number in a throwaway line about the school system's budget problems creates a false impression of whatever eventual benefit may occur.

The article doesn't link to it but they're referring to GNO Inc's estimate of how much money was spent overall by visitors during the weekend. The number is likely exaggerated to begin with, because that's what GNO Inc. does. But also it appears to include the money spent on airfare, lodging, and the concert tickets themselves. The schools do realize a portion of the sales tax on hotel rooms, but they split that money with several other entities. But we're already talking there about a fraction of a fraction of that marquee $500 million number which, again, isn't even itself a figure that reflects actual sales tax revenue.  It's fun to write "Taylor Swift might help with the budget problem" but it's important to be more specific than this. 

Anyway, as of today, none of this is Avis Williams's problem anymore. She is resigning effective December 1. Frankly, who can blame her.  The $300,000 salary must have been nice for a couple of years. But, ultimately, who wants to have to deal with this job?

After a national search to replace Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr., the board hired Williams in April of 2022. This fall, Williams opened the district’s first intentional direct-run school in the modern charter era — The Leah Chase School, a win for traditional-education advocates in the city. But the decision to create the new school within the Lafayette Academy building came amid a chaotic charter renewal process. Lafayette Academy families were first promised their school would remain open, then told it would close, then received a third message, one week later, that the school would remain open, but would be managed by the district.

But critics say that Williams has made little progress in one of the key assignments she was given when she arrived. When she arrived, she was charged with downsizing the all-charter district because local schools, mirroring national trends, face shrinking enrollment. The district asked her to create a “right-sizing” plan.  

Other district superintendents, facing similar declines, have closed schools. But in New Orleans, Williams faced a particularly unique challenge, because the city’s charter schools operate on multi-year contracts and revoking them — to close schools — is only done in serious situations. Schools only come under high-stakes scrutiny at the end of their contracts.

One could argue that a cascading budget crisis is one way to cut through all the piecemeal charter renewals and force more closures and consolidations on an accelerated timeline.   But whatever the excuse, it's no fun when you are the one swinging the ax.  

Meanwhile, there's also an open seat on the School Board that needs to be resolved by a runoff election December 7.  One of the candidates there has articulated support for having the district take more schools back from under-performing charters and run them directly. The other was once on a charter board involved in a grade inflation scandal.  Those sound like serious issues for voters to consider. Unfortunately it may all be overshadowed by the accounting issue. That is, unless we can get another 10 or 20 Eras Tours to swing through the city by the time the next tax receipts are in. 

*Additional note: Today's Lens article about the Williams resignation says the "accounting error" is still unexplained. So the, "whoops we forgot what year it is" bit from the initial reports, seems to have gone away.  According to today's article, 

Some sources say the city, which is responsible for collecting taxes and remitting them to the district, contributed to the district’s poor forecasting. It’s unclear how often the city communicates tax collection estimates with the district.

So we're moving from shady and/or incompetent accounting at the School District to shady and/or incompetent accounting at City Hall.  That's more credible, I guess, given.. (gestures broadly).. but still a mystery.

Who was this for?

The entire reason there even is a Mike VII in the first place is because, when Mike VI passed on, the school had to make some firm public commitments to treating any future tigers humanely.

To this point, LSU has drawn a hard line against involving Mike VII into Tiger Stadium. In September, LSU veterinary school spokeswoman Ginger Guttner said the institution “is not in discussions to bring Mike to any games this season.” 

Mike VII, an 8-year-old Bengal-Siberian tiger that became LSU’s official mascot in 2017, has never attended a football game. Previous Mikes have been placed in a trailer and taken to the sidelines of Tiger Stadium, and some have even traveled to away games. The university announced it would stop the tradition when it adopted Mike VII as a cub.

And they have done that. The tiger enclosure on LSU's campus is very much along the lines of what you might find in any reputable zoo exhibit.  Mike has room to move about and swim and relax in the open. If you at least accept that there will be a tiger in captivity there (and, yes, I understand that many will not, which is fine) then it's reassuring to know that he's being well cared for rather than paraded around like a circus animal. There's nothing in your "tradition" that demands you do anything different.

Shockingly, it turns out this reasonable position is shared by an overwhelming majority of LSU football fans. 

In The Advocate's online poll, which was an unscientific survey, 90% of respondents believed a tiger should not have returned to Tiger Stadium. Nine percent supported bringing back the animal, and 1% felt indifferent. About 1,500 people participated.

“As somebody who grew up with the memory of what it used to be, it kind of sterilized that memory a little bit,” said Justin Giglio, an LSU graduate who lives in Prairieville. “That wasn't what I enjoyed about what it used to be. The part of me that does agree with maybe we shouldn't be doing this to a tiger anymore, that feeling was definitely maximized. I felt bad for Omar.”

We felt bad for Omar, the tiger being lugged around the field in a cage.  And we felt a little bit bad for Mike VII too. The Governor's stunt, cry as he might about "respecting tradition," can only be seen as a direct slap to the face of our very good kitty.  Both of these tigers, and the entire LSU alumni (a community to which Jeff Landry does not, in fact, belong) deserved better.

Democrats: "guess we're gonna have to get more fascist"

 We tried going "anti-woke" and we're all out of ideas.

In the last four years, mainstream Democrats have: nominated a former prosecutor for president; elected an ex-NYPD officer to run New York City; campaigned on deporting more people; funneled money and weapons to regimes committing war crimes; overseen the beatings and arrests of people demanding police reform; sent more police officers to wallop students protesting for Palestinian rights; ratcheted up the War on Drugs; worked with major corporate retailers to arrest more shoplifters; filed racketeering and conspiracy charges against police-reform protesters in Atlanta; made it easier to arrest New Yorkers and Californians with mental illness; defended the use of solitary confinement; supported a landmark Supreme Court case to let cops arrest unhoused people; tried to imprison one of the world’s most famous rappers; promised to build Donald Trump’s border wall; ran endless ads about Trump’s criminal record; and applauded as the president chanted “Fund the Police!” during his most-watched yearly address. 

And yet, after an election last week in which voters all but screamed that the Democratic Party is moving in the wrong direction, centrist and conservative pundits have drawn the opposite conclusion: The Democrats are, somehow, still too soft on crime.

I wonder if they'll try going even further right this time.  What have they got to lose?

Maybe don't run your schools through a nesting doll of scam bureaucracies

You have to read past this headline about layoffs at the Rooted School. It just conveys management's side of the dispute, saying they're just forced to downsize due to a school board accounting error. Read several paragraphs into the story until you arrive at something closer to the actual issue. 

Teachers and staff at The Rooted School have been bargaining for a contract since forming a union in 2022. The four staff members who were let go were union members and UTNO has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board related to their firings.

The charge accused Karpinski of letting the employees go before bargaining with them and offering them a severance agreement directly rather than going through the union. The complaint also says that the school violated employees' rights because the severance agreement includes a confidentiality clause and a non-disparagement clause.

And, of course, due to recent events in national politics, the Biden NLRB is in lame duck status now.  (Senate Democrats still have a chance to do something about that!  But, rest assured, they simply do not care enough to try.) So, in all likelihood, the laid off workers are at the mercy of dueling bureaucracies and their suspect administrators. Today's update in that dispute finds the School Board firing back, (mostly) on the correct side for now. 

The Orleans Parish School Board on Tuesday pushed back on claims by a New Orleans charter school that it was forced to lay off teachers due to an accounting error by the district.

Board members said Rooted School used the district’s miscalculation as an excuse to lay off four employees when in fact the school is grappling with its own financial problems. The main source of the school’s troubles is that it erroneously collected $600,000 over three years by keeping students on their rolls who had left, and now the school must pay back that money, the board members said.

Which brings us to that "accounting error."  Are we sure that's what this is? 

New Orleans public schools are getting millions of dollars less in local tax revenue this year than district officials projected, and schools across the city are bracing for the fallout from the apparent accounting gaffe. 

Typically, the district tells schools in March how much money they will have to spend for the upcoming school year, based on property and sales taxes it expects schools will receive. Schools then budget accordingly, and receive payment in piecemeal from the school district each month.

But three months into the school year, district officials said their projections were likely inflated. That was because district staffers calculated tax revenue based on a full calendar year, rather than aligning it to the fiscal year, which begins in July.

What sort of accountant actually does this?  On accident?  Maybe that's really what is going on there. But, remember, the district, under this superintendent, is under various pressures to downsize schools and divest from its facilities.  

Overall, the 2024 premium increased from $7.9 million to $12.3 million. The district’s total insured value (TIV) also increased from $1.9 billion to $2.4 billion, due to building upgrades and the increased costs of repairs, Story wrote in an email.

The exact per-pupil costs are still being finalized, Story wrote. “But based on the premium increase amount you can estimate it to be near $280, he said. This of course depends on system-wide enrollment,” Story wrote, noting the current market is “a mess.”

The district’s Total Insured Value cited by Story in his email appears to include vacant buildings in the total policy cost. To save money, the district is already looking at ways to reduce total value for vacant buildings and to shed vacant swing space that won’t be utilized.

“We are already looking at ways to modify our program for FY25 to reduce TIV for vacant buildings, swing space that won’t be utilized and other opportunities in an effort to mitigate large increases in premiums,” Story wrote.

As of the beginning of this month, only one school appeared to be on a path toward closure this year. But that was before the "error" was discovered. 

The last thing our public schools need now is another hole in the money bucket. But it does appear as though leaks are starting to spurt out from all sides.