Baton Rouge wins big in race for federal stimulus cash

A year and a half after Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal dismissed the federal stimulus as a debt-generating waste, the Pelican State has accepted about $5 billion from the program. The Congress-approved cash went to programs ranging from education grants to coastal restoration projects to software modeling of civil works programs’ economic impact.

In the race to secure these federal stimulus dollars, Baton Rouge received millions more than New Orleans, while Louisiana as a whole lagged behind other states.

The state’s haul amounts to $1,130 per resident, ranking the state 32 out of 50 according to per-capita takeaway. While Louisiana lagged most states, it did better than Georgia, Alabama and Florida, which came in dead last with Floridians receiving $915 per person. Yet in spite of Louisiana’s middling performance, East Baton Rouge Parish, which encompasses the whole capital city, despite its name, managed to take in $2.4 billion, much of it in grants to government agencies or Louisiana State University. The money breaks down to $5,698 per Red Stick resident, compared to New Orleans’ $404 million, or $1,295 per resident.

Data for this story was compiled by the independent journalism nonprofit ProPublica, whose complete stimulus coverage can be found here.

A direct comparison between New Orleans and Baton Rouge is mitigated by the fact that Baton Rouge receives money that filters through statewide systems such as the universities and various government agencies. Yet even so, there are some instances in which federal grants for things like public transit, biotech research and law enforcement training were simply larger for Baton Rouge.

Also beating out New Orleans were two parishes that received more money only relative to their smaller populations— St. Helena Parish with $71 million or $6,798 per resident and Plaquemines, which received $73 million, equaling out to $3,435 per resident.

Gulf Coast states lag behind other states in getting contracts for oil disaster work

An overwhelming number of federal contracts related to the BP oil disaster have gone to companies outside of the area most affected by the environmental and economic catastrophe, according to data from government agencies.

About $6.5 million in federal contracting money has gone to Louisiana since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the state’s coast three months ago, according to the federal procurement database. The number represents about 12 percent of the $53.3 million that’s been reported by federal agencies such as Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Fish and Wildlife Service, Coast Guard and Minerals Management Services. Though it is the most comprehensive information to date, there is no way of knowing how complete it is because it relies on agencies to enter their own contracts onto the federal database.

According to the data, Pennsylvania is seeing the largest government-fueled economic impact, with nearly $14 million in contracts from the EPA, Coast Guard and other government offices going to businesses headquartered there. Other states that received a large share of contracts were Massachusetts with $7.7 million in projects and Colorado and Virginia, both of which received about $6.6 million in work. Most of the contracted work was for engineering and consulting. In Louisiana, businesses also provided boots-on-the-ground services such as motel rooms, helicopters and security, according to the database.

About a third of the reported contracts — 66 out of 201— were not competitively bid because of the urgency of the situation or the “unique” nature of the service or supply needed, according to the database.

While the (oily) Pelican State lost big contracts to East Coast states with more developed engineering sectors, it still fared better than Gulf Coast neighbors with Alabama trailing a distant second with $1 million, and Mississippi coming in last with about $254,000 in contracts.

In the middle range were Florida and Texas, with $602,000 and $486,000 going to the respective states.

President Barack Obama has said BP is financially responsible for all costs associated with the government’s response to the spill. As of July 13, the government had billed the British oil giant for $122.3 million to be paid out of a $4 billion trust fund established by the company, according to a statement from the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center. A spokesman for the command center said that all bills from all agencies eventually will be submitted for repayment by the oil company. BP does not keep records of its own contracting practices and cannot not say how much business it has done with Louisiana companies, a company spokesman said.

No data is available on where the jobs are being created through these federal contracts. In some instances, companies based in other parts of the country have contracted out locally or routed the work through a local office. One of the largest contract recipients in Pennsylvania, for instance, Weston Solutions Inc., operates an office on Poydras Street.

Officer connected to Serpas’ daughter totaled NOPD cruiser while driving drunk

The one time live-in boyfriend of New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Ronal Serpas’ daughter is back in blue after serving an unpaid 60-day leave for totaling a NOPD car he was driving drunk.

Mandy Serpas, 28, was living with Special Operations Officer Travis Ward when the accident occurred in February 2009 on the first night of Carnival parades, according to public records recently released by the NOPD in response to a public records request submitted in May.

The Lens reported on the connection between the Serpas family and Ward in May, prior to Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s appointment of the new superintendent, but NOPD officials declined to explain why Ward was suspended.

Ward was driving an NOPD cruiser back to the Venetian Isles home he shared with Mandy Serpas when he lost control of the vehicle at Interstate 10 East and Chef Menteur Highway. Ward ran into a guardrail, spinning the “wrecked, marked police vehicle in the center lane of traffic,” according to an NOPD Public Integrity Bureau investigation into the accident.

He immediately was reassigned from the department’s version of a SWAT team to a desk job tracking crime statistics.

His suspension, which was served at the convenience of the department, began a year later in February 2010, a few months before the new police chief took office with a mandate to transform the culture of the troubled city agency.

In March, 33-year-old Ward was telling friends on Facebook that “suspension ain’t half bad,” describing frequent jaunts to Nashville.

The leave ended on May 12, one week after Serpas moved from Nashville to officially became the officer’s boss. Under his punishment, he must get written approval from the superintendent before using any NOPD vehicle after working hours. His take-home car privileges were also suspended for one year ending on Feb. 4, 2011. Ward is now assigned to a night shift in the Eighth District, based in the French Quarter.

The Public Integrity Bureau investigation shows that Ward met up with a few friends from college at a party on St. Charles Avenue in the Garden District after policing a Carnival parade. He drank “a few beers” before getting back in his take-home car, Ward told investigators.

After refusing to take sobriety tests at the crash site, Ward was driven to a NOPD testing facility and given two Breathalyzer tests. He failed both tests, blowing above the legal limit with a .08 percent on the first test and .091 percent on the second test. The criminal charge for drunk driving was dropped in traffic court and the case was closed when Ward pleaded guilty to a lesser violation of failure to maintain control of his car. He paid court costs of $61.

Neither traffic-court officials nor the city attorney’s office, which prosecuted the court case, returned phone calls to explain why the drunk driving charge was dropped or how often it does so.

In his account of the night, “foul weather,” not intoxication, was to blame for the accident. “I have never been accused of alcohol-related accidents in a vehicle and so I would like to make the statement that I am not a bad cop,” Ward said.

The officer also said that his wreck was partially to blame for a second accident that happened later that night when other cars were trying to maneuver around the totaled police car in a “slow manner.” He said that no one was injured in either accident.

Neither the officer nor Mandy Serpas responded to requests for comment, and it’s unclear whether the two remain romantically involved.

The drunk driving accident was not Ward’s first brush with trouble, according to records provided by the Public Integrity Bureau. During his eight years in the NOPD, Ward has been investigated six other times for improper or unethical behavior. None of those charges was sustained.

Ward was one of the NOPD officers who was present when off-duty colleagues allegedly beat a group of city transit workers at the Beach Corner Bar and Grill in Mid-City, an event that is the subject of a FBI civil rights investigation. Ward, who was never a subject of the Beach Corner investigation, told Public Integrity Bureau investigators that he did not witness the Beach Corner fight because he was on the other side of the bar when it happened.

Superintendent Serpas has said in the past that he will not give any special treatment to Ward, regardless of the officer’s relationship with his daughter.

“You are accountable for the actions you take no matter who you are,” Serpas said.

Landrieu ditches Nagin plan

Call it the off-target plan.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu is moving away from predecessor Ray Nagin’s recovery strategy of pushing projects in 17 “target zones” across the city.

“Frankly, it was a previous administration’s plan,” mayoral spokesman Ryan Berni said.

Berni acknowledged today that Landrieu has yet to finish his own recovery plan. His administration is assessing the 655 projects that Nagin began, but until more is known, it is tough to talk about a cohesive strategy, Berni said.

Since taking office in May, Landrieu has been clear that the city needs to rethink its $1.5 billion rebuilding plan – mainly because it has only about $1.2 to do the work promised by Nagin.

At his first State of the City address this afternoon, Landrieu provided few clues about how he planned to solve that problem, but he encouraged residents to join him in exploring ways the city can live within its budget.

“So, while it is true that we have inherited a myriad of problems and City Hall is dysfunctional, it is also true that we own it now,” he said. “All of us, together.”

Juveniles face sexual abuse in state prisons, report says

More than 16 percent of youth incarcerated in Louisiana’s largest juvenile jail told federal officials that they were sexually abused while imprisoned, according to a report issued Thursday by a New Orleans nonprofit.

The rate of abuse reported at the Swanson Center for Youth in Monroe is higher than the national average of 12 percent, according to the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana report.  Disproportionately targeted for abuse are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, which account for roughly 15 percent of the 450 juveniles incarcerated annually in Louisiana, according to the report.

The report (click here) relies on statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice’s statistics bureau as well as first-person accounts of rampant sexual abuse and homophobia within the state juvenile justice system.

Missing money … still missing

Update: City Council President Arnie Fielkow has asked New Orleans Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux to investigate the missing $16.7 million from the city’s Urban Development Action Grant program, he said Thursday.

After a month of investigation, City Hall officials have failed to find documentation of $16.7 million loaned by previous administrations to private businesses but never repaid, Deputy Mayor of Facilities, Infrastructure, and Community Development Cedric Grant told members of the City Council.

The information is “a lot harder to find” than other financial records, Grant said at a meeting of the City Council Budget Committee on Wednesday afternoon.

At the committee’s previous meeting in May, Grant told members he would make a report in June on the missing money, which was loaned over the past two decades from the city’s Urban Development Action Grant fund for projects that were supposed to generate jobs and tax revenue for the city. That promise was made at the behest of Council President Fielkow, who has consistently called for more transparent accounting of the fund and currently chairs the Budget Committee.  Fielkow asked Grant about the report after an unrelated presentation by the deputy mayor. “This money could be used in significant ways,” Fielkow said. “We expect to see a report at the next meeting.”

Grant said that he would try to have the report complete for the next convening of the committee.

“I have worked with staff to get the documentation and we are still working,” he said.

City is missing $17 million from business loan program

More than $16 million in loans given to private businesses from the city’s largest economic development loan fund is missing, according to internal city documents.

A summary of the city’s Urban Development Action Grant program shows that only $2.35 million out of $26 million from one particular round of loans has been repaid. Another $7.3 million being actively repaid, adding up to $9.6 million in loan funds that are accounted for, less than half than the amount that went out to businesses.

But what doesn’t show up on city books is nearly $17 million that went out and never came back, according to the April 2010 summary prepared by the Office of Community Development. The report was created at the request of City Council President Arnie Fielkow, who has consistently called for more transparent accounting of the fund.

The Urban Development loan fund is the city’s largest pot of cash earmarked for economic development.

The money dates back several decades to a U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department program that aimed to foster commercial development in blighted urban areas. The program relied on city governments to pass the money onto qualifying businesses in loan form and then recapture the repayments to be used again. New Orleans received a total of $36 million through the program before it was discontinued in the late 1980s, according to the summary.

Nearly all the money that came in through the program successfully made it through a first round of loans in the 1980s with $33 million returning to the city to be recycled into a second generation of loans or used for grants, which are also allowed under HUD regulation.

For New Orleans, the second generation of loans is where the problems seem to have arisen, with the missing $17 million representing a large chunk of the $26 million in loans the city eventually gave out. In addition to the $9.6 million in accounted-for second-generation funds, the city has another $3.7 million in fund. That money comes from the $33 million that was repaid to the city after the first round of grants.

As the city faces a $62 million budget shortfall, the missing $16.7 million is “extremely significant” Fielkow said Tuesday.

He leads the council’s Budget Committee, which meets Wednesday to discuss necessary budget cuts.

“There needs to be a sense of urgency on this $17 million in undocumented loan money,” Fielkow added. “Strategically this money could be used in a number of ways to leverage new business and grow the city’s tax base.”

But before the city can use the money, it must find it.

Deputy Mayor of Facilities, Infrastructure, and Community Development Cedric Grant told the council at a Budget Committee meeting last month that he was examining the loan records in effort to figure out how much, if any, of the money the city can expect to recoup.

He said he would come back “with a complete list of which defaulted and which we are still having minor collections on.”

“I think I can have that report back to you prior to the next budget committee meeting,” Grant said.

Grant is not on the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting, and a spokesman for Mayor Mitch Landrieu said there were no updates as of Tuesday on the fund report.

Despite commandeering boats, officials losing island oil battle in Barataria Bay

Click to enlarge.

Signs of the siege were scattered across East Grand Terre Island at the mouth of Barataria Bay: a pile of rakes crusted with oily mud, drenched absorbent matted into the sand, baby pools filled with greasy mud-colored water, wooden scrub brushes that looked more appropriate for a bubble bath than the cleanup of the biggest oil spill in U.S. history. A crew of 36 had been working on the island since June 2, said Deepwater Horizon response team spokeswoman Gail Dale, but even after three days of raking up oil-contaminated soil and sand, thick black gobs still clung to marsh grasses and mangrove trees.

“More oil is getting into the mangrove every day. It’s in the water. The fish are using it for cover,” said Clint Edds, a Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Biologist leading a tour of reporters. The biologist grew quiet as he toweled thick black oil off the twisting above-ground roots of a mangrove plant. Instead of its usual splay of waxy green leaves, barren branches hung over water flecked with rust colored bits of oil.

Biologist Clint Edds wipes oil from a mangrove tree.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Especially after alarmed Jefferson Parish officials, frustrated that BP wasn’t responding to their calls for boom to protect the area, commandeered a few dozen idle cleanup boats May 22.  But by then, the oil already crept past the containment line, threatening fragile wetlands that were fighting to survive even before the encroachment of crude.

Edds’ job is to track the oil, and he had been working in the area for weeks. Since the crude landed here, the trees looked sicker each day.

“The outside edges are dying off where the oil landed,” he said. He called a colleague to radio his coordinates to the command center.

East Grand Terre and neighboring West Grand Terre separate the Gulf of Mexico from Barataria Bay, serving as a crucial buffer against tropical storms. In recent weeks they have become  the front line for this latest, wholly man-made storm to hit the region. In just one day last week, 35 oil-drenched birds were reported in the area, according to Fox 8 television.

The BP-hired contractors were instructed to begin “immediately” reshaping sand barriers to protect islands, including East Grand Terre, said Wildlife and Fisheries lab director Myron Fischer.  He could not comment on why BP boats were not out there taking preventative action earlier.

“Obviously oil has gotten into the system,” Fischer said. “We are doing everything we can do to prevent that from happening again.”

But two weeks after the parish seized control of BP cleanup vessels and state officials ordered up more protection, it’s become obvious that the state’s “everything” may not be enough.

The immediate response ordered up by Fischer took two days to materialize, Dale said.  She said that no report of oil washing in came into the command center until the May 24, two days after media coverage of Jeffferson Parish’s emergency response began. When the islands appeared in the command center report that day, 10 people were sent out to do “maintenance,” Dale said. She said she doesn’t know why the boats were idle on May 22 or why no report was made earlier.

The day Edds wiped oil off East Grand Isle mangrove, the island was on track for assessment by a shoreline cleanup team composed of government officials and private contractors hired by BP, according to Deepwater Horizon response team spokeswoman, Mary Martin. Wednesday, however, rain delayed a scheduled visit to the island, according to another command center spokesman, Charles Taplin. By Thursday, the crew of 36 workers was back, but another oil tide had washed over the East Grand Terre, covering the pelicans that nest in its vegetation in thick black goop. The next day the 35 birds were rescued and cleanup workers returned.  Yet oil still continued to wash up on shore over the weekend.

Did any changes in the way boats were being sent out happen as a result of the May 24 breakdown in communication?  Nothing official, Dale said, but “you are always tweaking things as you go to make things more efficient.”

All photos by Andy Levin. Visit Andy’s website for more images of the oil spill and the Louisiana coast.

Scenes from the spill: Grand Isle

As Louisiana experiences week eight of the Deepwater Horizon oil catastrophe, globs of crude continue to wash into Grand Isle.  Instead of fishers and sunbathers, workers hired by the oil giant raked contaminated sand occupy the shore, raking the toxic sand and removing it in plastic bags.  Wetlands scientist Michael Massimi  of The Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program warns that more oil likely remains below the surface of all areas hit by the reddish-black tide.

“It’ll look like a clean beach because the tide will blow fresh sand in, over the oil,” Massimi said. “Scrape it with your boot or a shovel and you’ll see the oil. These areas that don’t appear to be oiled are going to continue to be identified.”

Lens contributing phototographer Andy Levin managed to take these images before BP closed off heavily oiled areas of Grand Isle State Park on Saturday.

(click any image to enlarge)

Theft from school may cost school its independence

The embezzlement of hundreds of thousands of dollars from an independent New Orleans public school could jeopardize its lone-wolf status.

Acknowledging that it needs tighter financial controls, the nonprofit board that runs Langston Hughes Academy will vote in coming weeks on whether to hire a charter management organization, FirstLine Schools, to take over operations at the three-year-old Gentilly campus. If the board chooses FirstLine, management of the K-8 school’s finances as well as its day-to-day logistics will fall to the new operator.

Although the charter would not be transferred immediately to the new operator, FirstLine has made it clear to the current operating board, NOLA180, and the school community that its intention is to eventually absorb the school into its own board-run network.

“We are more interested in having Langston Hughes join the network,” FirstLine CEO Jay Altman said.

The longtime educator said that the organization allows its campuses to run “pretty autonomously,” which would give the school the power to retain traditions like calling teachers “dreamkeepers” that students and parents don’t want to see go.

“We have a set of guiding principles that our schools adhere to,” Altman said. “At Langston Hughes, they are already following them.” At its most basic, what this means is that an independent school founded in the first round of post-Katrina charter  conversions would itself be converted to a member of  a burgeoning network of charters that includes Arthur Ashe Charter School, Samuel J. Green Charter School and John Dibert Elementary.

“We’ve been through a lot and now we need stability. FirstLine would bring that,” said Andrew Sullivan, a teacher at the school. “Will there some slight changes, yes, but will we retain a good deal of the LHA spirit and way of doing things? Absolutely yes.”

The move could set a precedent for charters struggling with financial management.

“For schools that don’t have the wherewithal to handle the back office work it is incumbent upon them” to secure that expertise, Folwell Dunbar, academic director of charter schools for the Louisiana Department of Education, said.

While the state plays only an advisory role in management of individual charters, all charters in Louisiana must after three years of operation submit to their authorizing board reports on school performance, financial management and adherence to their charter contract. The board, which in Hughes’ case is the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, votes on whether to renew the charter for another two years, give a one-year extension, or in the instance that a school is not meeting state standards, throw it back under the direct control of the Recovery School District. Next month, the school is one of nine charters due for that review.

The embezzlement incident is being taken “very seriously” as state education officials write their own evaluations of the schools and make recommendations that will be presented to BESE, Dunbar said. The state charter office adviser said he expects that Hughes will be granted a one-year extension if it shows significant commitment to  “greater financial accountability.” He declined to comment specifically on the FirstLine proposal, saying that the decision was for the NOLA 180 board to make. New Orleans BESE representative Louella Givens did not return calls for comment.

Langston Hughes Academy was the first New Orleans public school rebuilt from the ground up after Hurricane Katrina, moving in August from a post-storm campus of trailers into an impressive two-story building equipped with the latest in high-tech education gadgetry and clad in windows.

The new building’s paint had barely dried when the nonprofit board that runs the school discovered money missing and reported it to the U.S. Attorney’s office. Shortly before Thanksgiving break, the school’s former business manager, Kelly Thompson, was booked on charges of theft and the school’s founding father and CEO, John Alford, resigned, though he was never fingered in the criminal investigation.

In February, Thompson told a federal judge that she stole $660,000 from the school to support a gambling addiction. On Thursday, she was sentenced to five years in federal prison.

“I am glad to see that justice was served,” said school president Kathleen Padian. “She was stealing money while telling teachers that there was no money for books. This was a despicable crime.”

But with a week left to go before summer vacation and no final decision made on the school’s future, emotions have been running high this week at the school. Police escorted one angry mother out of a Tuesday public meeting. Another mom has collected 100 signatures from parents on a petition calling on board members to resign because of a board motion to reduce the number of administrators at the school and residual anger over perceptions that John Alford, a beloved figure, was forced out unfairly.

“The board is not being fair to the parents,” said the creator of the petition, Kowana Lyons. “All we want is our kids to keep getting the education they are getting.”

At a board meeting Thursday evening FirstLine and the board attempted to assuage these concerns from parents.

There are no signs that any of the school’s teaching staff would be let go if FirstLine comes on. All teachers performing up to standard have been offered contracts to return, Padian said. What hasn’t been decided is how being absorbed into the larger network would affect school administrators and contracted service workers such as bus drivers, janitorial and cafeteria staff who, if the new operator takes over, would be the responsibility of the managing network.

“There are certain operational questions we can’t answer until we get a better look at the contracts and see how satisfied the school is with what they are getting,” FirstLine CEO Altman said.

Altman said that “most educational and staffing” issues are done by the network’s individual schools, not the organization. He said that the nonprofit normally takes 12 percent of a school’s per-child funding to pay for contracted and operational costs. The management fee would be dropped to 8 percent for Hughes because of the school’s tight financial situation.

“All of the money goes back to the schools,” Altman said. “None of it is accumulating in the central office.”

The move to a new charter operator is emotional for parents and teachers who have feel as if they have built the school from the ground up with the organization.

“I saw the little sign ‘Langston Hughes’ in the ground and I called the number,” Lyons recalled. “I love NOLA 180. Mr. Alford recruited every student who is there and they have teachers who are really working hard for our children.”

“Them children ready to picket or do whatever it takes to keep it the way it is. Dream it. Do it. Be it. That is our motto,” she said, repeating the school’s slogan.

A 26-year-old alumnus of Yale University and Teach for America, Sullivan has been at Hughes since the school was setting up in trailers and its leaders pounding Katrina-damaged pavement recruiting students for the school’s first year. He wears a cheery red school T-shirt on his days off and can be found at the school on Saturdays discussing things such as grading rubrics or seventh-graders who curse like sailors under the influence of bounce music.

Sullivan sits on a board committee that has spent the last half-year searching out leadership to replace Alford. Though sensitive to fears from parents and teachers that the school’s character will be lost in the transition, Sullivan says the greater risk is losing the school completely.

He says that the high-profile theft at the school could weigh more heavily on the BESE renewal vote if the state body does not see a strong management team emerging at the school.

“We’ve heard we will be renewed. On the other hand if there is strife and uncertainty…” he said, his voice trailing off.