Local Government Layoffs Soon?

Unlike the Federal Government, The State of Louisiana and local governments cannot print money. They must rely on current revenues to meet expenses.

Lincoln Parish local budgets, with which we are intimately familiar, rely on sales taxes for a large percentage of revenue. The City of Ruston, in particular, funds all of the new 1.5% tax on restaurants and hotels.

With Gov. John Bel Edwards order shuttering restaurants all across the Bayou State, he has vaporized a huge revenue stream for local and state governments. Tourism will go away in the blink of an eye.

The largest expense component for government is payroll, in some cases making up 85% of expenses.

Many teachers probably thought closing the schools would amount to a month-long paid vacation. They perhaps should spend their time updating their resumes.

Used to be, having a government job was seen as having a lifetime guarantee of employment. You had to really mess up to get fired. Great retirement and medical benefits, too.

That hayride is about to end.

Former NLU Prez Vines Tells How to Handle Protests

Former Northeast Louisiana University (now University of Louisiana at Monroe) President Dwight Vines once had to deal with a significant protest on campus in 1978, he tells in a email message sent out yesterday:

Almost every day the news media exposes another university that has lost control of their students and other agitators. I worked for universities for 38 years. but I never remember hearing about even one university losing control of group activities on its campus.

In 1978, Northeast Louisiana University invited a representative of the Shah of Iran to speak on the campus. Iranian students and their friends enrolled in USA universities were not pleased and planned to prevent the talk at NLU. After they began recruiting students to come to NLU to protest, we learned about their plan.

I discussed the matter with NLU officials and we decided that we would not let off-campus students disrupt the speaker. I met with local law enforcement officials from Monroe, West Monroe and Ouachita Parish. asking them to help NLU develop a plan for the situation.

When the time arrived, students attempted to interrupt the speaker. They were twice told not to interrupt by Dean of Students, Tom Murphy. On the third interruption, we asked law enforcement to clear Brown Auditorium.

When the smoke cleared, there were about 70 demonstrators in local jails. The protesters refused to give their names, so they were booked as John Does. After about two weeks, a local Muslim doctor paid a fine for each of them and they were released after signing a commitment not to return to NLU.

This was the biggest story NLU ever had in the news media in Europe and the Middle East.

I rest my case.

Auditors Tag ULM Athletics

ULM Athletic Department Discrepancies

The University of Louisiana at Monroe’s Athletic Department was not able to reconcile football, basketball, and baseball ticket sales to its cash deposits. For one game selected from each sport, deposits were short by a total of $17,727, the Legislative Auditor said in a report released today.

According to the report, the contractor hired by the University of Louisiana at Monroe Foundation, Inc., to collect ticket sales on behalf of the athletic department did not provide enough detail for the university to completely reconcile its deposits. The report further noted that 3,678 complimentary tickets were issued for the three games without the signatures of the ticket holders, and multiple revenues and expenses were misclassified on the university’s athletic department financial statement.

The state auditor said the report resulted from an annual set of agreed-upon procedures that are used to examine the financial reporting of the athletic department to determine whether it is compliant with NCAA rules and to help the university evaluate its internal controls.

Complete report here.

Edwards Fundraiser @ Squire Creek Next Month

Your Betters Think You Don’t Pay Enough Taxes

A much-ballyhooed gathering of public policy “experts” were in town yesterday to tell us why you taxpayers need to do with less so that government doesn’t have to.

Here is the KTVE-TV10 report:

Officials gather to discuss numerous possibilities on how to overcome Louisiana’s $1.6 billion shortfall.

State Representative, Rob Shadoin, says it’s going to take everyone coming together whether they’re from the left or the right.

“What I am hoping is that we can come together as Louisianian’s first, and leave all the party labels outside that big tall building known as the Capital in Baton Rouge,” says Shadoin.

The Committee of 100, a group of business and university leaders from around the state, lays out a fiscal strategy.

“We have to restructure the tax code. We have to find a way to broaden the tax base. We have to find a way to flatten the tax base,” says CEO, Michael Olivier.

Here is the complete report from the Committee of 100:

Louisiana Fiscal Reform

Higher Ed Efficiencies – Maybe We Should Try This in Louisiana

U of Wisconsin Colleges to Cut and Consolidate Administrative Jobs

July 22, 2015

The University of Wisconsin Colleges, a system of 13 two-year college campuses, on Tuesday announced it would consolidate the leadership jobs for those campuses into four regions, with a single executive officer for each region. Those four leaders will replace the current 13 top posts at the campuses.

The system said it was eliminating the equivalent of 83 full-time administrative positions to cope with its $5 million share of the $125 million state budget cut to the University of Wisconsin System. Another $125 million cut is slated for next year. The UW Colleges, which enroll 14,000 students, will not eliminate any faculty positions, the system said in a news release.

Cathy Sandeen, chancellor of the UW Colleges and UW-Extension, said the budget cuts are the largest in the system’s history.

“In making these changes, we are staying true to our key priorities and our mission: to ensure access, to provide the highest level of instruction and services to our students, and to uphold our commitment to the communities that invest in us,” Sandeen said in a written statement. “I have been strongly committed throughout our budget reduction processes to protecting our academic program, which is our core mission.”

Higher Ed Salaries Detailed

LSU, Southern and UL systems had a $1.2 billion payroll during 2014-15 academic year: See who earned the money

By Quincy Hodges, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Louisiana’s public higher education institutions spent more than $1.2 billion for salaries in the 2014-15 fiscal year, according to information obtained from Louisiana Board of Regents.

The LSU System, which has nine entities, employed more than 13,000 employees and paid them more than $714 million this fiscal year. Among its top earners were LSU President and Chancellor F. King Alexander at $600,000, athletic director Joe Alleva ($525,000), assistant football coaches, Cam Cameron, Robert Steele and Frank Wilson, all of whom earned $500,000. Steven Heymsfield, the highest paid professor within the LSU system, earned $416,000.

The University of Louisiana system, which includes nine campuses, employed more than 11,000 employees, paying them more than $448 million during this fiscal year.

UL System President Sandra Woodley was the top earner, bringing in $$375,000, followed by University of Louisiana-Lafayette President Ernest Savoie ($360,000) Louisiana Tech University President Leslie Guice ($350,000) and UNO President Peter Fos ($325,000).

The Southern University System employed more than 2,000 employees and had an annual payroll of $84.4 million. Ron Mason, SU’s system president earned $374,000, the highest paid employee in the system. Southern University Law Center Chancellor Freddie Pitcher was the second highest paid employee, bringing in $224,000. Roman Banks, SU’s head football coach and interim athletic director, earned $205,000.

How much do LSU employees make? Search the online database

How much do UL system employees make? Search the online database

How much do Southern University employees make?: Search the online database

Are Students the new “Human Shields”?

Anyone who has paid the least bit of attention to tax proposals and government spending the past few decades is familiar with the tactic of declaring that education funding is untouchable.

“It’s for the the children,” the refrain goes.

We suggest this is but a political tactic similar to the use children as “human shields” in military strategy. Non-combatants are placed in or around combat targets to deter attacks on these targets.

Education bureaucrats, with their fat salaries, taxpayer funded retirements, and gold-plated medical plans, don’t make good advocates for more taxes. Legislators can dis them with impunity and go back to their taxpaying constituents and brag about it.

But students – now there’s a sympathetic group.

We accuse the Education Establishment of taking advantage of the very people they claim to advocate for, and using them for props in an effort to protect their own jobs.

We hope the legislature doesn’t take the bait.

ULM Teaching Students to Beg?

Students Find New Way to Pay for College

By Jeané Franseen

Financial aid advisers say the one thing that can keep a student from attending college is a lack of financial aid.

They add though some students get aid, it sometimes still isn’t enough to ease the financial burden.

“There are the students that struggle to get enough funding to pay for their schooling, and we have to look at whatever we can find,” says Frankie Everett, Director of Financial Aid.

Administrators say students have found a possible solution to the high cost of tuition, Crowdfunding.

It’s a online method that allows people to fund something they need.

“If somebody’s going to give me 5-thousand dollars to spend on you name it, whether it’s my household expenses or any loans that I have, I’d take it. So why not expect the same from a student,” says Dr. Joshua Stockley, ULM Honors Program.

Websites such as gofundme.com allow you to use Crowdfunding to pay for things such as college tuition, study abroad, and even mission trips.

Administrators add it’s a legal way to get college paid for, without having to pay it back decades down the line.

Louisiana Legislature Take Note

From today’s New York Times:

The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

By PAUL F. CAMPOS

Interestingly, increased spending has not been going into the pockets of the typical professor. Salaries of full-time faculty members are, on average, barely higher than they were in 1970. Moreover, while 45 years ago 78 percent of college and university professors were full time, today half of postsecondary faculty members are lower-paid part-time employees, meaning that the average salaries of the people who do the teaching in American higher education are actually quite a bit lower than they were in 1970.

By contrast, a major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration. According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.

Even more strikingly, an analysis by a professor at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, found that, while the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183 — a 221 percent increase.