In The News › Orleans Parish

The non-profit watchdog group the Bureau of Governmental Research has been pushing for years for stronger policies on economic development.

While the audit didn’t find evidence of fraud, the waste is worrisome enough. Tolls have been used mainly for what the Bureau of Governmental Research has described as “far-flung’‘ services, including the three ferries. Only 19 cents of every toll dollar is actually used to maintain and police the Crescent City Connection.

“The proposed hospitality legislation raises a number of questions and issues,” said Janet Howard of the watchdog Bureau of Governmental Research. She cited the imposition of a new district on top of existing ones, the “appropriateness of the proposed boundaries and governance,” and provisions that would allow the board to authorize tax-increment financing districts and other sub-districts.

For real estate developers, visiting the Industrial Development Board of New Orleans and asking for a property tax break is a worthwhile step as they map out financing for their projects. According to an analysis by the Bureau of Governmental Research, the board has rejected only one request for a property tax break since 1997.

Cuts to mental-health services at Interim LSU Public Hospital were “a punch in the stomach,” but they have forced necessary conversations and better identification of high-risk patients, according to city health commissioner Dr. Karen DeSalvo. “The system has started to talk to each other in a way that’s more meaningful,” DeSalvo said Wednesday during a forum on the impact of the cuts hosted by the nonprofit Bureau of Governmental Research.

Two health experts will examine the city’s mental-health system at a breakfast meeting sponsored by the Bureau of Governmental Research.

Another nonpartisan watchdog group, The New Orleans-based Bureau of Governmental Research was critical of some elements of the Jindal voucher plan but did not condemn the concept.

Val Mogensen, a former director of the Bureau of Governmental Research who also was the director of the committee that drafted New Orleans’ Charter, died Feb. 3 in Newbury Park, Calif. He was 92.

But Walter Flower, president of the IDB, which has been under pressure from the Bureau of Government Research in recent months for having criteria that are too loose and informal in granting tax abatements, cautioned that the approval was only a starting point for discussion.

The Bureau of Governmental Research and Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans argue that there should be greater accountability for schools accepting vouchers. They are right. The legislation as drafted does not ensure the academic quality of private or parochial schools in the program and does not provide for a process to remove vouchers from schools that perform poorly.

“Something is clearly wrong when that is going on and you’re not in some severe emergency situation,” said Janet Howard, president of the Bureau of Governmental Research.

“It is a very significant, very generous arrangement compared to what most people in the private sector, who are actually paying a lot of the bills, are able to get themselves,” says Janet Howard, who heads the Bureau of Governmental Research, a non-profit research group. BGR has spent more than a year looking at retirement systems in the metro area and expects to release a comprehensive report in the spring.

In an October report, the Bureau of Governmental Research, a nonprofit policy research organization in New Orleans, recommended removing elected officials from the board and giving the board authority to increase water and sewerage rates by an indexed amount annually, citing that local politics have long interfered with needed rate increases.

The task force’s recommendation to renew the tolls is at odds with a report released in April by the non-profit Bureau of Governmental Research, which said the tolls should be allowed to expire because just 19 cents of every toll dollar goes toward bridge maintenance and policing.

Lawmakers also should consider the Bureau of Governmental Research report from last year, which pointed out the basic unfairness of the tolls that are now collected on east-bank-bound drivers.

The Bureau of Governmental Research suggested in January 2009 that instead of trying to make a deal with another developer, the city should buy out the trade organization’s lease and then sell the tower and garage outright to a private developer.

We, the Metropolitan Crime Commission, the Bureau of Governmental Research, Citizens for One Greater New Orleans, Women of the Storm, Levees.org and other citizen advocacy groups, promise to continue to hold government officials at all levels accountable for their actions.

But BGR President Janet Howard said the city’s decision to drop its efforts to change the exemption rules is alarming.

“It’s very disappointing news for taxpayers that there’s an unwillingness to take on the topic at all,” she said. “There’s a whole range of options, and they haven’t even taken steps to deal with the most egregious examples of over-generosity, where the nonprofit is providing no benefit to the public.”

“After the justice department issued its report, Chief Serpas proposed a plan to reform the NOPD’s detail policies and procedures, and one of the criticisms that is sometimes heard is that it would just shift the detail work to the sheriff’s department,” Janet Howard said. “ And clearly, the reforms should extend to all the law enforcement groups engaged in the practice in the jurisdiction.*

This newspaper makes the following recommendations for Saturday’s ballot.

New Orleans voters will get a chance Saturday to weigh in on efforts to tighten oversight at the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad, a once-obscure agency that was thrust into the spotlight as a result of misconduct by its top administrator.

Residents of Hollygrove and neighborhoods surrounding a proposed new Costco Wholesale store on South Carrollton Avenue walked among renderings at an Oct. 20 community meeting at Xavier University like they were perusing a candy store.

Thousands of real estate transfers take place in Louisiana each year, and, so far, those transfers have gone mostly tax-free. An amendment on the Nov. 19 ballot seeks to keep things just the way they are.

“If you don’t have a fund balance, if you have an emergency, if you have terrible flooding or something like that, you don’t have money on hand to deal with it,” Bureau of Governmental Research CEO Janet Howard said. “Ideally you would have one in place, but when you are coming out of a $25 million hole, you have an issue of how fast you can rebuild.”

The beleaguered Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans needs the power to increase water and sewerage rates annually and fewer politicians controlling its activity in order to aptly tackle billions of dollars in city infrastructure improvements, according to a report the Bureau of Governmental Research released today.

A new report calls for drastic measures to improve the crumbling sewer and water services in the city, including removing elected members from the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board and giving the agency more control over its own finances.

The system needs billions of dollars in repairs and improvements, said the Bureau of Governmental Research, which noted that the city’s Sewerage and Water Board can’t bill people for an estimated 75 percent of the water it treats, mostly because that water is lost to leaks.

A report issued Tuesday by the Bureau of Governmental Research is the first of two to be released by good-government groups in the coming weeks. The Business Council of New Orleans and the River Region will also make governance recommendations in response to a request from Mayor Mitch Landrieu for an outside review of the agency’s finances and management.

The beleaguered Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans needs the power to increase water and sewerage rates annually and fewer politicians controlling its activity in order to aptly tackle billions of dollars in city infrastructure improvements, according to a report the Bureau of Governmental Research released today.

“If you don’t have a fund balance, if you have an emergency, if you have terrible flooding or something like that, you don’t have money on hand to deal with it,” Bureau of Governmental Research CEO Janet Howard said. “Ideally you would have one in place, but when you are coming out of a $25 million hole, you have an issue of how fast you can rebuild.”

To its defenders, the 7,000-acre New Orleans Regional Business Park can be one of the city’s most important tools for promoting economic development. To its critics, the eastern New Orleans park has failed for 30 years to prove that its potential can be turned into reality. Instead, it has been the subject of frequent unfavorable publicity because of management turmoil, political squabbles and ethical problems.

The same business and nonprofit groups that knocked a previous set of plans for rebuilding New Orleans public schools came out Wednesday in favor of the revisions unveiled last week. That’s an important endorsement of the so-called master plan, the city’s blueprint for spending the rest of almost $2 billion in FEMA recovery money earmarked for school construction, which heads to the local Orleans Parish School Board Thursday.

Janet Howard, president and CEO of the Bureau of Governmental Research, said the city’s “calcified and byzantine” civil service system has hampered the effort further.

The Bureau of Governmental Research, which supports ending the bump rule, has said the “organizational unit” language is too broad, and that’s a valid concern that the city needs to address. But eliminating the bump rule makes sense. The policy can trigger chain reactions that force good employees out while requiring the city to unnecessarily retrain workers.

New Orleans Deputy Mayor Andy Kopplin made an appearance in the D.H. Holmes Ballroom at the Chateau Bourbon Hotel on Monday, Sept. 12, to brief members of the Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR) of the Landrieu Administration’s progress in reforming city government.

The Bureau of Governmental Research will honor the achievements of eight outstanding local government employees Thursday when it holds its annual Excellence in Government Awards ceremony.

The non-profit watchdog group, the Bureau of Governmental Research, hosted a briefing Tuesday morning on efforts to strengthen operations at New Orleans City Hall.

Janet Howard, president of the Bureau of Governmental Research, says the problems in city government are so widespread that prioritizing will be critical in attacking the issues. “You can’t expect a ship like New Orleans to turn around overnight,” said Howard.

Deputy Mayor Andy Kopplin will present a status update Sept. 13 to the Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR), the local government watchdog group, on the Landrieu administration’s ongoing efforts to reform city government operations. Kopplin is expected to measure the city’s progress against a report produced last year by the Public Strategies Group (PSG).

A 2003 study by the Bureau of Governmental Research said the current CZO, written about 40 years ago and since amended hundreds of times, is “incoherent, overamended, outdated and vague,” and that “interpreting (it) is well beyond the reach of the typical developer, not to mention the average citizen.”

A New Orleans non-profit group that researches government issues has won an award for recommendations it made to overhaul the way the City of New Orleans awards professional services contracts.

The Bureau of Governmental Research, a nonprofit watchdog group, is planning a briefing on efforts to strengthen operations at New Orleans City Hall.

A group of civic, public policy and business organizations led by the Bureau of Governmental Research sharply criticized the proposed plan this month, calling for a “more utilitarian approach” with fewer “architectural dreams and luxuries.”

Fielkow voted for Hagmann at a committee meeting last week, but he said he had changed his mind because of concerns raised by Bureau of Governmental Research President Janet Howard about a conflict of interest, “real or perceived,” between Hagmann’s roles as a Civil Service Department employee and a member of the commission that oversees the department’s work and chooses its director.

A council committee last week recommended that the full body confirm the candidate who led a recent vote by city workers, but the Bureau of Governmental Research on Tuesday urged the council not to approve that candidate, Robert Hagmann, because he works in the Civil Service Department.

The Bureau of Governmental Research released a study in April saying that the tolls should be allowed to lapse because too much toll revenue is being spent on “far-flung services,” such as the ferries.

It was clear from Monday’s press conference that White is already making his pitch to the BESE and Orleans Parish School Boards. The votes were originally scheduled for late summer, but last week, think tank, the Bureau of Governmental Research, asked them to delay the votes because their research showed what they perceive as problems with the funding and scope of the schools included in the plan.

A group of business and nonprofit leaders is questioning whether the current plan accomplishes that purpose. They say the roughly $2 billion in federal funds earmarked to fix city schools should be enough to put every student in a new or renovated classroom. That may mean eliminating architectural luxuries that have characterized new schools built since the flood.

This week the Bureau of Governmental Research gave its qualified approval to New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas’ plan to reform the system that lets police work off-duty security details. After calling Serpas’ plan “a promising start,” the BGR is careful to point out that “no matter how strongly a detail policy is worded, its effectiveness depends on how well it is enforced.”

Meting out sanctions sends a message to other officers in the department and to the community. But by itself it’s not enough. The superintendent and Mayor Landrieu also must carry out the reforms Superintendent Serpas proposed more than two months ago. Those included centralizing detail coordination in a civilian office and setting limits for detail work. The Bureau of Governmental Research said this week those changes, if properly enforced, should curtail abuses.

New Orleans’ zoning laws have long been a mess. The Bureau of Governmental Research said in 2003 that the 40-year-old document was “incoherent, overamended, outdated and vague” and virtually impossible for the average citizen to figure out.

New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas’ plan for reforming the NOPD’s antiquated system for monitoring paid police details is a “good starting point” that reflects many of the best practices used by police departments across the country, according to a new report by the watchdog Bureau of Governmental Research.

A group of New Orleans business and nonprofit leaders is calling for city and state education officials to head “back to the drawing board” on plans for spending what’s left of about $2 billion in federal aid earmarked for rebuilding the city’s public schools.

“The amended plan would create gross inequity in the quality of school facilities across the city. Some school facilities would be built at a cost that far exceeds national norms. Others would get nothing, even where repairs are urgently needed,” states the letter signed representatives of the Bureau for Governmental Research, the Business Council of New Orleans, the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, the New Orleans Regional Black Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Louisiana, Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, Common Good and the Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives at Tulane University.

A 2003 study by the Bureau of Governmental Research, an independent watchdog group, said the current CZO, written about 40 years ago and since amended hundreds of times, is “incoherent, overamended, outdated and vague,” and that “interpreting (it) is well beyond the reach of the typical developer, not to mention the average citizen.”

“There’s a list of approximately 15 entities that receive some part of your taxes,” said Janet Howard, President/CEO of the Bureau of Governmental Research in New Orleans.

The Bureau of Governmental Research released a study in April saying bridge tolls should be allowed to expire because only 19 percent of toll revenue goes to policing and maintaining the bridge. The report said much of the rest is spent on “far-flung” services, including the ferries, which consume 32 percent of toll revenue.

…the nonpartisan Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR) issued a report calling for a systematic overhaul of civil service. BGR, which can hardly be accused of supporting a spoils system, pointed out that the local civil service system, which functions as a central (and very powerful) human resources office for all city departments, is “archaic, overly centralized and inefficient.” Many who know the ins and outs of City Hall say that’s being kind.

Wildes said he is aware of several reports, including one by the watchdog Bureau of Governmental Research, that call for a major overhaul of civil service policies. “My (concern) is not about any particular rule, but it’s more about how the whole damned thing is functioning and how do we improve it,” he said.

The Bureau of Governmental Research, a private, nonprofit research organization, is seeking nominations for its annual BGR Excellence in Government Awards.

City government should be no different, but the problem New Orleans faces is that its system for evaluating civil service employees is nothing short of a joke. According to the Bureau of Governmental Research, an evaluation of 4,315 city employees last year showed that just 31 were in need of improvement.

According to a letter written to the Civil Service Commission by Janet Howard, president of the Bureau of Governmental Research, of the 4,315 city employees evaluated in 2010, only 31 were found to need improvement.

But the argument falls apart in the face of how city employees are rated on performance. As Janet Howard of the Bureau of Governmental Research pointed out in a letter, only 31 of the city’s 4,315 employees were rated as needing improvement in 2010. Even more incredibly, only one employee in the entire municipal workforce was labeled unsatisfactory.

Still, the Bureau of Government Research said the bumping rule is problematic.

The nonprofit Bureau of Governmental Research in New Orleans this week said the practice can set of a chain-reaction of job changes that cause qualified workers to be replaced with less-qualified people from other departments. The BGR backs the idea of limiting bumping, although it has suggested some changes to the Landrieu administration’s proposed rule revisions.

The president of the Bureau of Governmental Research, a watchdog group that in 2004 published a report that found that “bumping can wreak havoc with the city’s work force,” sent a letter Tuesday to the commission stating its strong support for the administration’s proposal.

In a recent letter to the editor on the Crescent City Connection, Transport for NOLA stated that BGR and others had raised concerns “about the efficacy of independent bridge and ferry operations and maintenance, which they argue are better left to the state Department of Transportation and Development.”

I would like to clarify a few points.

Bridge tolls are due to expire at the end of 2012, and audits that have found questionable spending as well as a report by the Bureau of Governmental Research, make a strong case for allowing that to happen. Crescent City Connection users have been paying for lots of things that have little or no benefit to them, and that’s unfair.

It’s no wonder that the Bureau of Governmental Research, which has long advocated for eliminating this policy, has called it “an incredibly messy process that wreaks havoc with the work force.” A consultant this year also cited the policy as a reason why City Hall is dysfunctional.

Elimination of the bumping rule has been urged for years by the watchdog Bureau of Governmental Research, which in a 2004 report called bumping “an incredibly messy process that wreaks havoc with the work force.”

Noting that 32 percent of toll revenue goes to the three Mississippi River ferries, the nonprofit Bureau of Governmental Research issued a report recently saying the tolls should be allowed to expire because they are paying for too many services unrelated to bridge operations.

The Bureau of Governmental Research, a New Orleans-based policy institute, has determined that only 19 percent of all toll revenues actually go towards policing and maintenance of the bridge. The remainder is allocated to unrelated expenditures, such as the three Mississippi river ferries which use 32 percent of the CCC’s toll revenue. Additionally, an audit last year by Steve Theriot, the state’s legislative auditor, found that the CCCD has managed to deplete half of a $61 million dollar reserve fund.

Last week, the Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR) issued a report saying lawmakers should let the tolls expire at the end of 2012. BGR found that only 19 percent of the toll funds collected were used to maintain and police the bridge.

But the watchdog group, Bureau of Governmental Research, BGR, has a new report out that argues the tolls should be allowed to expire.

The study also shows that only a fraction of each dollar a driver pays to cross the bridge actually goes to the bridge itself so Dennis sits down with CEO of BGR, Janet Howard to talk about the findings of the study on the tolls and the Crescent City Connection bridge, itself.

Crescent City Connection tolls will expire at the end of 2012 unless the Legislature renews them, but a Bureau of Governmental Research report on bridge finances should be required reading for lawmakers. That report, along with audits that have found instances of questionable spending, make it clear that Crescent City Connection users have been paying for a lot of things of little or no benefit to them.

The Legislature ultimately will decide whether the tolls will stay in place or be removed. In making the decision, they should take a good look at a study the Bureau of Governmental Research released this week that analyzes how money collected from tolls is spent.

The disclosures come a day after the Bureau of Governmental Research released a study saying bridge tolls should be allowed to expire because only 19 percent of toll revenue goes to policing and maintaining the bridge. The report said much of the rest is spent on “far-flung” services, including three Mississippi River ferries that consume 32 percent of toll revenue.

A report issued Tuesday by the Bureau of Governmental Research recommended the tolls on the Crescent City Connection not be extended past the end of 2012, because almost a third of the toll revenue subsidizes three ferry services across the river.

The Bureau of Governmental Research, in a report released Tuesday, said the Crescent City Connection is the only Mississippi River bridge in Louisiana that tolls its users. The organization adds that only a small portion of toll revenue goes to the operation and maintenance of the bridge, and that the cost of collecting the tolls is disproportionate to the revenue generated.

Just 19 cents of every toll dollar collected on the Crescent City Connection goes toward policing and maintaining the bridge, according to a Bureau of Governmental Research report that says the tolls are improperly being spent on “far-flung” services and should be allowed to expire at the end of 2012.

The findings of those state-requested audits come on the heels of a separate independent report, released by the Bureau of Governmental Research. It concluded the Crescent City Connection tolls should be allowed to expire at the end of 2012 because a large portion of the toll money is being used on things other than the bridge.

A new report by the Bureau of Governmental Research recommends state lawmakers allow the tolls on the Crescent City Connection to expire at the end of next year, agreeing with critics who say the tolls paid by CCC motorists should not fund other transportation projects.

We periodically hear from politicians about trimming fat, sharpening the pencil and taking a hard look at priorities. Usually this talk comes up around budget time, or maybe election time. But throughout the year, the New Orleans-based Bureau of Governmental Research, or BGR, is at work analyzing the systems and the policies behind those budgets. It examines whether taxpayers are getting good deals for their money and how effectively government policies address community issues. The group lays out the facts, connects the dots and demonstrates what it all means for residents.

As of Wednesday, the commission’s latest draft resolution recommends lawmakers “be reminded” of “the problems created” by the homestead exemption, which is highest in the nation, according to the commission. Echoing the Bureau of Governmental Research, the commission also criticizes lawmakers for shortchanging a revenue sharing fund meant to offset the exemption’s impact.

NOLA.com reports that the Bureau of Governmental Research calculated for its study that “43 percent of the total assessed value of property in Orleans Parish is exempt from taxation, with nearly one-quarter of the exempt property escaping taxes because it is owned by nonprofit groups.”

About half of tax-exempt property in New Orleans is owned by the government, with the remainder split between property protected by state-authorized exemptions for homeowners and a broad range of nonprofits including universities, churches and cultural groups, according to a recent report by the Bureau of Governmental Research.

The constitutionally enshrined nonprofit tax exemption needs stricter focus and local jurisdiction, according to a new report by the Bureau of Governmental Research.

With Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s Tax Fairness Commission continuing to examine New Orleans’ property and sales tax systems, a governmental research organization issued a report Tuesday urging major changes in the system of routinely awarding property tax exemptions to private schools and universities, churches, charities and other nonprofit organizations.

“The idea of having flexibility in who you choose, in terms of being able to pick from more than one civil service rank, is something that we think is important,” said Janet Howard, president of watchdog group, the Bureau of Governmental Research.

The Cowen Institute’s review draws from information in a recent report from the New Orleans watchdog group, Bureau for Governmental Research, as well as other studies. The institute does not agree, however, with BGR’s call to eliminate the homestead exemption in New Orleans, saying too many exemptions for nonprofits and too many unfairly assessed properties are the major issues.

In bird-dogging Landrieu’s 2011 budget proposal, the Bureau of Governmental Research pointed out that the three-person Public Information Office in Jefferson Parish, which has nearly 90,000 more residents than New Orleans, was allotted just $200,000 this year, with no money earmarked for outsourcing.

Janet Howard of the Bureau of Governmental Research, a local watchdog, offered a critical assessment of several agency policies, among them a lack of consistent criteria for qualifying projects and the fact that the board does not need the blessing of local taxing bodies before it absolves developers from local taxes.

Janet Howard, of the Bureau of Governmental Research, questioned the need for provisional appointments. Howard noted, however, that she supported the chief’s push to choose his top managers and give them more responsibility. The civil service system is broken and needs reform, Howard added.

“Historically, there’s been a serious under-assessment of property and uneven assessment of property in this city,” said Janet Howard, President and CEO of the independent Bureau of Governmental Research.

The Bureau of Governmental Research, a longtime critic of the exemption, offers other suggestions should the administration wish to circumvent the legislature. They include asking nonprofits for voluntary “payments in lieu of taxes,” or PILOTs and parcel fees.

Janet Howard of the Bureau of Governmental Research, a critic of the exemption, told the group the waiver exempts not only major landowners like churches and universities, but much else as well, including property owned by nonprofit groups organized for “burial, charitable, health, welfare and fraternal” purposes.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s Tax Fairness Commission held its first meeting today, with presentations by the city’s chief economist, Jerome Lomba, and Bureau of Governmental Research CEO Janet Howard. The presentations and ensuing discussion offered a rare level detail about the city’s various tax systems.