Dennis Woltering / Eyewitness News
NEW ORLEANS – Questions from 4 Investigates about spending on travel and communications led the president of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - West to remind us the state legislature created the two current regional levee boards to improve the integrity and oversight, to stock the boards with professionals, and get rid of the politics of the old levee boards.
“They were concerned that the only qualification of a levee board member was politically how you were connected, and who you knew,” said Susan Maclay, the levee board’s president.
But state Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, wants to know why the west bank levee authority spends $4,899 a year to fly in one commissioner, Dr. Johannes Westerink, from Indiana for monthly meetings.
And Morrell says he will vote against reappointing him when his term comes up in 2012 unless that expense can be eliminated.
“It's extremely…it's way too much. I mean with the state in a budget crisis, with the state looking to trim every service across the board just to make ends meet, we don't have the luxury to fly people in and out of the state at a whim just to attend meetings. It just doesn't make sense,” Morrell said.
But Maclay says that travel expense is a tiny fraction of the authority's budget and she says you can't find Dr. Westerink's level of expertise in Louisiana.
“Dr. Johannes Westerink is a Ph.D scientist, a world renowned hydrologist from the University of Notre Dame. He is extremely rare worldwide, let alone to find somebody with those credentials here in Louisiana,” she said.
The east bank authority spends an average of $10,000 a year to fly one of its commissioners in from California for monthly meetings and two of the eastbank's commissioners sometimes fly in for meetings at taxpayer expense while working out of state.
As a result, their overall travel expenses come to an average of $4,208.82 a year for geologist George Losonsky of Baton Rouge and $8,941.54 a year for writer/historian John Barry of New Orleans.
Maclay says the west bank authority does not pay for commissioners to fly in from jobs out of state.
“We only pay, for the most part, for travel to and from the commissioner's domicile,” she said.
She says that came up when a Baton Rouge commissioner considered relocating to North Carolina.
“And the board made it very clear that when he was selected he was a resident of Baton Rouge and that we would continue to reimburse only from Baton Rouge,” she said.
Maclay says she favors changing the law so commissioners could participate and vote via teleconferencing as a way to save taxpayer money.
“Dr. Westerink could participate a lot more if it were legal to ‘live’ feed him in. And we've got the equipment to do that,” she said.
“If it is prohibited by law,” Morrell said, “I would encourage either of those boards to contact me and I would gladly amend the law so that they can res via teleconference.”
The west bank levee authority has a contract with The Ehrhardt Group to provide public information amounting to about $65,000 a year, according to Maclay.
“That's actually a very cost effective move on our part,” Maclay said. “Other agencies actually have public information officers on staff. If you took into consideration one public information officer who has any level of decent experience at all, you figure the salary, the benefits and the contributions you have to make to their retirement program, you'd be spending well in excess of $65,000 a year.”
Eyewitness News made public records requests to acquire the authority's financial documents.
The Pelican Institute for Public Policy argues taxpayers should be able to click a button top see how their money is spent.
“Why isn’t all this stuff just posted online automatically?” asks the institute’s Kevin Kane. “I mean, why do we even have to go digging if something is a public record? Then make it public.”
“We'll be happy to put it on our web site,” Maclay responded. “As a matter of fact, after this interview, we will see to it that all of it goes on our web site.”
Just hours after the interview, the levee authority notified Eyewitness News that its budget is now online for taxpayers to see. The agency has now also followed through with Susan Maclay's commitment to put the authority's travel expenses authority's web site – www.slfpaw.org.
The president of the Eastbank Levee Authority - Tim Doody - points out that some of his commissioners' travel expenses involve trips to Washington to meet with White House, Congressional and Corps of Engineers officials.
He also said the board's investigation of video conferencing revealed it could cost thousands of dollars per meeting - probably more than it would save.
And Doody said he has decline to accept the authorized salary of $12,000 a year for the board president position.
