State treasurer: Consulting contracts need to be cut

State Treasurer John Kennedy is backing a bill in the legislative session that would slash state agency consulting contracts by 10 percent and provide $528 million in funding for higher education, he said Thursday.
Kennedy was the guest speaker at the Morgan City Rotary Club’s meeting at the Petroleum Club of Morgan City.
House Bill 142, which recently passed the House and is authored by Rep. Dee Richard, of Lafayette, would direct every state government agency to reduce spending on consulting contracts by 10 percent.
The bill will not completely fill the gap in education funding, but it will help, he said.
Kennedy expects to have opposition to the bill in the state Senate, he said. The legislative session is the third time Richard has brought the bill to session. “This is the best chance we’ve ever had,” Kennedy said. “I’m not saying we’ll pass it because the Senate’s tough and the governor’s opposed, but we’ve got a better shot this year than any we’ve ever had.”
HB 142 will be heard next in the Senate Finance Committee. “I need Sen. Bret Allain’s vote, Kennedy said. “I don’t think he’s made up his mind.”
State departments issue contracts, and no one checks them, he said. Department officials go to the Office of Contractual Review and no one ever questions the contracts, Kennedy said.
The state has cut funding for higher education by 67 percent since 2008, he said. The deficit in state college and university budgets has been filled partly by tuition increases, which Kennedy opposes, he said. Still, the state budget has increased from $12 billion when Mike Foster was governor to $25 billion now. “It’s not how much money we have, it’s how we’re spending what we do have,” Kennedy said.
If HB 142 does not pass this session, he will continue to back the bill in the next session, Kennedy said.
“I’ll put my small government credentials against anybody, but I’ve watched what’s happened to our universities in the last five years. And we’re cutting bone, and we’re cutting muscle at these universities,” Kennedy said.
At Thursday’s meeting, Kennedy held up books listing the state consulting contracts for Department of Education from 2005 to 2010, which included 5,499 consultants totaling $615 million, he said.
Consultant contracts included organizations such as the Smiles and Happiness Foundation and the Hop to It Music Company, Kennedy said.
“I’m not making this up. I couldn’t make this up,” Kennedy said. Another contract with a California company provided a program “to allow students to learn valuable social skills through organized play on their recess and lunch period,” Kennedy said.
The Department of Health and Hospitals has a contract for a private company to sponsor Golden Glove boxing tournaments, he said. Kennedy was told that the boxing tournaments will teach kids that obesity is bad, he said. “We’ve got kids we can’t vaccinate because we don’t have the money,” Kennedy said.