Louisiana news briefs

‘Sleep Out’ to spotlight plight of homeless vets
HAHNVILLE (AP) — An advocate for homeless veterans is arranging a “sleep out” in St. Charles Parish to call attention to her cause.
The event is set for Saturday night through Sunday morning at the site of apartment units in Hahnville that advocate Lisa Carey is working to get turned into housing for homeless veterans. Carey says bureaucratic permit issues have held up the effort by her Veterans Housing Outreach Ministries to get the units open.
In addition to calling attention to the need for veterans’ housing, the “sleep out” participants will be collecting money, non-perishable food items and hygiene items for donation to needy veterans.

State auditor updates behavior health report
BATON ROUGE (AP) — A new state audit finds the transition to private management of state behavioral health services continues to create problems for area groups that provide care for those with mental and substance abuse problems.
The report, a follow-up to one issued last year, looked at the experiences of five human service districts since Magellan of Louisiana took over as part of the Jindal administration’s privatization push.
Auditors found transition issues encountered by regional human services districts based in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette, Hammond and Houma.
In an audit response, state Department of Health and Hospitals said it is working with Magellan to address issues and working with all providers to support smooth operations and ensure people with behavioral health needs receive necessary services.

Student arrested allegedly brought gun to school
MOUNT HERMON (AP) — A 17-year-old Mt. Hermon High School student has been arrested for allegedly bringing a gun to school.
Washington Parish sheriff’s deputies say the student was arrested Monday after a revolver was found in his car. Authorities say the gun was found with an obliterated serial number.
The student told authorities he purchased the gun as protection after having allegedly been robbed by a former student.
The school has been on alert for the past few days after a threat of a possible shooter at the school. Chief Deputy Mile Haley says investigators do not believe Monday’s incident is related to that.
The teenager was booked with possession of a firearm at school and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Bond has not been set.

31 apply for Lafayette
airport director position
LAFAYETTE (AP) — Officials say Lafayette Regional Airport has received 31 applications for the director’s job, which opened in June when longtime Director Greg Roberts resigned.
The airport began advertising for the position Aug. 15. The deadline was 4:30 p.m. Friday.
A five-member search committee now will decide which applicants will be chosen for a first round of interviews.
Once the top applicants are chosen from the initial interviews, representatives from the search committee will travel to the communities of the applicants for in-person interviews, then forward a short list to the Airport Commission for a final decision.
The position will pay $100,000 to $155,000 a year, depending on experience and education.

2 men arrested in store burglary, guns stolen
PAINCOURTVILLE (AP) — Assumption Parish sheriff’s deputies have arrested two Donaldsonville men in the Sept. 20 burglary of a Paincourtville hardware store where more than 25 handguns were stolen.
The semi-automatic pistols and few revolvers taken from Sagona’s True Value have not been found, and the case remains under investigation.
Sheriff Mike Waguespack said Monday the burglary of the store, which is a federally licensed firearms dealer, has drawn the interest of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The agency and a firearms industry trade group offered a $5,000 reward last week for information leading to arrests in the case.
Waguespack says Kez Quintel Gipson and Jeremiah White, both 20, were booked with simple burglary.

82-year-old found dead,
2 relatives arrested
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Baton Rouge police say they found an 82-year-old woman dead in her wheelchair, unclothed, surrounded by feces, trash and a horde of gnats and fruit flies.
By Monday evening, police had booked Bessie Looney’s daughter and granddaughter on cruelty to the infirm.
Detectives says Looney’s daughter, 53-year-old Joleslie Looney and her 17-year-old granddaughter, were Bessie Looney’s main caregivers and both of whom were in the house at the time police arrived.
Cpl. Don Coppola Jr. estimate Bessie Looney died sometime between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Monday. The cause of death was not immediately known.

LSU reaches financial terms with hospital manager
BATON ROUGE (AP) — LSU has settled the major financial disagreements it had with the manager of the university-owned Shreveport and Monroe hospitals.
University system health care adviser Jerry Phillips said LSU and the Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana, known as BRF, have completed documents that govern the sharing of security, utilities and computer services.
“All the documents with money in them have been signed,” Phillips said. “There’s some minor points remaining, but the key elements have been met.”
BRF runs the north Louisiana hospitals as the University Health System. Rodney Huebbers, CEO of the health system, said he hadn’t received official notice that LSU has signed the agreements, but he said he was pleased the outstanding issues have been settled.
“Signing of these agreements means that the people of north Louisiana will continue to have access to the highest quality medical care in their Shreveport and Monroe hospitals under the leadership of the Biomedical Research Foundation in collaboration with LSU,” Huebbers said in a statement Thursday.
The signing of nearly all outstanding paperwork involving the financial arrangements between LSU and hospital management appears to end talk that the university might consider filing a breach of contract lawsuit.
It also could calm some concerns about new upheaval at the hospitals, which were privatized by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration a year ago.
The clash over the contractual arrangements became public last month when LSU sent the research foundation a collection letter demanding payment for $25 million in outstanding debts.
Within weeks, BRF paid the invoices. But the documents spelling out ancillary financial agreements tied to the privatization deal remained a sticking point. Money is tied to those contractual arrangements as well, including $14 million LSU said it was owed from last year.
With the latest developments, Phillips said only a few small issues were left to be negotiated by attorneys for the two sides.
“It’s not anything of any consequence. It’s down to office space allotment and that type of thing. It’s minor discussions,” he said.
The research foundation took control of the two LSU-owned hospitals in October 2013, as part of Jindal’s push to privatize most of the university-run public hospital system.
Privatization deals, completed through no-bid contracts, have taken effect for nine university hospitals and their clinics. Most of the contracts had the management company of a nearby hospital taking over operations of the LSU facilities. Three contracts closed an LSU hospital and shifted its services to private facilities.
The biomedical research foundation had never previously run a patient care facility when it took control of the Shreveport and Monroe hospitals.