http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050319/NEWS01/503190355/1002/NEWS
excerpts:
Louisiana buys $40,000 truck for insurance commissioner
March 19, 2005
The Associated Press
BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana has bought a $40,000 pickup -- a Ford F-250 that sports red flames on its sides, heated seats and a six-disc CD player -- for Insurance Commissioner Robert Wooley.
That follows the state's purchase of a 2004 Eddie Bauer designer edition Ford Expedition for about $40,000 for Wooley just more than a year ago.
Wooley sees nothing wrong with the state buying him two luxury vehicles within two years, said his spokeswoman, Amy Whittington.
Statewide elected officials are exempt from a law prohibiting most state workers from getting luxury vehicles at taxpayer expense.
In a letter to the Division of Administration, an arm of the governor's office, explaining the purchase of the F-250, Wooley touted the Harley-Davidson designer edition's handling and reliability. The letter did not explain the need for the CD player, privacy glass, a diesel engine, a seat warmer or the truck's Harley-Davidson motorcycle logo.
http://www.leesvilledailyleader.com/articles/2005/04/21/news/news3.txt
State slated to pay $975,000 to golf course next year
By MELINDA DESLATTE/Associated Press Writer
BATON ROUGE (AP) -- Lawmakers are weighing cuts to health care services for the poor and uninsured next year as the state prepares to pay nearly $1 million to a golf facility for rounds not played on the course.
An estimated $975,000 is budgeted next fiscal year to pay for 7,800 rounds of golf at the Tournament Players Club golf course in the New Orleans area as part of a 2001 agreement with former Gov. Mike Foster's administration.
The agreement guaranteed the golf course -- the TPC of Louisiana at Fairfield -- 10,000 rounds of play booked through hotels in its first year of operation. Those projected rounds of golf are falling short so the state has to pay for the gap, according to Christopher Keaton, a budget analyst with the House Fiscal Division.
''We're contractually obligated,'' he told the House Appropriations Committee, which opened its detailed hearings on the budget Tuesday.
The golf money is included in Gov. Kathleen Blanco's $18 billion spending proposal for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
The state has a five-year agreement, starting in the upcoming budget year, with the golf course that could leave the state on the hook for as much as $1.9 million in the final year if certain numbers of rounds of golf aren't booked through New Orleans hotels, Keaton said.
Each round of golf costs $125, according to the budget figures.
''We seem to have our priorities crossed,'' said Rep. John Smith, D-Leesville.
The cooperative endeavor agreement with the Foster administration was designed to build a course that would attract a professional golf tournament each year, according to Keaton. The course, which opened in spring 2004, will host the Zurich Classic of New Orleans beginning in 2005, part of the PGA golf tour.
Mark Drennen, a former Foster administration official whose office signed the agreement with the golf course, said it was designed to keep the professional golf tournament in Louisiana after another course expressed readiness to drop the event.
Drennen said he didn't participate in the negotiations of the deal, but he said the tournament brings days of positive publicity to Louisiana and is important to the hospitality and tourism industries by bringing tourists to the state for a multi-day tournament.
''They wanted what seemed like a very minimum of rounds guaranteed,'' he said.
Drennen said the intent was that people staying at hotels in the region who played at the TPC course would be counted toward the state's guarantee even if they didn't necessarily book through the hotels.
Maris LeBlanc, with Blanco's Division of Administration, said the local tourism agencies in New Orleans are working to get more rounds of golf at the TPC course booked through hotels so the state's cost wouldn't be as large.
Lawmakers on the appropriations committee were told of the golf course payment on the same morning Commissioner of Administration Jerry Luke LeBlanc, Blanco's chief budget architect, told the committee members that the budget still lacks money to pay for some services, particularly in health care.
''We are going to have some tough decisions to make,'' LeBlanc said.
LeBlanc estimated the budget was short about $200 million in state dollars, a number that only grows when federal matching dollars that would be generated by the cash are included. Much of the shortfall is in health care services for the poor and uninsured.