Yes, but . . .

2theadvocate.com:President aims for 100-year shield

But where's our $2.6 billion going to come from?



New Orleans CityBusiness:

Blanco to Powell: Levee deal lacks big detail

Maybe they take Visa.

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Rumors.

Citizens for Legitimate Government

Not a good headline.

From the Times Picayune

All Road Home money has been committed

More catching up.

I had heard rumors about this story shortly after Katrina, but I don't think anyone around here had any idea how much aid was turned away by Bush and the Feds.

Blanco and Landrieu issued statements -- which will go unheard by FEMA, and ignored by those who continue to blame Blanco for everything that went wrong after Katrina.

Apparently the Homeland Security Committee of the Senate is going to investigate, but the chair is Joe Liebermann, so I don't expect it to accomplish much.

UPDATE: Landrieu goes after Rice on this issue. Good on her! P.S. The article also says that Landrieu's subcommittee is going to call ICF to account on May 24. Their top executives have just gotten massive bonuses for doing a terrible job getting money to people whose houses have been destroyed.

Blanco speaks bluntly. And good on her!

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) went off. Not in a girls fighting, "Hold my earrings!" kind of way. But in a blunt manner befitting a chief executive who endured the worst natural and engineering disaster in U.S. history, who continues to battle Washington for federal assistance, and who is not running for reelection.

We met in Blanco's imposing office on the fourth floor of the state Capitol in Baton Rouge on Wednesday. After watching her testify pleasantly before state legislative committees on behalf of her insurance reform package and for an expansion of Louisiana's Child Health Plus program, I was floored by her "bring it on" forthrightness as she talked about her dealings with Washington after Hurricane Katrina.
. . . . . . . .
Blanco had a message for the hundreds of members of Congress who have come through Louisiana since Katrina. "They have seen with their own eyes," she said. "They need to look in their own hearts to decide what they would want to happen in their own states if something of this magnitude did as much damage. Where would their people be?"

My theory about ICFU

Here it is, take it for what it's worth.

The day after the announcement the stock of the company (ICFI) that was running the Road Home Program, and failing, jumped 15 %-- to an all time high. Stockholders were figuring either one of two things: 1. That Blanco was holding their feet to the fire and cutting into their profits. or 2. That now that they had done the dirty work for the Bushies they would be rewarded with nice fat federal contracts. Maybe a little of both. But I hold with the second. The stalling by ICFI was calculated from the beginning. ICFI, headed by Washington insiders from FEMA and Homeland Security abetted by the feds, to sabotage the program long enough for Jindal to defeat Blanco. The most recent example of fed interference was the HUD roadblock which sabotaged that Louisiana's plan to have the reconstruction money put into escrow accounts instead of awarding a lump sum. HUD found an obscure regulation to monkeywrench a policy that had been in place and announced for more than a year. They said they just found out about it. Yeah, right. An article in the Picayune this morning said that the HUD move was the last straw for Kathleen. She knew then that the feds would never open the spigot on the money till she was out of office. And now that Blanco is out, ICFI stands to get a windfall in federal contracts from this administration.


When The Advertiser interviewed Blanco, and she said that she should have changed her party to Republican immediately after Katrina. Then the recovery would have been no sweat. She's right.

HUD gave the coup de grace to Blanco.

The Governor had been in serious trouble for months, mostly because of the slow response of the Road Home program. Money was snagged for months by ICFI (run by former FEMA and Homeland Security officials) At the point when it seemed that money might be starting to flow for the recovery, HUD refused to approve the safeguards the state had built into the program to assure that the money would be spent on recovery, and not on anything else (Remember those $2000 credit cards the feds gave out after Katrina--- used for strippers and beer in some cases. The state required escrow accounts for the Road Home money to prevent those abuses.)

But the final straw came Friday, when federal Housing and Urban Development officials criticized the way the state was distributing aid through installments from escrow accounts and urged the state to begin making lump-sum payments to homeowners who have applied for assistance from the Road Home program.

HUD claimed that it had not known about the requirements until now. Yeah, right, then how come I and everyone else in Louisiana has known about them for more than a year? Was there politics involved in the timing of this? Ya think? Maybe someone at HUD thought this might somehow benefit the Administration? Ya think? Does this maybe validate Blanco's charge that the Bush administration has been playing politics with the recovery effort? Ya think?

So maybe the BIG jump in ICFI's stock market price came as stockholders realized that ICFI was in for some big rewards for defeating Blanco in the form of fat new contracts from the Feds. Ya think?

Just another day on Wall Street?

The day after Kathleen Blanco's announcement that she wouldn't run for a second term, ICFI's stock jumped more than 15%. It's biggest jump ever. An all-time high. What exactly does that mean?

To me it seems that the ICFI insiders and stockholders figure that they will get a better deal under a new governor (are they betting on Jindal?) -- even though I don't think that Blanco has been particularly tough on them considering their dismal performance so far. Anyway, I don't believe that what's good for ICFI stockholders is good for Louisiana. New Orleans, beware.

Lots of activity today in the paper.

First, though, I got an email from C. B. Forgotston in the mail this morning, and I hope he'll put it on his site. He asks the right questions about the ICFI / Road Home fiasco. Here are a few:

-- Who selected ICF to manage LA's program?
--What leverage does LA have over ICF?
-- What company was hired to manage Mississippi's similar program?
-- How long will ICF be given to get it right?

All of these are questions that the news media and the legislators in this state should be asking. The governor may be frustrated with the pace of the program, but the only way to make progress is to haul the people responsible out into the public eye and make answer for their inaction. It's no good just to say that you're impatient with the progress ICFI is making.

You can find Forgotston here. I don't always agree with his point of view, but there's no question he has the state's best interests at heart.

What set off Forgotston's email this morning was this article in the Picayune. Here's the central thesis of the piece.

The record shows ICF making critical misjudgments almost every step of the way, typically by failing to bring sufficient staff resources to bear as applicants move through the process. A shortage of operators at a phone call-in center is addressed, only to be followed by a shortage of interviewers as applicants sign up for face-to-face encounters with ICF advisers. And so on down the line.

As Forgotston notes, though the article is quite long, there's little new in it, and very little attempt to find those responsible for the multiple screw-ups of ICFI. But it's an article worth reading and re-reading for gems like this:

Other critics of ICF point out that in Mississippi, the company handling the first phase of its homeowner grant program has already closed on 80 percent of the 14,615 applications deemed eligible for compensation, with total awards expected to reach about $1 billion. Mississippi officials attribute much of that progress to the fact that their contractor overstaffed at the beginning and quickly began laying off employees when the work was done. The state also loosened its verification requirements.

And this:

Tulane University professor Melanie Ehrlich, founder and co-chairman of the Citizens' Road Home Action Team, said members of the Louisiana Recovery Authority were so worried about designing a fraud-proof program that it is now loaded down with "excessive" verification requirements, such as multiple identification checks and title searches for homeowners who have already furnished up-to-date mortgage and title records.

And this:

Jones said the pilot project exemplifies ICF's approach, which he likens to a "python swallowing a pig." Instead of working out all the major kinks in advance, he said, ICF hasn't dealt with many issues until they became a crisis. Usually, he said, that happened when a large number of applications hit a critical point in the pipeline, such as scheduling appointments with advisers or calculating awards.

And more, including the fact that the Road Home Program is now requiring ICFI employees to identify themselves as such, not as members of the Road Home Program. The state program no longer wants to be identified with ICFI.

ICFI in deeper doo-doo

Finally, someone in the media pays attention to ICF-- who runs it and how.

"They have always failed to understand the magnitude of this undertaking or commit the amount of resources they need to get the job done," said Sam Jones, deputy director of the Governor's Office of Community Programs.
. . . . . .
So far, however, the contract has been very good for ICF. After the company went public, it distributed $2.7 million in one-time bonuses to 30 of its top managers. Byrne said he was not one of the recipients, but he declined to reveal his salary or say what any other executives in charge of the Road Home contract are making.

"It is private information and we won't disclose that," ICF spokeswoman Gentry Brann said. "It wouldn't be fair to the employees."
. . . . . .
"We are ahead of what we said in our contract we would meet," Brann said.

Jones said ICF officials are making a "false argument."

"To meet their contractual obligations, there are benchmarks you have to meet and they were not meeting them," Jones said. "That's it. Our bells first went off when they weren't meeting even the earliest projections. We don't need to find out six months from now that they are going to fail to meet the contract expectations. We can't wait until then."

Uh huh.

ICFI tweaks the process.

I guess they didn't see the need to speed things up any earlier. I guess 92 out of 80,000 (or 0.115%) applications was good enough.

ICF International, which is running the $7.5 billion program, is under pressure to speed up help for homeowners.

President Bush’s point-man on the hurricane recovery weighed in Wednesday in a letter that takes ICF to task for getting financial assistance to only 1 percent (sic) of applicants.

Since the program began this summer, 92 homeowners have received funding. More than 80,000 homeowners have applied for assistance.

“I have serious concerns about the effectiveness and expediency of the program,” Don Powell wrote ICF.

ICF spokesman Dwight Cunningham said late Wednesday that the company is preparing a response.

“We have received the letter from Chairman Powell and we are responding,” he said.

A New Orleans lawmaker recently pitched a tent on the State Capitol lawn and vowed to stay there until the program improved.

Rep. Charmaine Marchand, D-New Orleans, took down her tent Wednesday, a day after meeting with Blanco and other top officials for three hours at the Governor’s Mansion.

Marchand, whose legislative district includes the heavily hit Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans, complained of homeowners receiving offers of $87 from ICF for their property.

The maximum allowable under the program is $150,000.

New Orleans Sen. Ann Duplessis, who has been part of Blanco’s team looking at improving the Road Home program, said in a prepared statement, “The changes make sense when you consider how diverse the New Orleans housing market is. We have an entire team of local professionals dedicated to the real estate and housing industry, and they will now play a vital role in making the Road Home program work better for our people.”

Yeah, the article is wrong. It is not one percent but 0.115% -- or if you want to round that off, 0% of applicants who have received any money from Road Home.

Update: Much more detail on the changes here.

Lege questions ICF competence to handle Road Home

2theadvocate.com | AP News

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Lawmakers are looking for legal ways to oust the contractor hired by Gov. Kathleen Blanco's administration to hand out recovery grants in Louisiana's "Road Home" program.

On Friday, both the House and Senate sent the governor's office similar, unanimous resolutions, directing her staff to fire ICF International Inc. - though lawmakers acknowledged they don't have the authority to order that. However, they said the resolution shows how dissatisfied they are with ICF's slow doling out of grants.

I have some posts archived somewhere that questioned whether they could do the job. I'll see if I can post links later.

Update: This article discusses their contract, and a comment cites former DHS official Michael Byrne as a key figure in gaining the contract.

This article from June 25 indicates a few facts about ICF and has some interesting links to articles about their less than spectacular performance in other projects. A comment by someone claiming to be a former employee predicts that the company will not be able to handle the contract. His/her comment: "So look for this contract to flail and fail."

This article is about the aftermath of Hurricane Charlie, which ICF was contracted to handle.

Monroe Chamber "deeply regrets" insult to Blanco.

"It's something we deeply regret," chamber president Sue Edmunds said Wednesday. "Our organization has worked very well with the governor. We have been pleased with her efforts on behalf of this community."

Dinner with Blanco was the last item up for bid at the fundraising auction last week. Edmunds said the bidding opened at $1,000 and dropped to $500 before the auctioneer accepted a $1 bid from bank executive Malcolm Maddox, a regional chairman for Capital One.

Others were trying to bid on the dinner when the bidding abruptly closed, according to Edmunds.

This indicates just how eager some right-wingers are to install one of their own in the Governor's Mansion.

BTW it's big national news, and another embarrassment for Louisiana.

Republicans kill raise plan for teachers

Tom Tate, lobbyist for the Louisiana Association of Educators, blamed House Republicans for taking a political shot at Blanco that cost public schoolteachers a $2,100 pay raise.

“I believe that, to a person, they were after Gov. Blanco,” Tate said.

“After the session, when Republican lawmakers go back to their hometowns, I think they are going to have some answering to do,” he said.

Blanco said her proposed raise could have moved the pay of public schoolteachers to the regional average, which has been a goal for years.