Apparently in Louisiana government transparency gets short shrift from time to time – even when it comes to decisions that concernshundreds of millions of dollars. 

Louisiana’s Tobacco Settlement Financing Corporation Board voted this week to sell what remains of the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement payments due to Louisiana in order to get the cash up front for expenses and programs that are currently in need.  The downside is that the state stands to lose money in the future, but the upside is the state gets a hefty infusion of cash that it wouldn’t see all at once.  Totally their call – that’s fine. 

What’s not so fine is the manner in which the Board voted to authorize this sale. 

From Jan Moller’s Times Picayune article: She [Assistant Commissioner of Administration Barbara Goodson] also defended the secretive way that the refinancing decision was made. The meeting was held at the Division of Administration offices across the street from the Capitol, and the agenda was not posted on the public bulletin boards where notice is typically given.

Monday's meeting originally called for telephone conference calls with bond rating agencies, but it was changed during the meeting to reflect the broader agenda.

She said the meeting was moved away from the state Capitol, where previous meetings have been held, because she didn't want the proceedings broadcast over the Internet. She said underwriting firms had complained when some of their testimony during an earlier meeting was broadcast over the Web, and didn't want the same problems arising when the bond-rating firms testified.

“I didn't anticipate that that was going to be a problem,” Goodson said. “It was my recommendation to have it over here so it wouldn't be broadcast.”

Another take from Ed Anderson’s article in the Times Picayune:

Letting the public know

State law allows a public body to amend its already-issued agenda if two-thirds of the members agree to the changes. It also requires that agendas be posted 24 hours before any public meeting.

“It is clear to me the governor wants this done in a hurry,” said Kennedy, a frequent critic of the administration. “The press didn't know about this. The public didn't know about this. It doesn't look to me that these people cared if the public or the press knew about this. . . . I don't know what posting (of meeting notices) they did.”

The board normally meets in legislative committee rooms, and public notice is given on bulletin boards outside the meeting rooms in the State Capitol and on the legislative Web site. House spokeswoman Sheila McCant said notices of nonlegislative committees held outside of the Capitol are not posted on the House and Senate Web sites and the division of administration, the arm of the governor's office Goodson works for, was told that.

Goodson said the agenda was posted on the door of the Claiborne Building about two blocks from the Capitol, the site of the meeting.

The Kennedy in the article is Louisiana’s popularly elected State Treasurer John Kennedy – he has a vote, a voice, and the public trust to speak up on these matters.

Finally, I would imagine that the state’s Attorney General, Charlie Foti, would expect that a meeting where he or his staff participated would be held in compliance with open government laws.  See, Attorney GeneralFoti has a vote on the board, and unlike State Treasurer Kennedy, his representative didn’t try to stop the authorization in a meeting that in the Treasurer’s opinion was “done in a hurry” without the press or publics knowledge. 

This may be much ado about nothing, but then again – in this era that demands transparency – this might be the tip of something very big.