State schools want to operate as private entities

A bill that would increase the ability of the Louisiana Community & Technical College System to wheel and deal in the private sector, scheduled for debate Monday, was returned to the calendar instead.
House Bill 720, by state Rep. Bryan Adams, R-Gretna, would authorize the LCTCS Board of Supervisors to enter into contracts with private nonprofit corporations for food and vending services, bookstores, janitorial and grounds-keeping services, IT and telecommunications operations, student housing and parking, financial aid, building and maintaining facilities, and anything else deemed “more efficiently provided” without the usual encumbrances associated with public entities.
“We are attempting to aggregate demand across 13 colleges to bring about savings through combined purchasing, food service contracts, bookstore contracts, and other opportunities,” said Tommy Williams, LCTCS’s executive director of governmental relations.
“Bottom line, we need the proposed vehicle in order to train and educate even more of Louisiana’s citizens,” Williams said.
In 2007, the Legislature authorized the use of state revenue bonds to raise some $198 million for construction and renovation of campuses, including $9.2 million for a new Evangeline Campus in St. Martin Parish. Subsequent authorizations have pushed the total dedicated to building, expanding and modernizing LCTCS campuses to around half a billion dollars – most or all of which can be spent without going through the process of public bidding.
In 2008, legislation by state Rep. Walt Leger III, D-New Orleans, provided that the nonprofits through which the state could design, build, equip, and then lease facilities “shall be a private entity that shall not be deemed to be a public or quasi public corporation or an administrative unit, public servant, employee, or agent of any institution of higher education for any purpose whatsoever...”
LCTCS Facilities Corporation is the private nonprofit that is building the $9 million campus in a cane field north of St. Martinville along with numerous other new construction and renovation within the system’s statewide archipelago.
The directors of LCTCS Facilities – four men with unrestricted terms of office: Stephen C. Smith of Schriever, Lambert C. Boissiere Jr. of New Orleans, Billy Montgomery of Bossier City, and U. Gene Thibodeaux of Lake Charles – awarded the Evangeline contract to Lincoln Builders of Ruston and Baton Rouge, one of four contractors who were invited to bid on the project after responding to a request for qualifications (“RFQ”).
The project was not open for public bidding as required by public bid law.
“It would be impossible for the LCTCS Facilities to follow the state bid law exactly, because it is not a part of the state,” said Jan Jackson, special assistant to LCTCS president Monty Sullivan.
However, “once eligible bidders present bids, the lowest bid is always recommended,” she said.
“As mentioned by the Facilities Corporation Board counsel, the Corporation is not required to follow state law,” Jackson said.
Jackson was referencing the response by board attorney Steven B. Loeb to complaints that LCTCS Facilities Corporation did not follow its own rules in selecting a site for the new Evangeline Campus.
Since it is a private nonprofit, “the Corporation has the right to select whatever property it deems appropriate without compliance to any law applicable to public entities,” Loeb wote.
No word on when or if HB 720 will be called from the calendar.