The Louisiana Commission on Streamlining Government’s Advisory Group on Efficiency and Benchmarking, of which I am the chairman, adopted 10 additional recommendations at it’s October 19, 2009 meeting:

Shorten the state’s preferred pharmaceutical drug list.Louisiana’s preferred pharmaceutical drug list for Medicaid, which lists the drugs that the state will most quickly pay for through the Medicaid Program, should be reduced to two prescription drugs for each illness, based on effectiveness and price. This will eliminate hundreds of less effective and more expensive drugs from the list, and will save Louisiana taxpayers as much as $100 million.Fully and properly implement the LaHIPP and the Baby Bill.The Louisiana Health Insurance Premium Payment Program (LaHIPP) and the “Baby Bill” (LRS 22:1065) allow the state to elect to purchase private health insurance for a child or adult if it is cheaper than covering the child or adult through Medicaid. So far, this program has been underused. Requiring full implementation of these programs could save Louisiana taxpayers as much as $100 million.Maximize the use of prison labor.To save money on private contracts, all Louisiana departments and agencies should contract with the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections for prison labor to perform cleaning and janitorial services.Stop the inefficient circular flows of tax payments and tax credits.Louisiana law provides for numerous tax credit programs through which a taxpayer pays a tax to one level of government and then seeks reimbursement of the tax from another level of government through a tax credit. For example, small businesses pay property taxes to local government on inventory and can then take a tax credit on their state income taxes for the amount paid to local government. Homeowners pay a special assessment on their homeowners’ insurance bills to pay for losses by Citizens Property Insurance Corporation and can then take a credit on their state income taxes for the amount paid to bail out Citizens. We should eliminate these circular flows of payments and credits by taking the taxpayer out of the loop and requiring the state to make a direct payment to the local government or entity levying the tax or surcharge for which tax credits are taken.Make workers’ compensation pretrial mediation voluntary. By law, pretrial mediation is mandatory for every disputed claim for workers’ compensation benefits filed with the Louisiana Workforce Commission, yet only 30% of disputes are successfully resolved through mediation. Making pretrial mediation voluntary will reduce the staff workload and save $450,000 annually in attorney fees.Allow state tax delinquency appeals and inquiries to be filed electronically.Each year the Louisiana Department of Revenue (DOR) sends thousands of delinquent tax notices to taxpayers. Taxpayer protests must be filed in writing and questions are fielded by any number of staff by telephone. The DOR should be directed to develop an online system for taxpayers to ask questions and file protests.Maximize use of the Department of Revenue’s document and remittance processing system.The Revenue Processing Center of the Louisiana Department of Revenue (LDR) has a state-of-the art document and remittance processing system for processing tax returns. The system is currently idle 58% of the time. Other agencies should be directed to sell their processing equipment and contract with the LDR to perform similar document and remittance processing.Combine Louisiana business tax field audit programs to eliminate dual audits.Businesses in Louisiana are audited by two state agencies: the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) for unemployment insurance taxes and the Louisiana Department of Revenue (LDR) for a range of business taxes, including sales tax and withholding tax. The LWC’s unemployment insurance tax field audit program and no more than 75% of that program’s budget appropriations should be transferred to the LDR where auditing will be centralized.Combine Louisiana oil and gas exploration company field audit programs to eliminate dual audits.Oil and gas exploration companies in Louisiana are audited by two state agencies: the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for royalties on state leases and the Louisiana Department of Revenue (LDR) for severance taxes. The DNR’s royalty field audit program and no more than 75% of that program’s budget appropriations should be transferred to the LDR where auditing will be centralized.Combine trucking registration and fuel tax field audit programs to eliminate dual audits.Trucking companies in Louisiana are audited by two state agencies: the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPSC) for mileage driven in the state and the Louisiana Department of Revenue (LDR) for fuel taxes. The DPSC’s registration field audit program and no more than 75% of that program’s budget appropriations should be transferred to the LDR where auditing will be centralized.All of the recommendations passed by the advisory group will be forwarded to the full Streamlining Commission for consideration. To read the full text of these recommendations, visit the Louisiana Department of Treasury website atwww.LATreasury.com. You may also submit your cost-saving suggestions to the commission athttp://senate.legis.state.la.us/streamline.I will continue to keep you updated on our progress.John Neely KennedyLouisiana State Treasurer

Tags: Kennedy, streamlining state government

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 4:34 pm and is filed under John Kennedy, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.