Found money frustrates officials
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An unspent — and until recently forgotten — $22.6 million from a 1985 New Orleans bridge project drew strong reaction from state officials Thursday.
House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, denounced the oversight as sloppy. “That’s ridiculous … That is unbelievable,” Tucker shouted during a meeting of the State Bond Commission.
The $22.6 million is in addition to $140 million that the state Department of Transportation and Development did not realize it had accumulated to fund a special statewide transportation upgrade program.
The $140 million oversight led DOTD to suggest that work might stop on a Mississippi River bridge at St. Francisville because the program fueled by a special gasoline tax would run out of money.
At the time, DOTD Secretary William Ankner blamed the oversight on a record keeping problem. Part of the solution, he said, is a more electronic-based data system.
Secretary of State Jay Dardenne pressed the Jindal administration Thursday for an explanation of the anomalies. He said audits and financial reviews should uncover caches of unspent money.
Commissioner of Administration Angèle Davis said the state is struggling with an outdated computer system. She said DOTD’s system is on the brink of crashing.
State Treasurer John Kennedy said that is a separate issue. “They just did not check,” he said of DOTD.
State Bond Commission Director Whit Kling discovered the unspent $22.6 million from the bridge project. He told the Jindal administration that the excess cash resulted from having appropriated money left over after interest rates drop.
Kling said it took him two weeks to track down the money in the state’s capital outlay escrow fund. The fund holds money for construction projects.
“Bottom line — you/the administration has $22,643,188.02 available to address their operational and/or capital outlay shortfall,” he wrote the administration in an e-mail earlier this year.
Tucker complained that his constituents paid tolls for years on a construction project when $22.6 million was sitting in a fund.
“This is dumbfounding,” he said.
Davis released a statement saying the Jindal administration wants to use at least part of the $22.6 million for a bulk rice handling facility in Lake Charles. Using the money, she said, would save the state the cost of borrowing for the project.
Michael DiResto, a spokesman for the Division of Administration, said the money sat in a fund for more than a decade.
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