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Eleven Louisiana municipal governments—Maringouin, Covington, Ruston, Monroe, Jean Lafitte, St. Martinville, Gonzales, Shreveport, Clinton, Franklin and Gretna—took home the Louisiana Municipal Association’s most prestigious award for outstanding municipal improvements and accomplishments.
Franklin took home the community development win for population 3,001-10,000 cities for the installation of “21st century water meters” throughout the municipality.
The announcement of LMA’s 2016 Community Achievement Awards was made July 29, at the annual banquet of LMA’s 80th annual convention at the Shreveport Convention Center. The convention drew some 1,700 delegates, spouses, dignitaries, exhibitors, and guests.
The LMA’s annual awards program recognizes municipalities for outstanding achievement in basic services, community development, and economic development. Within these categories, awards are presented in four population subcategories.
Entries submitted were judged by a committee of judges from Louisiana Economic Development, Louisiana Industrial Development Executives Association, Capital Region Planning Commission, the Louisiana Main Street, and the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshall.
Dr. Brookie Allphin, communications and governmental consultant, said the awards pay tribute to the “vision and ingenuity of elected municipal officials and those who assist them in planning and improving citizen services, community life, and economic conditions.”
“These awards truly reflect the hard work, dedication, and sacrifice necessary to secure progress for the modern American municipality on a path of progress,” Allphin said.
“We have our fair share of problems in Louisiana. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that,” said LMA Immediate Past President and mayor of Gonzales, Barney Arceneaux. LMA is a unified voice for Louisiana’s municipal governments. Our mission is to advocate, educate, and empower local governments to efficiently and effectively serve the citizens of Louisiana."
There are 305 LMA members consisting of 127 villages, 111 towns, 65 cities, and 2 parishes. www.lma.org

BATON ROUGE — The number reappears in Louisiana’s transportation debate over and over: 11 percent.

Tax hike critics, Republican officials and conservative organizations say that’s the percentage of Louisiana’s state gasoline tax money spent on actual road and bridge work. The figure was one of many arguments used to defeat a proposed gas tax increase this year.

Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration says that number is a myth, nowhere close to the financial reality of the spending in the Department of Transportation and Development.

“The 11 percent deceives people, and it creates this perception that there’s waste and abuse,” said DOTD Secretary Shawn Wilson.

The number — real or not — is indicative of a driving public opinion that state government squanders too many tax dollars and can’t be trusted with more.

Rep. Steve Carter, the Baton Rouge Republican who unsuccessfully pushed a 17-cent gasoline tax hike earlier this year, said that perception was a central problem in winning support for the legislation aimed at chipping away at a $13 billion transportation backlog.

“Let me tell you the toughest thing we had on this bill: The people don’t have any confidence in people like me,” Carter said in a recent speech.

Motorists in Louisiana pay 38.4 cents in taxes per gallon of gasoline, including 20 cents in state taxes. The state rate hasn’t changed in nearly 30 years. In May, Carter abandoned the proposal to raise $500 million a year when it became clear he didn’t have enough backing.

Among criticisms of the tax hike, opponents said Louisiana shouldn’t get more money for road and bridge work until it better spends the dollars it already receives. That has been a focus of the transportation debate for several years.

Republican David Vitter cited the 11 percent figure regularly during his unsuccessful campaign for governor in 2015. U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, a Baton Rouge Republican, repeated the 11 percent figure last week as he described an “inefficient system” bogged down by decades of mismanagement.

“As data prepared by contractors indicated, and was talked about extensively during the last governor’s race, an estimated 89 percent of the funds that are derived from state gas taxes go to expenses inside the building at the Department of Transportation, not outside on turning dirt,” Graves told the Press Club of Baton Rouge.

Wilson said that figure distorts his agency’s budget and misunderstands how transportation financing works. He said that less than 4 percent of the department’s total $2 billion budget pays for administrative costs.

Those citing the 11 percent figure are using only the state gas tax dollars, which doesn’t account for the full financing in the transportation department. It leaves out the $816 million in federal money and the $323 million from state bond sales. Also, they seem to be including most, if not all, salaries as administrative costs.

Wilson said that assumes every person who works in his department is a bureaucrat at a desk, rather than an employee working on road and bridge projects.

Of the 4,200 employees in the agency, Wilson said more than 3,400 of them are doing operations, safety and maintenance work: filling potholes, mowing grass, hanging road signs, repairing guardrails and striping roadways. He said that’s road and bridge work, just as much as new construction — not an administrative cost.

“That’s not pushing paper. That’s actually making the roads safe, keeping a road open, picking up debris after a flood. That is a direct service,” Wilson said.

Graves seemed unlikely to be swayed by such arguments, saying in his speech: “I’ve heard folks refute those estimates, and I’ll say again, those estimates were put together by contractors. I’ve seen some of the backup data, and I think that information is sound.”

One decision fueling perceptions of misspending was the repeated diversion of millions of dollars earmarked for road and bridge work to instead pay for state police traffic control operations. The practice grew larger during former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration.

Edwards and the current Legislature have stopped the diversions, but it could take years to alter the mistrust.

“I can’t change as secretary the practices over the last 30 years,” Wilson said. “But we’re being judged for the practices over the last 30 years.”

Melinda Deslatte has covered Louisiana politics for The Associated Press since 2000. Follow her at http://twitter.com/melindadeslatte

If you want someone to stop asking you for money, the worst thing you can do is say no and then give in after persistent pleading.
Such “intermittent reinforcement” — granting a reward after an unpredictable number of requests — makes it more likely the person will ask for another handout than if you just said yes at the start, says Brad Klontz, a certified financial planner and psychologist in Lihue, Hawaii, who researches financial psychology. It’s the same dynamic that lures people to slot machines and lotteries.
Klontz doesn’t actually advise giving in. But he says understanding the psychology on both sides of what he calls “financial enabling” can help people change their behavior.
Financial enabling means giving money in ways that keep the recipients from taking responsibility and solving their own problems. It may include providing financial support to an able-bodied person who refuses to work, bailing a chronic debtor out of another financial jam or serving as a de facto emergency fund for someone who refuses to save.
The best way to stop enabling is to first recognize when you’re doing it and then create a plan for saying no.
THEY’RE YOUR KIDS — AND ADULTS
Financial enabling can occur between friends and romantic partners but seems most common between parents and their adult children, financial planners say. It can be especially problematic for retirees who may run short of money because of their generosity.
“The biggest risk facing retirees these days is being a financial rescuer to their adult children,” said Tom Balcom, a certified financial planner in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida.
Several of Balcom’s clients took sizable withdrawals from their portfolios in the past year to support adult children. Balcom explained to his clients that if they kept up their financial aid, their retirement could be impoverished.
“We had to be very clear that at this rate, you’ll be running out of money in X years,” Balcom said. The clients seemed to take the warnings seriously, and Balcom said he’s reasonably confident they won’t endanger their financial futures.
Enablers often don’t see that their generosity fuels dependency and takes away motivation for the recipients to support themselves, says psychologist Megan Ford in Athens, Georgia, who is president of the Financial Therapy Association. Instead, enablers get caught up in the details of the latest crisis, often believing this handout will be the last one the recipient needs to get on his or her feet.
The person being enabled may share that conviction, despite all evidence to the contrary.
BEFORE YOU SAY YES
Telling enablers to just say no doesn’t work, since few are willing to stop the behavior cold turkey, therapists and planners say. Instead, enablers should ask themselves the following questions:
—Will this money actually help? It’s one thing to aid someone who’s been financially responsible but has fallen on hard times. It’s another to give money to people who chronically overspend or under-earn. The latter won’t have any motivation to change their behavior if others constantly ride to their financial rescue.
“If this is a pattern that they’re running out of money every six months, that speaks to a larger issue that won’t be addressed by continuing to throw money at them,” Ford said.
—Is there a better way to help? Enablers may be concerned about losing the relationship with the enabled, but there usually are other ways to be supportive, Ford said. Instead of handing over cash, the rescuer could offer to pay essential expenses such as rent or medical bills if they can afford to do so. Any financial help should come with a firm deadline of when the assistance will end, such as six months, Klontz said.
Offering to find or pay for financial planning, therapy or coaching is another way to help without enabling.
—How can you make this decision stick? Once they’re refused or cut off, the enabled may throw “adult temper tantrums” that can include guilt trips, vows to move across the country with the grandchildren, verbal abuse or even threats of physical violence, Klontz said. Enablers who worry about their safety should contact an attorney or law enforcement for help, Ford said. Others may look to a financial planner or therapist for support.
“You can appeal to the higher authority,” Klontz said. “You can say, ‘Sorry, I want to help, but my financial planner said it just isn’t possible.’”
—This column was provided to The Associated Press by the personal finance website NerdWallet. Liz Weston is a columnist at NerdWallet, a certified financial planner and author of “Your Credit Score.”