Kennedy, Moody bash DMV closure idea

The Eunice branch of the Department of Motor Vehicles and some other DMV offices around the state are under fire.
The Eunice News reported in November 2013 that sources speculated that the Eunice branch could face closure, as part of the Jindal administration’s budget rimming.
News over this past weekend confirmed that 18 branch offices, including Eunice, could be shutdown in an effort to save the state money.
Eunice Mayor Claud “Rusty” Moody doesn’t buy it.
“According to the people that I have been in contact with, there have been no plans to close the Eunice DMV,” said Moody. “I mean, our DMV is in the process of moving. The DMV branch better not close, they’re making us buy this building.”
Louisiana State Treasurer John Kennedy said on Wednesday that he joins Mayor Moody in his disbelief over the proposal.
“It’s a stupid idea and we shouldn’t do it,” said Kennedy. “This idea belongs on one of David Letterman’s Top Ten stupid ideas list. One of the offices that taxpayers interface with the most is the Office of Motor Vehicles. To do anything to make that more burdensome, when we’ve got a $25 billion state budget, is ludicrous. If anything, we ought to be spending more money at the offices and opening new offices to make them more efficient. Because in many places, the wait is an hour-and-a-half. Which clearly indicates that we don’t have enough of the offices in the state.”
Moody said it would be “horrible” to close 18 DMV offices across the state. And he is confused at the projected savings in the possible closures.
“The City of Eunice doesn’t even charge the DMV rent or utilities, we pay for everything,” said Moody. “The Eunice branch serves a three-parish area, a large area. We pay the rent and the utilities for the state. When the DMV does move in here (to the renovated Guillory Development Cener building), they need a fiber optic line for their network. We have to pay for that.”
Moody’s financial skepticism raises more questions. If municipalities share the fiscal burden of branch offices, then how much money is Louisiana really going to save? Is it possible then that municipalities could then budget and operate DMV locations without the state’s backing ,thus making state employees into city employees? What if the state just funded the DMV branches as usual and somehow try to manage to fiscally “live” within their means allotted to them by taxpayers?
Kennedy said that the job of the consultants is costing taxpayers too much money as it currently stands. Kennedy has been championing proposed legislation to curb consultant contracts via HB 142 by Rep. Dee Richard.
“The Division of Administration–which is promoting this idea– spent $137 million dollars on five, out-of-state consultants to build a new website for the Department of Children & Family Services, that is a fact,” said Kennedy. “If the Division of Administration is really interested in saving money, those are the kind of contracts that they will cut.”
The real story is that Louisiana “leadership” has contracted with out-of-state “consultants”, Alvarez & Marsal, for $4.2 million dollars. Once Louisiana taxpayer dollars have been handed over to the “consultants”, the administration expects the consultants to save the state over $500 million.
According to Treasurer Kennedy, the consultant’s proposed idea has a stipulation that the idea must be deemed “feasible, workable and make sense.” Kennedy said that this one idea “doesn’t make sense.”
“Alvarez & Marsal is a good group. I am familiar with their work but I think that Alvarez & Marsal is being told a lot of what to do by the Division of Administration,” said Kennedy. “This DMV closure, this is going nowhere. The legislature is not going to vote for this because it’s a stupid idea.”
By cutting the 18 DMV offices in question, the consultants projected that the state will save nearly $54 million. On the average, the consultants believe that each DMV branch closure is each worth $3 million in savings to the state.
The official website of Alvarez & Marsal touts the company as “a leading independent global professional services firm, has set the standard for working with organizations to solve complex problems”.
Apparently how to cut the state budget is viewed as such a problem.