City Of Kenner Would Rather Litigate With Firefighters Than Fairly Compensate Them

History suggests that, when discussing lawsuits, the only people who get rich are Attorneys. Nowhere is this more evident than Attorney Alvin Bordelon and his representation of the City of Kenner in litigation involving the Kenner Fire Department. Bordelon has earned hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars representing the City in lawsuits brought by the Kenner Fire Department involving compensation, pension payments and other issues.

Now, it doesn’t matter whether Bordelon wins or loses – he still gets paid.

Good work, if you can get it, right?

The question is, why does the City continue to litigate and pay huge legal fees to battle the KFD in court? Why not just settle the lawsuits, fairly compensate the KFD firefighters, and work to rebuild morale in the beleaguered department?

One answer could be Bordelon’s political connections.

Bordelon was a contributor to former Kenner politicos Aaron Broussard and Louis Congemi. In recent years, Bordelon has stepped up the political contributions to include no less than 5 current and former Kenner City Council members, including both Councilmen-At-Large, Jeannie Black and Michele Branigan, along with District 2 Councilman Joe Stagni, District 4 Councilwoman Maria Defranchesch and former Kenner District 3 Councilman (and current JP Councilman) Ben Zahn. In addition, Bordelon has contributed to Kenner Police Chief Steve Caraway.

Of course, Bordelon’s largest contributions have been to Kenner Mayor Mike Yenni. Bordelon gave Yenni the maximum $2,500 contribution allowable by law.

In return, despite a less than stellar won/loss percentage, Bordelon is the City of Kenner’s go-to Attorney in litigating firefighter issues.

A few thousand in campaign contributions and you too could rack up the big bucks representing the City of Kenner, despite Mayor Yenni’s claims that enlarging the city’s inhouse Legal Department would result in the elimination of the need for outside attorneys like Bordelon and their huge fees.

Currently, the city is involved in several lawsuits brought by the Kenner Fire Department union seeking adjustments to their pension payout and calculation and a recent suit that was re-filed concerning the KFD Promotional Rate.

The Promotional Rate is the amount of money that a Firefighter receives for each promotion.

In Jefferson Parish, there are 5 steps below Fire Chief:

-          Operator

-          Lieutenant

-          Captain

-          District Chief

-          Assistant Chief

With each promotion, a Jefferson Parish Firefighter receives a 10-15% increase in pay. For example, an entry-level JPFD Firefighter earning $30,000 per year that is promoted to Operator receives a 10% promotional increase ($3,000) in addition to his annual raises. If he is promoted to Lieutenant in 8 years and was earning $45,000, he receives another 10% promotional increase ($4,500), again, in addition to his annual raises. 

This pattern continues through each successive promotion.

The Kenner Fire Department does not have the position of Lieutenant but does have the other four  pay grades. However, the promotional increases are nowhere near Jefferson Parish.

Using the same example as above, an entry-level KFD Firefighter earning $30,000 per year and promoted to Operator receives $241 per month or $2,892 per year as the promotional increase.

Pretty close, right?

But, as you move up through the ranks at KFD you still continue to receive the same $241 per month/$2,892 for each successive promotion regardless of your pay rate. Assistant Chiefs in JPFD might receive an $8,000 promotional increase while an Assistant Chief in Kenner would still receive $2,892.

In our example above, if the Operator was earning $45,000 and promoted to Captain in KFD (since there is no position of Lieutenant), the promotional increase would be $1,608 less than if the same Firefighter was in the JPFD. Multiply that $1,608 over the next 20 years and that Firefighter earns $32,000 less than the same position in JPFD. In addition, since the Firefighter’s pension is based upon his salary, the pension payout is also considerably less.

That $32,000 promotional rate gap doesn’t even include the differences in the annual raises Firefighters receive. Typically, Kenner provides Firefighters with only the state mandated 2% annual increase. If JP gives their Firefighters an average 3-5% annual increase, the pay gap grows.

Factoring in real world salary increases, JPFD Captains earn a base of $10,000 more annually ($18,000 more including overtime), than KFD Captains.

While correcting the promotional pay gap between the JPFD and KFD would cost the City of Kenner money, it would also help stem attrition, improve firefighter morale (already at an all-time low due to the mismanagement of Chief Hellmers), and save the city hundreds of thousands in legal fees.

Of course, Alvin Bordelon’s income might take a hit if the City of Kenner and the Yenni Administration would do the right thing, stop litigating and fighting against the KFD, pay them what they are due and support the KFD.

But then those political contributions from Bordelon to Kenner elected officials might stop. If you’re a Mayor seeking re-election that’s not good for the old campaign account, so expect the litigation to continue and Bordelon to get richer while KFD firefighters keep taking it on the chin.

So, you can pay the hardworking men and women of the KFD or you can pay an Attorney who is also a political contributor. Either way, it’s coming from Kenner taxpayers.

To me, it’s a no brainer. But, I’m not the Mayor.

We already know which option Mayor Yenni chooses.

33-Year KFD Firefighter Claims Chief Intentionally Misappropriated Funds And City Is Not Living Up To Previous Agreements

As a 33-year veteran of the Kenner Fire Department, whose career culminated as Assistant Chief, Randy Guilmino thought he’d seen almost everything. But, he never thought he’d see a Fire Chief intentionally misappropriate money for training that the Chief wasn’t qualified to receive and then try to cheat Guilmino himself out of seniority pay that he has received since it was authorized by then Mayor, and now convicted felon, Aaron Broussard.

In May 2012, ClickJefferson.com brought you the story of Kenner Fire Chief John “I’m just here to get a pension” Hellmers’ deception in granting himself almost $3,000 in Supplemental Educational Pay that Hellmers was not entitled to receive. 

A few weeks later, Travers Mackel of WDSU-TV filed a report on Chief Hellmers and the Supplemental Pay issue. Hellmers refused an on-camera interview with Mackel but said in a telephone interview that the allegations I described were false.

Also in June 2012, I wrote about a multitude of issues and questioned Hellmers’ leadership of the Kenner Fire Department.

This May, Hellmers lost his appeal and was told by Judge Ray Steib of the 24th JDC to repay the City theill-gotten Supplemental Education Pay that he gave himself. According to a source in the City of Kenner, this repayment still has not occurred.

In fact, a year and a half later, Hellmers still does not have the required certifications that many Kenner Firefighters have. 

Now newly-retired Assistant Chief Guilmino has stepped forward and confirmed what we reported last year along with more allegations of Hellmers’ mismanagement and abuse and personal information of how Hellmers, and the Yenni Administration, are withholding funds from Guilmino.

“I asked Chief Hellmers not once, but twice, if he had the certificates that he claimed to receive the EIP (Educational Incentive Pay),” Guilmino told ClickJefferson.com. “He said he did and that he wasn’t worried about it.”

All the while, Hellmers knew that he didn’t meet the requirements to receive the Supplemental Pay but approved it for himself anyway.

“Any other Civil Service Employee would have been terminated for less than what he (Hellmers) did,” Guilmino said.

“Cheating” Your Way To a 2 Rating

Guilmino also verified the allegations that Chief Hellmers ordered KFD firefighters to move equipment and “load up” fire trucks to deceive the State Fire Rating monitors so Kenner could receive a higher fire rating than Kenner deserved.

“One truck had 10 air packs for 3 firefighters,” Guilmino said. “He (Hellmers) purchased equipment specifically to ‘load up’ engines to cheat the PIAL (Property Insurance of Louisiana) rating.”

While some Kenner residents might applaud Hellmers for his efforts in keeping the City at a 2 rating, the deeper question is why didn't Chief Hellmers and the Yenni Administration adequately equip the KFD so this deception isn’t required?


1,500 Miles Per Month Driving Around Kenner?

 Last month, ClickJefferson.com looked at the fuel and maintenance costs for City of Kenner take-home vehicles. We discovered that the biggest spender after Mayor Yenni was Chief Hellmers. According to fuel records, we estimated that Hellmers drove approximately 1,500 miles per month.

We knew that Hellmers made a daily run to New Orleans at taxpayer expense to drop off his child at school however, that alone couldn't account for him driving twice the miles that Kenner Councilman Gregory Carroll drove - and we all know the issue Mayor Yenni made of Carroll's average of 864 miles per month.

Now, we know another possible reason why.

"Chief Hellmers would come in to work for a couple of hours a day," Guilmino said. "This has been going on for years."

33 Years = $28

In an email to Chief Hellmers, with Mayor Mike Yenni and CAO Mike Quigley copied, Guilmino also claims that Hellmers has withheld additional compensation that was due Guilmino when he retired.

The compensation, called “Seniority Incentive Pay”, calls for Kenner Firefighters to receive an annual payment of $4 for every month of service as an additional incentive to continue with the KFD. Originally, under then-Mayor Aaron Broussard, after litigation, a consulting firm proposed a $3 per month plan. That was increased in 1998 by then-Mayor Louis Congemi to the current $4 per month.

Guilmino explained the Seniority Pay.

“In 2012, I received $1,152. Since I retired in July of 2013, I should have received the pro-rated amount of $688.33 in Seniority Pay ($1,152 plus $28 - $4 times the 7 months of 2013 = $1,180 divided by 12 months = $82.60, then multiplied by the 7 months of 2013 = $688.33).”

“Chief Hellmers paid me $28.”

“I’m also owed the pro-rated amount of my EIP, which comes to an additional $350.00”

In an email reply to Guilmino, Hellmers agrees that Guilmino is due the $350.00 for the EIP but denies that Guilmino is owed more than the $28.

“In regards to Seniority Incentive Pay, it is a discretionary reward and was instituted to provide an incentive for firefighters to continue their service with the City,” Hellmers wrote. “It has never been litigated nor is it mandated by State law. It is City policy that firefighters leaving the City are compensated at the rate of $4 per month for the months in which they worked that year. However, they do not receive any compounded compensation, as credit for the previous year is not earned until January when the previous year has been completed. As such, the $28.00 you received was not erroneous.”

As Guilmino points out, according to Chief Hellmers, if a firefighter retires on December 31^st, they would receive $48.00 (12 months at $4.00 per month). However, if they retired on January 1^st, they would receive the compounded amount of their entire service which, obviously, makes no sense.

No one within the City of Kenner or the KFD could confirm the “City policy” that Hellmers described as the basis for his denial of Guilmino’s claim.

The bottom line is, after 33 years of faithful service to the City of Kenner and the Kenner Fire Department, Guilmino is seeking what he feels he is rightfully owed. In the grand scheme of things, with an $8 Million + KFD budget, clearly Chief Hellmers could have found $688.33 to make Guilmino whole instead of waging a verbal battle trying to justify a poor decision.

Perhaps Mayor Yenni should have taken the $688.33 owed to Guilmino from the $2,900 that Hellmers was ordered to repay the City for Hellmers’ interest free loan of taxpayer dollars.

That is, if Hellmers ever repays the City.

Ahead Of IG Report, Roberts and Lagasse Pledge Allegiance To Children’s; Zahn (No Surprise) Still Pushing Ochsner

Two days before new Inspector General David McClintock is set to release a report on Jefferson Parish’s public hospital lease issue and before a scheduled council vote to pick a “winner” on Thursday, both Jefferson Parish Councilmen-At-Large, Chris Roberts and Elton Lagasse, have sided with Children’s Hospital.

Roberts also announced that the Council vote would be postponed.

Monday, both hospital boards remained deadlocked with East Jefferson General Hospital officials favoring HCA while West Jefferson Medical Center board members favored Children’s Hospital. Originally, the Jefferson Parish Council had stated that it preferred to have one entity lease both public hospitals.

 The joint hospital board has 20 members. Children’s received 11 votes with one member absent and another abstaining.

In a written statement, Roberts and Lagasse discussed the rationale for their decision.

"LCMC (Louisiana Children’s Medical Center) is a local institution that understands the importance of making decisions based on what it right for the patient," they wrote. "They are a non-profit entity that does not answer to investors rather the community in which they serve."

What’s curious about Roberts and Lagasse is their decision to disagree with Sheriff Newell Normand, an ardent supporter of HCA, the only public, for profit entity seeking the hospitals.

Children’s absorbed the operations of the Louisiana Interim Public Hospital and Clinics in New Orleans in June from the State.

Before ascending to the At-Large positions, Roberts represented a West Bank District while Lagasse represented a split East Bank/West Bank District.

The Ben Zahn – Ochsner Connection

Continuing to push behind the scenes for an Ochsner victory, despite no support from either hospital board, is District 4 Councilman Ben Zahn. Zahn, whose district includes the Kenner Campus for Ochsner, has pushed for more time.

According to the Times-Picayune, “Zahn, citing ‘turmoil, confusion, conflicting information,’ said he wanted more time to ‘sort through what is and isn't fact’.”

Zahn’s ties to Ochsner or his reasoning for continuing the futile push, have not been explained.

Months before Zahn entered the race for Jefferson Parish Council, and while still a member of the Kenner Council, a billboard was erected near the heavily-trafficked intersection of Williams Blvd. and West Esplanade in Kenner. The billboard was for the Ochsner Kenner Hospital, approximately 2.5 miles west of the intersection.

What was curious about the billboard was the fact that it featured a smiling Ben Zahn along with his family promoting Ochsner. Despite complaints, and the fact that no one in the Zahn family had any prior modeling experience, the billboard stayed up throughout Zahn’s Jefferson Parish Council campaign, effectively providing him free advertising. Neither Ochsner or Zahn's campaign ever disclosed a value for this in-kind donation of free advertising.

In addition, the head of Ochsner’s Kenner Campus was a campaign supporter and contributor to Zahn.

Was this simply coincidence, quid pro quo for Zahn’s support of a Cooperative Endeavor Agreement that Zahn authored while on the Kenner City Council allowing another Ochsner Clinic to post a sign on a publicly-owned median, or part of a larger process to secure Zahn’s support for Ochsner in the hospital lease process?

As we now know and verified by Councilman Roberts and Sheriff Normand, the proposed lease of Jefferson Parish’s most valuable public assets has been a process that has been years in the making. Although just made public earlier this year when the Sheriff and the Council persuaded theJefferson Parish Legislative Delegation, led by State Rep. Joe Lopinto (R-Metairie) and State Senator Danny Martiny (R-Kenner), to change a decades old law that removed the right of the people of Jefferson to vote on the future of health care, this ruse upon the public has taken twists and turns.

While it pains me to no end to agree with Zahn that we all need to “sort through what is and isn’t fact”, unfortunately, when it comes to the Jefferson Parish Council, Zahn included, and Sheriff Normand, the people of Jefferson Parish continue to come out on the short end when it comes to elected officials telling the truth and actually representing the best interests of Jefferson Parish residents.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the proposed lease of our two public hospitals. 

New Louisiana Reality TV Show: “Enabling EWE”

Sunday night in Baton Rouge, the Edwin Edwards Reputation Restoration World Tour rolled into town and along with it came the almost octogenarian interviewer Larry King.

The fact that new father Edwards, 86, sat down with King, 79 (and a father himself in his late 60s), was not news. No, the news was that Louisianians actually paid money to hear Edwards flap his gums about topics as wide ranging as Bobby Jindal (Edwards doesn’t understand the Governor), Syria (The U.S. shouldn’t “pick sides”), Republicans (good to “sleep with”), and his political philosophy (“Serve the needy, not the greedy” – irony not included).

Edwards, the self-proclaimed “Last Great Populist” of Louisiana, has been on his Reputation Restoration World Tour since his release from jail after allegedly receiving millions in kickbacks from potential casino operators.

Sure it’s fun to listen to an old man rattle off one-liners but, like all things, sooner or later the allure wears off.

It’s about that time for EWE to exit stage left.

The clock is ticking Edwin, and it’s not just the biological clock.

Personally, I don’t really care that Edwards doesn’t understand Governor Jindal or that he’s so delusional that he can claim to not serve the greedy when he used public office to enrich himself and his cronies.

But can’t Louisiana champion someone better than Edwards? Someone who was convicted of a crime and abused our trust and then spent years having his friends beg for a pardon so he could be released early and not even have the dignity of serving out his full penance? 

Why do we continue to enable the crooks who steal from us and continue to provide them with a living after they’ve been convicted of swindling from us and abusing their power and our state’s integrity?

So, while we may chuckle when Edwards says “They sent me to prison for life and I came out with a good looking wife,” and  “I learned something good to use Republicans for, sleep with them,” we also need to take a hard look at ourselves.

Aren’t we to blame for enabling EWE?

In fact, the only thing that Edwards said last night that I found remotely truthful was his statement about his current lifestyle as a soon-to-be Reality-TV personality, new father, and public speaker: “I’m so busy and so involved in a lot of things, sometimes I feel like going back to prison to get some rest.”

Now that’s a sentiment that I, and a few FBI agents, could get behind.