Note: This letter was written by Rep. Richard and does not reflect the views of LSU Student Media or The Daily Reveille. 
My grade of an “F” on your so-called Higher Education Report Card is certainly not as much an embarrassment for me as was the contract the LSU Board of Supervisors’ members signed on with FIFTY BLANK pages signifying that no one knew just what the proposed costs would be to privatize the LSU system hospitals.
Did your SGA grade the members of the House Appropriations committee whom approved of the spending of milllions that to this day (almost three years later) no one knows where those costs will end. Yet you have the nerve to give a grade of “F” to members of the House who were against that; who stand to this day against raising taxes on everyone in this state; members who stand against allowing tuition to continue to rise while this administration CUT higher ed well over $600 million over the last six years.
You have the nerve to not support the combining of the different higher ed boards to cut costs and to be more efficient.
Do any of you understand that this state, our state, is LAST, (that’s fiftieth out of fifty states), in government funding of higher education and that all is because of the budget cuts by this administration to higher ed over the last six or seven years. In fact, do a little research on your report card and you can figure that just about all of those members with an “A” or “B” grade had much to do with the devastation of the funding of higher ed by simply voting for the budgets over those years.
And what is the solution according to the folks in higher ed and you all? Every year their only solution is to raise tuition meanwhile the governor siphons money away from higher ed and I get an “F” for fighting that.
Furthermore, did any of you happen to hear of our legislation to CUT consulting contracts to SAVE money.
Probably not.
Last year I even entitled the bill, “The Higher ED Financing Fund Act, which directed all savings on those contracts not renewed to Higher ED.
The governor vetoed and we brought it back again this year. I actually made a deal w/ the governor to sign HB 30 in to law and I would vote for the SAVE act of which he did and I did. Yet NO where in your report card did I see this bill which is actually THE ONLY PIECE OF REFORM LEGISLATION PASSED BY THIS LEGISLATURE with the SAVINGS going to Higher Ed, yet you refuse to include probably the most important bill of this session.
I’m ashamed mostly because I spoke at a few SGA meetings on the bill.
In closing, let me get this straight. You guys protest at the Capitol to make sure we do the right thing. You sat idly bad while the LSU Board signed a BLANK CONTRACT on your campus. You give Legislators who voted to raise taxes an “A” and instead of demanding an end to allowing the different boards to raise tuition you give these same members an “A” for voting to allow those boards to continue raising YOUR tuition. Meanwhile, the Legislature CUT Higher Ed over $600 million so that we are now LAST in state funding to higher ed. And I get the “F”. Makes no sense to me.
Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richards
I-Thibodaux