Louisiana adds boards and commissions, even as some haven’t met for several years

(Wesley Muller/Louisiana Illuminator)

An annual review of boards, commissions and other state-created oversight entities shows Louisiana added eight such bodies since the previous fiscal year, despite calls from some circles for smaller government.

As of June 30, there were 491 boards based on a Legislative Auditor’s count of listings on the Louisiana Division of Administration’s website. Ten boards were added during fiscal year 2023-24 and two removed, resulting in a net increase of eight.  

The auditor’s report, released Sept. 11 when Hurricane Francine was approaching the state’s coast, identified 18 inactive boards, a dozen of which were also inactive the year before. The auditor recommends that the Louisiana Legislature dissolve these boards. 

A total of 13 boards failed to respond to the auditor’s request for information, which is required under law. Lawmakers should take steps to ensure boards comply with these requirements, the audit report suggests.

The audit also found 34 boards with an active status that have not reported any meeting notices or minutes from meetings since Dec. 31, 2020, and six failed to identify any board members on the Division of Administration website. State officials should work with these boards to make sure they are posting required information online, according to the audit report.

The Legislative Auditor also provided an accounting of the budgets for state boards and commissions, which totaled $6.7 million last fiscal year. Broken down, the numbers show$2.8 million in board member salaries, $2.3 million in travel expenses and $1.6 million in per diem pay. 

Gov. Jeff Landry’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the auditor’s report. The Division of Administration falls under the executive branch.

Three more new boards have yet to be added to the state’s website because officials have yet to obtain their contact information. All three are security districts within Baton Rouge that were established to allow the neighborhoods to collect a fee from residents to pay for added patrols within their boundaries.

Two boards were removed once the governor’s executive order that created them expired: The Broadband for Everyone in Louisiana Commission and the Mid City Economic Development District in New Orleans. 

Why some boards didn’t respond

There are varied explanations on why 18 boards didn’t respond to the Legislative Auditor’s requests for information, including that some are defunct for all intents and purposes.

Take the Bi-State Corridor Commission, for example. It was created in 1991 to provide input on the four-lane expansion of U.S. Highway 371, which runs from west-central Arkansas to Coushatta, Louisiana. There’s no record of the commission ever meeting, and the legislative Joint Committee on Governmental Affairs recommended dissolving the body in 2020. Except the full Legislature has yet to get around to doing so.

There’s also no evidence online that the Rural Water Infrastructure Committee has ever convened since it was created five years ago. Two other boards — the Instratate Community Aid Subcommittee and the Interoperability Subcommittee — haven’t met in seven and five years, respectively, according to the audit report.  

A separate Water Management Advisory Task Force, created in 2003, hasn’t met in 13 years. The panel was supposed to advise the state commissioner of conservation and the Water Resources Commission in developing a statewide groundwater resource management program.

The Legislative Auditor and the commissioner of administration have sent joint letters to all boards identified. In addition, the administration staff has made numerous requests to the boards for the required information.

Boards that did not respond were issued notices of noncompliance, which were copied to the state departments they report to as well as the Legislature’s governmental affairs committees. Lawmakers could take action against the boards for failing to follow state law.