[StBernard] Senate rejects Road Home appeal bill

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Mon Jun 23 00:36:38 EDT 2008


Senate rejects Road Home appeal bill
6/22/2008, 9:21 p.m. CDT
By MELINDA DESLATTE
The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A bid to give Louisiana residents the ability to
appeal decisions from the Road Home hurricane recovery program to district
judges was narrowly rejected Sunday by the state Senate, which earlier had
voted unanimously for the idea.

Senators who hadn't objected to the measure previously said they worried
about the potential price tag for the state, which they said could total
billions of dollars.

The Road Home provides buyout or repair grants of up to $150,000 to
homeowners with severe damage from hurricanes Katrina or Rita. More than
111,000 homeowners have received grants so far, totaling $6.5 billion.
Thousands of people have been rejected. The multibillion dollar program is
funded with federal recovery money.

The proposal by Sen. Ed Murray, D-New Orleans, would give recipients and
those who were denied the right to appeal the decisions to a district court.
Appeals now are directed to the private contractor running the grant
program, ICF International Inc.

"How fair is that when you try to appeal to the people who judged?" said
Sen. Troy Hebert, D-Jeanerette, asking senators to support the measure.

Supporters of the change say any court judgments would be covered by federal
recovery aid, but opponents said the federal money can't be spent that way
and the bill could leave the state with large legal judgments. Though the
state isn't required to pay judgments against it, senators said the pressure
would be great to pay Road Home awards.

Estimates by the Legislature's fiscal staff were that the proposal could
cost as much as $3 billion.

"Three billion dollars is a lot of money, and once you tell people that
they're entitled to it, they're going to be looking to you and I to get it
done," said Sen. John Alario, D-Westwego.

Senators earlier had voted 37-0 for the bill, but the House killed it. After
a tearful plea from Rep. Nita Hutter, R-Chalmette, whose entire parish was
inundated by Katrina's floodwaters, House members agreed to tack Murray's
proposal into a separate bill by Hebert.

That sent the bill back to the Senate for approval of the change. Twenty
senators then reversed course and refused to accept the Murray amendment,
voting 20-13 to send the bill to a conference committee where the amendment
could be stripped.

Hebert said in some cases people settled for lower grants with the Road Home
so they could get out of temporary housing and move on with their lives -
even if the amount wasn't fair.

"We're just trying to give people some other option if it's not right and if
it's not fair," Hebert said.

Senators who were new in their opposition to the bill said it would prompt a
flood of lawsuits that could tie up the state in court for years. They also
said Gov. Bobby Jindal's hurricane recovery chief has made sweeping changes
to the Road Home appeals process since Jindal took office in January.

"Why can't we give new appeals process in place time to work?" said Sen.
Robert Adley, R-Benton.

___

On the Net:

Senate Bill 755 can be found at http://www.legis.state.la.us




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