By Jeremy Alford

Whether it’s a nonbinding resolution or an actual bill, expect lawmakers to ponder the creation of a new Office of State Planning to provide technical and material support to local governments and others in their own planning efforts. While there isn’t an official price tag yet, there are indicators. For starters, Louisiana once had an Office of State Planning before it was disbanded during the 1970s. It had a staff of about 20 people and a $4 million budget (adjusted for inflation). Today, the New Orleans Regional Planning Commission handles transportation and environmental planning with 20 full-time staff members and a budget of about $8 million, of which about 13 percent goes to salaries. Nationwide, at least 28 states have some sort of planning office at the executive level. A special task force has recommended to the Legislature that, after its creation, the Office of State Planning be evaluated to become a “cabinet-level department.” The report also suggests that the Louisiana Recovery Authority oversee the transition process and that the office be accountable to another public-private board to be created later. As for duties, the report identifies facilitating funding for local planning, developing statewide benchmarks, analyzing land-use law and more.

By Allen Johnson

Local U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and James Bernazzani, head of the Louisiana FBI, have been tirelessly promoting the city’s first Inspector General, Robert Cerasoli, and not just because it’s good to have another watchdog around. The feds hope Cerasoli will cut their workload by torpedoing fat city contracts that don’t pass the proverbial “smell test.” They aren’t the only ones boosting Cerasoli. Last month, conservative Washington columnist Robert Novak wrote that Cerasoli’s “imposing presence” means that “life in the Big Easy will no longer be so easy.” In a Feb. 14 column for The Washington Post, Novak called Cerasoli “the nation’s foremost inspector general” and added that Cerasoli told him he was amazed when he arrived in New Orleans because “just about everybody I met had been the victim of a holdup.” Novak added that Cerasoli “wondered why crime was much more rampant in New Orleans than in Atlanta, a larger city with a smaller police force.” Cerasoli may need to call Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington — the former top cop at NOPD — for answers to that one.