Sound Off Louisiana

Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips, Jr., (right) continues to vent his frustrations that the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) has completely ignored his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request which he submitted (by asking Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns to do so in order that he could continue his school bus route yet get the request in as soon as possible) on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.  Rev. Phillips vented his continued frustrations at the June 1, 2025 meeting of the Louisiana Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee.

The following video constitutes highlights of the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee meeting of Sunday, June 1, 2025 pertaining to HB-326 by Rep. Butler and her quest for a license fee increase of $400,000/year (down from its original $1 million a year increase):

June 1, 2025 Louisiana Senate and Fiscal Committee testimony on HB-326 by Rep. Butler.

On Tuesday, May 27, 2025, Rev. Phillips contacted the Cosmetology Board and spoke with Ms. Tisha Butler, who serves as the coordinator for everything that is done at the Board.  Thereafter, he contacted Burns and asked that Burns submit this email to Sen. Mizell (copied to everyone he asked to be copied) asking for ANY assistance he could get in obtaining the costs of building repairs and technology enhancements.  The contents of the email:

From: Robert Burns <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2025 1:12 PM
To: ‘[email protected]’ <[email protected]>
Cc: Freddie Phillips <[email protected]>; ‘[email protected]’ <[email protected]>; ‘[email protected]’ <[email protected]>; ‘[email protected]’ <[email protected]>; ‘[email protected]’ <[email protected]>; ‘Tisha Butler’ <[email protected]>; ‘[email protected]’ <[email protected]>
Subject: FW: Public Records Request

Sen. Mizell:

Rev. Freddie Phillips (225-229-3341) has asked me to send this email to you to evidence the fact that (as demonstrated by email below), just as you guided him to do at the Senate Commerce Committee hearing of May 21, 2025, he made public records request of the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) in order to be able to review the same documents which the panel of Senators was able to review at that hearing.

As Rev. Phillips pointed out, he has been requesting numbers regarding the amount and justification thereof of the fee increases being sought by the LSBC going all the way back to his testimony asking for it at the House Commerce Committee meeting, yet he remains frustrated that he has no such documentation to review the amounts disclosed during the Senate Commerce Committee testimony of HB-326 on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.

Rev. Phillips informed me that, at approximately 10:30 a.m. this morning, he contacted via phone Ms. Tisha Butler, the recipient of the email below, to inquire why he has not received any documentation in fulfillment of the request below.

Rev. Phillips indicated that Ms. Buter told him, “I had nothing to do with the preparation of any material sent to the Senators and am unaware of what documentation was provided to them.”

When Rev. Phillips asked to speak with Steve Young so that he could obtain more information on why he had not received the material, Ms. Butler, according to Rev. Phillips, indicated that Mr. Young, “is not in the office today.”

When Rev. Phillips asked how the below public records request was handled, he states that Ms. Buter said that, “I reached out to attorney Morris regarding your request, and she has not responded back to me.”

I have made my own sentiments known that I do not believe ANY license fee increase is appropriate under these circumstances and that the LSBC should simply proceed as is for the next two years and do EXACTLY what you instructed them to do and seek a performance audit.  Contrary to Senate testimony presented by Mr. Young, there is no question whatsoever of the LSBC’s ability to continue to operate for those three years, and it most certainly will not, “go out of business without a license fee increase.”

Rev. Phillips asked me to relay in this email that, in his opinion, given all of the flaws made public in the LSBC’s quest for what was originally over $1 million a year in increased license fees, that a $400,000 a year increase is unjustified and he therefore respectfully requests that, at a minimum, and Amendment be offered on the Senate Floor to sunset the $10 increase after two years, which would still generate $800,000 and readily permit the LSBC do demonstrate good faith in seeking the performance audit you have recommended during that two-year period.

All of the people Rev. Phillips requested to be copied on this email have been so copied, and I’ve taken the liberty to copy my own Senator, Franklin Foil, along with Sen. Miguez as well.

Thank you for taking the time to consider this matter, and any assistance you may be able to provide in assisting Rev. Phillips (and me) in being able to view the documents reviewed by the Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee on May 21, 2025 would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Robert Edwin Burns, founder and author

SOUND OFF LOUISIANA

[email protected]

 

From: Robert Burns <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2025 11:26 AM
To: ‘Tisha Butler’ <[email protected]>
Cc: Freddie Phillips <[email protected]>
Subject: Public Records Request

Tisha:

By way of this email, I respectfully request all of the documentation submitted to the Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee for its meeting of a few hours ago, May 21, 2025.  Thank you, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

Robert Edwin Burns, founder and author

SOUND OFF LOUISIANA

[email protected]

Now, regarding Burns’ testimony regarding this “Board Resolution” to no longer require a permit for microdermabrasion of July 25, 2022, we supplied that document to the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Members at the specific request of Ms. Kristen Ruel (and she gave permission for her name to be used).

Ruel asserts that she was “punished” by then-Chairman Edwin Neill because of her stiff opposition to the Neill-sponsored bill to increase from 500 to 750 the number of hours required for obtaining an “advanced esthetics” designation.

Obviously, no Senator wanted to touch the issue of how the Board could somehow waive a statutory requirement for having such a permit.  Why?  Because either they were charging for a permit without the statutory authority to do so, or (much more likely) they simply utilized a “Board Resolution” to no longer require the permit which cannot simply be done via a Board Resolution!

Ruel added:

Debbie Villio, the representative, who  presented this bill, of the additional 250 hrs.,  contacted us the girls, via text and asked,  are you telling me, Edwin Neill owns, Aveda and the Neill corporation and is the Chairman of the Board of Cosmetology.  Well, yes, we replied.  Debbie, had no idea of Edwin Neill’s position.

This is when she withdrew, the bill.

Edwin, contacted me via cell phone asking me to stop from fighting this and I said, I can not.

Once this bill was stopped.  The Board punished me.

Edwin, announced at the next meeting, that microdermabrasion permits were no longer needed in the State of Louisiana.  This permit was an additional $25.00 per person income for the board,  to do microdermabrasion in the State of Louisiana.   You needed to be certified from a manufacture for this certificate and that was me.  Once students took my microderm class, they signed up for all my classes stating that they learned more from me in 6 hours, then they did in 6 months of school.

That was my punishment for standing up for what I believed in.

When Burns testified at the Senate Commerce Committee meetings of May 14, 2025 and May 21, 2025 that he gets an absolute plethora of complaints against this Board from the licensees it oversees, that is precisely what Burns meant!

We’ll see if the Full Senate goes along with this $400,000/year license fee increase (or, as per Rev. Phillips, “blank check without any documentation whatsoever,”), but one thing we can state with certainty:  if they do, those voting in favor of it will anger some cosmetologists across the State of Louisiana!  That much we know for certain!

Screen shot of Adrian Powe’s 2/18/25 Facebook post lamenting the alleged adverse impacts he endured from the Mississippi Cosmetology Board once it merged with the Mississippi Barbering Board, with our sources indicating that his frustrations arise from that Cosmetology Board and that the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) engages in similar, and according to some complaints we’ve gotten in the last week, worse, practices in Louisiana.

As we pointed out in our most recent feature, the LSBC, during its last two appearances before the Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee, provided plenty of comedy for folk who have keen awareness of accounting principles as folk representing the LSBC demonstrated their complete and total lack of comprehension of even the most basic of such accounting principles.

We pretty much expected that commentary because it’s merely stating the obvious.

What we were not expecting is the fresh wave of complaints we’ve gotten from folk displeased with current operations of the LSBC with particular focus on the inspections taking place by LSBC inspectors.

We want to ensure all who have complained that we have made extensive notes of the complaints, and we commit to commencing with public records requests to begin the process of substantiating the substance of those complaints.

Obviously, those individuals complaining to us are adamantly opposed to any additional license fee increase when it comes to the LSBC hiring even more inspectors to engage in what those who have contacted us have complained of as constituting abrasive inspection tactics.

Further, at least if one set of allegations is true, it constitutes criminal activity very similar to Winn Johnson’s act of selling exam answers for $500 per exam taker.

We will begin our quest for the public records to more fully investigate the claims of those individuals who contacted us but, in the meantime, we’ve been directed to a Facebook Post by Adrian Powe on February 18, 2025 wherein Powe expressed frustrations regarding Mississippi’s regulatory framework, particularly after the merging of the Mississippi Cosmetology Board and the Mississippi Barbering Board.

Our problem is that, as we’ve expressed in the past, Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns has been off Facebook since early February of 2021 (read into it what anyone may desire as to why he abandoned Facebook at that particular time period), so he can’t view it.

Nevertheless, a good friend was gracious enough to play it for Burns over this extended Memorial Day Weekend and, furthermore, Burns was able to create an audio file of Powe’s commentary and capture a screenshot of Powe’s Facebook post.

Accordingly, we are going to utilize an improvised method to present Powe’s frustrations on trying to become a barber in Mississippi.

Sources tell us that his quest has been made far more difficult because the Mississippi Cosmetology Board is causing much of the same type problems as the LSBC does as it relates to blocking young entrepreneurs from being able to practice a profession free from governmental agency harassment.

So, here is our improvised replication of Powe’s Facebook post:

2/18/25 Facebook post by Adrian Powe venting frustration at what he has endured by the Mississippi Board of Cosmetology in the aftermath of its merger with the Mississippi Barbering Board.  Our sources indicate the problems originate with the Cosmetology Board in Mississippi and that the LSBC has even worse oppressive tendencies and has inspectors who have engaged in problematic actions for which we’ll be making public records request to attempt to substantiate.

So, what is ahead is a strong focus on the Louisiana Senate and whether or not it ends up granting a “blank check” for $400,000 a year in estimated license fee increases.

Those increases would, according to testimony last week before the Senate Commerce Committee, facilitate spending $1 million plus on a building worth barely half that.  The fact that such an irresponsible outlay (which we contend should not be made with the existing building sold and the LSBC leasing new facilities) is a one-time expense apparently didn’t sway the Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee from recommending approval of the increase permanently!

Further, according to sources who spoke with us in the aftermath of the Senate Commerce Committee presentations over the last two Wednesdays, any surplus funds would be utilized to hire more inspectors  to “wreak even more havoc” upon cosmetologists in this state similar to that experienced by Powe in the video above.

We’ll let everyone know how it plays out on the Floor of the Louisiana Senate!

Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips stresses what he contends are “inflated figures” by the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) in its quest for a $1 million a year license fee increase.

When we published episode one of the LSBC’s quest for $1 million a year, we got feedback from a number of former colleagues with whom Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns worked who excel at accounting concepts.  The comments we received entailed an “unparallelled lack of knowledge” of even the most basic of fundamental accounting concepts by folk representing the LSBC.

One former colleague said the video of the prior feature was “unbelievably comical” that a State Board could be expected to be taken seriously given the “clownish, amateurish, and completely embarrassing” performance that those affiliated with the LSBC put on.

On Wednesday, May 21, 2025, an encore performance was necessitated after the Senate Commerce Committee instructed those folk to return with actual numbers of what matters like building repairs and computer technology upgrades would actually cost.

Amazingly, those “estimated costs” (and we’ve made public records requests to obtain the documentation provided to the Senators), just so happen to total (almost to the dime) the available cash that the LSBC holds.  That is to say, the technology components of $700,000, when combined with an estimated $1,050,000 in building repairs (on a facility not worth anywhere near that much), just so happen to barely exceed the LSBC’s available cash on hand.

We consulted with two (2) IT experts, both of whom informed us that the LSBC should absolutely outsource that function to one of many license-management vendor products.  One of the two said, “This is not the business that the Cosmetology Board should be in.  It’s hard for me to fathom why nobody has apparently even explored outsourcing the management of their license responsibilities!”

Regarding the building repairs, that estimated cost came in at $1,050,000.  In addition to Burns being an inactive CPA for 35 years, he was also a real estate broker for 10 years from 2003-2013.  Even without that real estate broker designation, however, common sense would dictate that nobody possessing any financial management skills whatsoever (of which the LSBC appears to possess none) can justify spending $1,050,000 on a building worth nowhere near that much!

We made a few calls to current commercial real estate brokers to obtain information relevant on the LSBC’s building.  Here are our findings:

11622 Sun Belt Ct, Baton Rouge, LA 70809

Office

6,000

Sq Ft

Year Built

1984

Land Use

Store/Office (mixed use)

Multi Parcel

No

APN / Tax ID

257311

And here is a recently-sold available comp:

Property Information

Recently Closed 3/6 Closed / Public Record • Sold Date: 3/6/2025, Public Record

Closed Price

$702,505

Closed Date 3/6/2025

Office

Type

6,458

Sq Ft

SOUTHERN EARTH SCIENCES INC

Type

Office

Year Built

1985

Land Use

General Use

Stores/Mixed Use

Overall Use

MIXED USE

Multi Parcel

No

Tenants Count

Tenants Avg. Days In

Business

20 years and 26 days

APN / Tax ID

257303

So, we have a slightly larger comp which sold for $702,205 on March 6, 2025, so a ball park figure of the LSBC’s building’s market value should approximate $650,000 – $675,000, yet here is a state agency, with the full blessing of an entire membership of the Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee, ready to charge full steam ahead and spend over $1 million on such a facility!  Un-freaking-believable!  Only in government are such grossly-irresponsible investment decisions made!

Once those improvements are complete (which we contend should never be made and the building instead sold after the LSBC does what most state agencies do and lease, not own, its office space), the assessor should substantially increase its valuation, leading to an astounding increase in the LSBC’s annual property tax bill!

With all that in mind, lets provide the highlights of today’s Edition Two of the three-ring-circus of a Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee meeting of May 21, 2025 entailing this massive fee increase being sought by the LSBC (it should, if nothing else, provide yet more comic relief):

May 21, 2025 Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee meting pertaining to the LSBC’s massive $1 million a year license fee increase.   CLICK HERE to see Chris Guidry’s commentary on the LSBC and CLICK HERE to watch his presentation to the LSBC.

So, that’s it folks!  All that’s left to see is if the full Louisiana Senate gives its blessing to this measure, particularly under these conditions!