Donelon hires ex-legislator
Former state Rep. Noble Ellington landed a $150,000 a year job as the No. 2 official at the state Department of Insurance.
Commissioner of Insurance Jim Donelon said Tuesday that Ellington — a veteran legislator who did not seek re-election last fall — joined his staff as chief deputy last week.
“We are really pleased to have him. It’s an asset, a public face in addition to mine,” Donelon said. Ellington would become interim commissioner if anything happened to Donelon.
Ellington is a member of the Louisiana State Employees Retirement System, better known as LASERS. The appointment to the job with a six-figure annual salary will substantially boost his ultimate pension check. Benefits are calculated based on the final three-year average compensation.
Ellington is a Republican from Winnsboro, who has been a member of both the Louisiana House and Senate. The 69-year-old cotton merchant had been a legislator since 1988.
Donelon said Ellington served on the Louisiana House Insurance Committee for the past four years “but that is the extent of his insurance involvement to my knowledge.”
Ellington is the latest former legislator to be appointed to a paid state position since fall elections in which they either did not run or were defeated.
Gov. Bobby Jindal appointed former state Rep. Jane Smith, R-Bossier City, as deputy secretary of the state Department of Revenue — a $107,500 a year job. The governor also appointed former state Reps. Mert Smiley, R-St. Amant, and Rickey Hardy, D-Lafayette, to the state Pardon Board, where they join ex-state Rep. Tank Powell, R-Ponchatoula, whom Jindal reappointed.
Smith lost a bid for the state Senate.
Hardy was defeated for re-election. Smiley won an assessor’s race but he doesn’t take office until January.
For the past year, Donelon said, his chief of staff, Denise Brignac, has been serving in the deputy commissioner’s role “but she made it clear all along she did not want to be commissioner in the event of my departure.”
Prior to that Al Ater, another former legislator, had been Donelon’s chief deputy commissioner.
He resigned because of “family (farming) business interests.”
“I’ve been in the market for a chief deputy ever since,” Donelon said.
Donelon also said Ater “highly recommended” Ellington for the job.
Brignac — an insurance employee of more than 20 years — will continue to be “heavily relied on,” Donelon said.
Donelon said he is president-elect of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, and when he has to be away because of those responsibilities, he will feel comfortable sending Ellington to the State Capitol in his place for legislative meetings.
Like in Ater’s case, Donelon said he knew Ellington from when the two served together in the Legislature.
As a legislator, Ellington has served on budget committees and on the Legislative Audit Advisory Committee. Last year, he was president of the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Donelon is a former state representative from Jefferson Parish.
Also on Donelon’s staff as deputy commissioner over management and finance is Shirley Bowler, another former state representative.