JACKSON, Miss.–Too much of your taxpayer money is being wasted in the way state agencies spend it, says State Auditor Shad White. He announced Monday that his office, in cooperation with Gov. Tate Reeves’s staff and an outside firm, has been studying the spending habits of those agencies.
“We focused when we were doing that, on identifying fat,” he said during a Monday press conference, announcing “Project Momentum”.
By fat, he meant they focused on recurring expenses and practices in the way the agencies spend money, rather than one-time expenses. He said the state may be wasting as much as $335 million per year.
“One thing we found is the state government has unnecessarily bloated IT contracts,” he said, giving one example. Another example was with how much money the state spends on travel.
“People have long said that Mississippi state agencies have too many cars, spend too much on travel. And, if you look at how we compare to sister states, we doi have this problem. So, Mississippi spends about $25 million on travel, vehicles and fuels every year. That’s far more than Louisiana, Iowa or Arkansas. Those are states with similar populations and similar rural areas.”
So, state employees are driving similar mileage.
White said people with his office have already met with state agency heads to suggest solutions, like sharing contracts to get lower wholesale prices.
He also suggested selling the state plane, with a possible savings of $1.3 million per year.
White warned that the rate of spending is exceeding the rate of growth and that the state must get a handle on it.
