JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Mississippi legislators are questioning state agencies’ use of retired state employees as contract workers.
During a hearing Tuesday, House Speaker Philip Gunn said many people see the practice as double-dipping. Some workers retire from state government, draw a pension and later get hired as private contractors doing much of the same work they used to do.
The Department of Education spent $2.9 million to hire workers on contract in the budget year that ended June 30. State Superintendent of Education Carey Wright says 114 of them were retired state employees.
The Department of Corrections spent $2.2 million on contract workers last year. Corrections Commissioner Marshall Fisher says most of them teach inside the prisons, and none is a retired state employee.
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