THE MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE

Overview

Some classified advertising practices used by state agencies, school districts, and institutions of higher education are uneconomical. In the twenty-month period during which PEER reviewed ads placed in one newspaper, public sector advertisers used excessive amounts of advertising space and did not take advantage of the newspaper's special not-for-profit advertising rates. As a result, $14,049 (sixty-five percent) of the $21,730 cost of the classified employment advertising PEER identified was unnecessary. Of the $14,049 in unnecessary cost, $7,992 stemmed from wasted space and $6,057 from not taking advantage of lower non-profit rates and from inconsistencies in Clarion-Ledger billing.

If almost two-thirds of the expenditure for all state agency and public education employment ads reviewed by PEER during a recent period was unnecessary, PEER suggests that a substantial portion of Mississippi government's total annual expenditure for classified employment advertising (several hundred thousand dollars) may be spent unnecessarily as a result of wasteful advertising practices. While potential savings on classified employment advertising appear small when compared to the $7 billion annual state budget, the changes in advertising practices needed to realize these potential savings are an example of how relatively minor adjustments could result in more economical use of tax dollars. PEER recommends that state government and public education entities use employment advertising practices suggested in this report.

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