This site first published the story of the virtual financial collapse of the Hattiesburg Public School District a few months ago. If you haven’t read that article you can read it here. In a nutshell the district’s leadership, mismanaged over $3,500,000 in monies, which drained the general fund to just over $700,000. The fund should maintain a balance of approximately$4,000,000, or 10% of the annual budget. When or if the fund goes in the negative, state statute will have been violated, and the state will likely take the district over. This site believes that is inevitable.
The root of the problem is that the Mayor has appointed political cronies to the board who will follow his lead and has influence over hiring in the district. Once such political crony is Board President, Marcus Cathey. He was almost definitely violating state law by utilizing a school building to hold regular, Sunday Church Services. After this site exposed the improper use of school property, Cathey stopped using the building. That article, with related evidence, can be read here.
Enter Carmen Anderson, Head of Human Resources for the district. She is a favorite of Mayor Dupree. Mrs. Anderson and her husband , Joe, a local firefighter were both busted by this site for voting illegally in the 2013 Mayoral election. Anderson, along with her husband, both plead guilty to illegal voting. As a part of their plea agreements with District Attorney Patricia Burchell, they were subject to alcohol and drug testing for six months, before the voting offence was wiped off their records.
Adding insult to injury, neither of the Andersons had their cars tagged in the city. They used their vacant house in Hattiesburg to vote, but didn’t tag their vehicles in the city, which allowed them to avoid the school tax for the very district in which Carmen Anderson drew a paycheck.
If that isn’t astounding enough, they even went so far as to clam two homestead tax exemptions. This is illegal, as only one homestead tax discount is allowed per married couple. One homestead was the vacant home in Hattiesburg and another in Jones county where they live. The Anderson’s used the Hattiesburg residence to vote illegaly in the 2013 Hattiesburg Mayor’s race. Both the Jones County and Forrest County tax assessors ultimately revoked the homesteads in both counties after this site published the story. That article can be read here.
Mrs. Anderson even hired a 3rd grade teacher, Sholanda Hill; who had a prior history of drug arrests. The teacher was indicted on money laundering charges in late 2014 for working in a cocaine ring, which was busted with 12 kilos of cocaine. That article from the Hattiesburg American can be read here.
Not only did either of the Andersons lose their jobs with the city, but Mr. Anderson was put up for a promotion at the fire department; one that he wasn’t legally qualified to receive; that according to then city Attorney Charles Lawrence.
The teachers and students in the district are suffering. HPSD award winning debate team can’t travel. Teachers have no supplies. There is no money to fix air conditioners, buy paper, or of afford basic school supplies. The district is an utter mess. Meanwhile, while Rome burns, our administrators are the highest paid in the state.
Below are the HPSD administrator salaries published for the very first time. A follow up article will be published next Monday, detailing specific employees work experience, certifications, etc,; which will clearly show how some of these administrators shouldn’t even be in these positions.
While HPSD goes broke, and our kids and teachers suffer, administration remains a bloated, overpaid, political favor machine of largely unqualified people in key administrative positions.
Click the images below to read the Administrative Salaries
Laurel School District
I don’t have a degree but I can read and write and have a fair amount of common sense. I could probably do a better job than these people at a much lower salary.
Yes all the Administration Folks should take a cut in pay but none of them will!
Sharon McCrainey Woods Joyce White-Arbuthnot
Jamie Moore, please understand that this site exists to expose waste, fraud, abuse of power, and corruption in government. This site doesn’t exists to report on anything outside those parameters.
The debate team is still traveling as of last week, because the trip was paid for before the spending freezes. They may get 1 more trip, and at that point, they will have to raise their own money.
One difficult point about all of this is that there are contracts with most of these “useless” employees who have to be kept on the payroll until the end of the year. This makes it harder to cut the big salaries right now. If you really want to get mad, find out more about the travesty of how the rebuilding of the baseball field was handled!! Makes you want to take up baseball bats and to find some folks! The new superintendent has a very difficult job that will make many people upset, but we, as tax payers need to recognize that this is as close as we come to being “taken over by the state” as we can get without the label. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better; maybe we will begin to see the restoration of compentency at some point. Please, go to school board meetings and let them know that you are watching and waiting for results.
IF THIS INFORMATION IS TRUE… I am definitely in the wrong professionð© I say all administrators take a $10k pay cut & divide it amongst the teachers. Most definitely give MR SAVAGE a super increase he deserves to be paid wayyy more! BUT HONESTLY NO MATTER WHAT JOB YOU HAVE… THE HARDEST & BEST WORKERS ARE UNDERPAID. # I can’t begin to imagine the pay scale of surrounding school districtsð I’ll wait â³âï¸â°
Sounds like it’s being run by crack heads!
Is this the base pay or this is their salaries after years of experience?
Hattiesburg Patriot I really have a problem with this post for several reasons: 1- if you call yourself a patriot of Hattiesburg, why is it that you never post anything good about HPSD? Are they the only school district around with problems -heck no! 2- Mrs. Booth was cleared of everything, do your research. 3-what are the pay for surrounding schools? It’s easy to say Hattiesburg is over paid when you have nothing to compare it to. A good journalist would do research around to present a better article. 4-i know for a fact that HPSD is not low on school supplies! Where in the heck did u get that from? 5- the award winning debate team just came from California last week, so tell me how are they not traveling? 6-you make a lot of points,but no basis. People will agree with you because of what they see you post and that’s fine, however I hope that each of you do your research before taking this PATRIOT of Hattiesburg words.
Thugs hire thugs….
Also, the missing money didn’t just go to salaries. Business deals authorized by the school board and central office need to be looked at very closely. Then there’s just plain theft, which has been a problem for quite a while. I’d be willing to bet my own salary that a general inventory of food service at virtually any location would turn up some very interesting things.
The salaries don’t bother me so much as the fact that many of them are not qualified and do not know how to perform the duties required for the position.
Post all area salaries so that every resident in the Pinebelt know what the salaries are….
Brittany Hinton Lakeshia Williams LaTesha Manzie
So how much is the two retired business managers making that are currently in the district trying to fix the issues, the interim superintendent, and oh yeah, all high school head coaches. Simple put, why hasn’t MDE taken over the district.
THE FULL STORY: 42 superintendents in the state make more than the Governor. Do some research to find out why rather than trying to accuse HPSD of mishandling funds and overpaying qualified administrators. Ask the governor why teachers aren’t getting raises that they deserve Hattiesburg Patriot.
While this highlights one of the worst offenders, I am sure the same pattern can be seen in many if not all districts in the state.
Way too many positions at the Central Office level. Ridiculous !
I’m at the wrong place of employment!!! Wow!!! Wow!!! Shame on the people who approved these salaries!!! #RobbingTheChildren ð¸ð¸ð¸ð£ð°ð£ð¸ð¸ð¸
Some of the elementary schools in the HPSD could be consolidated to eliminate excess admin, not to mention cleaning costs, heating & air, food services staff, counselors, nurses, etc.
Just hope everyone listed here gets a good idea that salaries are so unequal. People of Hattiesburg should be outraged at many things. The idea that really bad principals are promoted to central office jobs and given raises and principals with less experience and credentials make more money than others…Well! Hope somebody gets mad! I know that we, the citizens, are furious! So glad this was posted. Thanks!
That’s some serious cash…these people must be the best at their jobs. If you are paying that much for a Superintendent why does he need an assistant?
And I thought that our school personnel was overpaid Patti! Yikes!
YES!
This is so sad.
I had no idea this was going on. Where is the State Auditor?
Fire them
Damn !!! Sounds like they need to cut some people. Assistant superintendent over 100,000.wow !!!! Start cuttin.
AWSOME reporting Hattiesburg Patriot. Thank you.
Wowwwww!!!!!!!!!
Roderick Moore
Hmmmmmmmmmm WTH!!!
They ALL need to be fired, ASAP. This is nothing but a bunch of dumbprees cronies who voted for him so they could continue to receive this outrageous high salary !!
While a superintendent may recommend a salary, the responsibility of actually setting the salary is solely in the hands of the school board.
Scared Heart and PCS are great schools and they don’t have multiple administrators. Keep the money in the classrooms!
Certainly.
What a mess?!
WOW
I know that as a food service manager with over 25 years experience and a degree from USM, my application and resume didn’t even get me a call back or interview. Nepotism, Favoritism, Cronyism, it has many names and and all goes back to the men at the top. I happen to know that many of the managers in the Hattiesburg cafeterias are not capable of doing the jobs which they are being well compensated for. I’m not being judgemental against anyone but when the managers cannot read, they cannot fill out the forms required daily by the governemnt. That is how the school district is compensated by our government’s free lunch program. I believe everyone should be employed based upon their own merits, not who they know or the color of their skin.
Free public education is the tenth plank of the Communist Party, don’t believe me? Google ten planks of Communism, check out number ten.
And you property owners will pay it! Or the government will take “your” land.
Plank one of the Communist Party: Total ownership of all land.
This is so sad!ð¢a lot of wrong doing. All involved should be accountable and pay back our tax money. Our children and community are suffering. Who are these people? I don’t think they really care about children or anybody. The money is not for them! This school system needs a lot of help to clean up this situation.
Lay off administrators and keep the teachers.
That’s disgusting.
Disgraceful!
Yes.
They’ll probably just layoff the lowest paid.
James Baccus, former superintendent.
We have this same situation in the City of Hattiesburg. Jobs go to people based on friends, church members, family and race. Look around you.
Pay cuts definitely!
Who was responsible for approving these positions and salaries?
Too many administrators!
With that kinda fund flow, there is no way that Hattiesburg should be a failing district. ACCOUNTABILITY, ppl.
Who the hell approved this pay scale for these people?
I’m not sure they should take a pay cut but a full audit needs to be performed. Are all these positions essential? Can some tasks be completed with multi-tasking? Were these positions created due to nepotism? Are qualified people holding these positions and could some of the money be used to hire more teachers, pay raises for teachers and/or more teacher aides?
Wow! Meanwhile, (good) teachers are paid next to nothing and have to buy their own supplies…….all I can say is thank you HP for putting the truth out there…. and if this is not a wake up call to all tax payers….. than I guess we deserve what we get!
Why doesn’t the state Board of Education get involved and clean out that rats nest?
Mrs. A Latrice Smith, Hattiesburg has the highest funding in the state along with the highest administrative costs. Our district is rated a D. They are almost failing.
Stay tuned for a follow up article tomorrow. You will not be surprised to know that some jobs weren’t advertised and some lack the requirements to be effective in those positions.
Many people who are more qualified were passed over in favor of friends, family, and church affiliation.
While teachers are underpaid, our administration has positions we don’t need, with people who are not qualified in some of those positions.
I wouldn’t consider them necessarily overpaid, as much as I would consider all TEACHERS underpaid! Those are the kinds of salaries classroom teachers should have, not “directors”.
Did you ask yourself this question when considering the financial state of Mississippi? If no, you are biased in your investigations. These people are responsible for a very important part of children’s lives. Should they take a pay cut…maybe slightly. Should they be underpaid like the rest of the state’s educators? Hell no! Perhaps everyone else should pay educators what they deserve.
Yes
HOLY CRAP!!!!!!
Too many directors. There’s a million$ right there in directors. ð¸
Looks like they are grossly over paid!!!
Yes
dumb