Monday, State Auditor Shad White announced the release of “Project Momentum,” the largest audit of waste in Mississippi government in decades. Project Momentum identified around $335 million in recurring waste across thirteen state agencies.

“I was encouraged to see President Trump announce recently that if elected, he would appoint Elon Musk to lead a government efficiency commission to help eliminate fraud and waste in the federal government,” said White, “We’re doing the same thing right here in Mississippi with Project Momentum.”

Project Momentum comes on the heels of several other audits conducted by the Office of the State Auditor over the last five years of agencies like the Mississippi Department of Transportation and the Division of Medicaid — audits that also identified tens of millions of dollars in savings on process improvements, heightened eligibility screening, etc. The Office of the State Auditor brought in national experts from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to help conduct this audit. BCG has helped reform numerous broken state governments around the country and used best practices and experience from around the nation for this project.

Some of the savings highlighted from Project Momentum include:

• IT contracts that Mississippi pays more for than similarly-sized states
• Agencies owning too many vehicles that are underutilized
• Mississippi government spending more on insurance on state properties than even Florida
• State office buildings with space that never gets used
• Top-heavy agencies with too many employees
• Too much money spent on administrative costs in our K-12 school system compared to other states in the South
• $1.3M per year in savings if we sold the state plane

“I believe that Project Momentum is the most important project we will do in my time as State Auditor, because, if we take a chain saw to all this fat, it will make government leaner and smarter for decades to come,” said State Auditor Shad White.

“We never would have been able to finish this project without the help of Gov. Tate Reeves and his agency heads that actively helped us identify these improvements,” White added.

Project Momentum can be found on the State Auditor’s website by clicking on the “Reports” tab and searching “momentum.” The report can also be accessed here.