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HPSD continues cuts and layoffs


HATTIESBURG, Miss - The Hattiesburg Public School District (HPSD) announced on Tuesday they will continue to layoff employees and cut pay.

Director of Communications at HPSD, Jas N Smith, mentions that Superintendent Ladner says it is needed to sustain public education and there are reasonable factors that contributed to his decision.

"We are looking at a couple of different things we've have an increase in our personnel costs through administrative and also through teacher and other support roles. We have seen those salaries go up, while our student population has declined for the last couple of years."

As the student population decreases, the funding does too.

HPSD plans on laying more employees from different departments, cutting principal, at-will and administrative pay, and cutting teacher contracts by one day.

Curretly under this year's fiscal contract teachers are in session for 188 days. The new contract will reduce the days to 187, which will be a $19/month deduction in their salary.

Smith says the cuts are needed in order to sustain public education and employees understand.

"A lot of people once they saw the numbers and saw what we were dealing with realized that we were trying to do the most humane compassionate cuts that we could make."

During the months of February and March HPSD has an increase in tax revenue from the city and Hattiesburg taxpayers which is aiding in their budget crisis.

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