Budget Legislation 021010 (audio)
Air Date:02/10/2010
By Eryn Clement
Lawmakers killed several bills that found money to balance the budget. While legislators agree they must make cuts they cannot agree on how to do it.
The House State Affairs committee moved three bills to the 41st legislative day. One calls for trimming out of state travel for lawmakers. The other two bills cut legislative and certain state employee salaries. House bill 1200 calls for a thirty percent cut in legislator salaries for two years. Representative Bob Faehn is an opponent of the bill. He says many legislators can’t afford to receive a pay cut.
“How can you expect that you’re going to send somebody out here for two thousand dollars a month and they’ll do a good job overseeing a four billion dollar budget? Lets keep this a citizen’s legislature, lets not relegate this job to only the wealthy who apparently doesn’t matter how big the check is,” says Faehn.
Proponents of the bill say that two year pay cut saves approximately three-hundred and eighty thousand dollars to tax payers.
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