Lawmakers in the Alaska House on Thursday voted to slash their own pay.<\/p>\n
Members of the House voted 34-5 to cut legislators\u2019 pay by almost $14,000 apiece, a move that promises to save the state about $852,000 per year.<\/p>\n
The idea was proposed by Rep. Jason Grenn, I-Anchorage, as an amendment to the state\u2019s operating budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cEffectively, this is about a $14,000 cut to my salary,\u201d Grenn said while introducing the amendment.<\/p>\n
The public has been demanding lawmakers to cut their own budgets before asking individual citizens for taxes or Permanent Fund Dividend reductions.<\/p>\n
The cut will become effective only if the Senate and Gov. Bill Walker also approve. Even if that happens, the cut represents less than 1\/2700th of the state\u2019s budget deficit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an amazing turn of events,\u201d said Rep. Lora Reinbold, R-Eagle River.<\/p>\n
Rep. Tammie Wilson, R-North Pole, had introduced a similar proposal in the House Finance Committee, but her idea was rejected by members of the coalition House majority.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was ironic. That amendment that was on the floor was my amendment. It failed in finance,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cThe same ones that voted no last time voted yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The issue of per diem payments has been a hot one in the House, where a panel voted to cut the payments, only to see their decision reversed by the co-chairman of the House Finance Committee, Rep. Paul Seaton, R-Homer.<\/p>\n
In addition to their $50,400 annual salary, state lawmakers receive a per diem payment \u2014 money for housing, food and travel expenses \u2014 while they work in session. Lawmakers don\u2019t get overtime, but they do get per diem every day during session, even during special session.<\/p>\n
The payments are $213 per day for lawmakers who don\u2019t live in Juneau and $160 per day for the three lawmakers who live in Juneau.<\/p>\n
Grenn proposed cutting those payments by three-quarters. (Wilson had the same idea, but she also proposed eliminating every bit of the Juneau payments.)<\/p>\n
Grenn voted against Wilson\u2019s idea but turned around and offered it on the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t believe it was the proper place,\u201d he said after the floor vote. \u201cI wanted all 40 members to have a voice \u2026 I would rather have a discussion with all 40 of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Capitol Creep<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n That discussion was a long one: Lawmakers spent almost three hours considering the idea of moving the capitol from Juneau to elsewhere, and members of the Republican House Minority suggested three amendments to the idea.<\/p>\n The most notable came from Rep. Dan Saddler, R-Eagle River, who attempted to call for the Legislature to move to a location on the road system.<\/p>\n Saddler\u2019s proposal asked the Legislative Council (a body that makes decisions on the operations of the Legislature) to plan a legislative move to a location on the road system and to forbid per-diem payments for legislators who live within 50 miles of the new session.<\/p>\n Saddler refused to answer questions about whether his proposal would end up costing the state more than it saved in per diem payments. He walked away from this reporter when asked.<\/p>\n Rep. Justin Parish, D-Juneau, was visibly upset by the proposal.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m trying to stay sensitive to keeping civil,\u201d he said, then pointed out that Alaskans have repeatedly rejected attempts to move the Capitol from Juneau, largely over the high cost of a move.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019d have to incur an additional expense,\u201d said Rep. Sam Kito III, D-Juneau. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make any sense.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, D-Dillingham, agreed, ruling Saddler\u2019s proposal out of order and not germaine to the discussion on per diem payments.<\/p>\n Before lawmakers cast the final vote, Rep. Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage, warned that even though cutting per-diem payments might save the state some money, it\u2019s likely to harm the economy of Juneau \u2014 where most of the per diem money is spent.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t imagine an amendment that\u2019s going to be more harmful for the Juneau economy than this one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n His comment came minutes after the capitol move idea was nixed.<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lawmakers in the Alaska House on Thursday voted to slash their own pay. Members of the House voted 34-5 to cut legislators\u2019 pay by almost $14,000 apiece, a move that promises to save the state about $852,000 per year. The idea was proposed by Rep. Jason Grenn, I-Anchorage, as an amendment to the state\u2019s operating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":14928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,95],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-14927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-alaska-state-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14927"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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