No Senators opt for cut in pay

Posted at 2:51 PM on February 25, 2009 by Tom Scheck (1 Comments)

Seven days after the Minnesota Senate instituted a measure to allow Senators to cut their own pay, no senator has taken that step. Last week, the Senate Rules Committee implemented a hiring freeze, a wage freeze and allowed senators to voluntarily cut their own salaries. The body took the action one day after several Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would have cut the salaries of lawmakers and the state's constitutional officers. GOP Sen. Geoff Michel of Edina, who introduced the bill, said he's not taking a voluntary cut in pay because the entire body should do so.

"I'm trying to pass a bill that will actually save $600 thousand bucks. We're not going to do this one legislator at a time. We're going to have to do this as a branch and we're going to have to include other branches of government."

Michel said he's not taking the full amount of daily expense payments available to senators which he said saved the state about $7000.

Comments (1)

Big mistake.
All the DFL senators should have put in for 5% pay cut, that would have showed them. Or same for the GOP. But none, that just shows me, Joe Voter, that neither one really care, they just want to yell.

Posted by BJ | February 26, 2009 12:24 PM

Services

• Hourly Newscast
• HD Radio
• iPhone App / Mobile
• E-mail newsletters
• RSS feeds
• Podcasts
• Submit your photos
• Videos
• Weather
• Most e-mailed stories