Miss-Delectable
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The Daily Home - Marsh sets a precedent
After touring the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind Tuesday, Del Marsh, the new president pro tempore of the state Senate, said he was convinced that AIDB needed more state money, not less.
He said he would do what he could to make sure that AIDB did not lose funds to proration this year, even though the governor has already warned that schools in the state should prepare for a possible 3 percent cut this year and 10 percent next year.
Marsh, however, is not going around the state promising to preserve funding for individual institutions while demanding across-the-board cuts and railing against government waste.
He’s starting the cuts in his own office.
Marsh announced Wednesday that he was cutting the staff for the Senate president’s pro tem office to one-tenth of its previous size, from 40 staffers to four. Payroll will drop from $1.8 million last year to less than $200,000 this year. Marsh’s chief of staff Philip Bryan will be paid $75,000, compared to $120,000 for the person he replaced.
Whether such draconian cuts in a state office can be sustained remains to be seen, but Marsh contends that the $3 million budget for the pro tem office has been a “slush fund” for senators in the past.
When the state anticipates cuts to education for the third and fourth consecutive years, Marsh’s determination to slash spending in a political office is a welcome change. Let’s hope other state office holders recognize and emulate his precedent
After touring the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind Tuesday, Del Marsh, the new president pro tempore of the state Senate, said he was convinced that AIDB needed more state money, not less.
He said he would do what he could to make sure that AIDB did not lose funds to proration this year, even though the governor has already warned that schools in the state should prepare for a possible 3 percent cut this year and 10 percent next year.
Marsh, however, is not going around the state promising to preserve funding for individual institutions while demanding across-the-board cuts and railing against government waste.
He’s starting the cuts in his own office.
Marsh announced Wednesday that he was cutting the staff for the Senate president’s pro tem office to one-tenth of its previous size, from 40 staffers to four. Payroll will drop from $1.8 million last year to less than $200,000 this year. Marsh’s chief of staff Philip Bryan will be paid $75,000, compared to $120,000 for the person he replaced.
Whether such draconian cuts in a state office can be sustained remains to be seen, but Marsh contends that the $3 million budget for the pro tem office has been a “slush fund” for senators in the past.
When the state anticipates cuts to education for the third and fourth consecutive years, Marsh’s determination to slash spending in a political office is a welcome change. Let’s hope other state office holders recognize and emulate his precedent