Allowances Must Be Made

Breaking news is that the AK legislature just voted to double the office allowance of the elected officials.  House members now can get $16,000 and Senators $20,000.  The kicker is that if they don't spend this money on office expenses, they get to pocket all of it.

OK, I'm not automatically against cost-of-living increases. But if it was based on the real cost-of-living data, the increases would have been under $2000 instead of the $8000 and $10,000 they voted for themselves.

Certainly there are office expenses that our legislative representatives will have and certainly these expenses, to a point, should be reimbursed. But shouldn't office expense reimbursements actually be used on office expenses?  I mean like show your receipts and write up a little justification: basic bookkeeping demands.

Those are the rules that most all of us probably have to follow.  But apparently these rules don't apply to our elected officials

This is nothing but a back-door pay raise and it seems quite shameless to boot. Our representatives don't have to account for a penny of the money, and get to put it in their pockets rather than actually buy staples, tape and sticky notes.

Mike Chenault did vote against this.  Bravo Mike.  But guess what?  Chenault and the other central peninsula legislative representatives, Tom Wagoner and Curt Olsen took the entire office expense check and put it in their pockets.   Not one penny went to paper, pencils or pens.  I guess leaving a paper trail is not a good idea for these guys anyway.

Mike, the best way to vote against the raise is not to take the money.  Who do you think you're foolin'?

Of yeah, the knuckleheads that keep electing these three.

Tell me again about how we elect Republicans here on the Kenai because they are fiscal conservatives?