Alaska lawmakers shut down regional offices on Friday afternoons to save money

[TexasTowelie]

The Alaska Legislature plans to save money by closing its regional information offices on Friday afternoons except during the legislative session.

The joint House-Senate Legislative Council, the committee that handles the Legislature's internal business and budgets, made the decision at a Thursday meeting in Anchorage. The regional legislative information offices were closed Friday afternoon.

Lawmakers were responding to a reduced legislative budget that they passed earlier this year. The office closures will save about $300,000.

"It's hard, because our goal is to make sure we're available to the public," Kodiak Republican Sen. Gary Stevens, who chairs the Legislative Council, said in a phone interview. "But we had a quarter of a million to take out of that line item of the budget — it made sense."

http://www.adn.com/politics/2016/09/02/alaska-lawmakers-shut-down-regional-offices-on-friday-afternoons-to-save-money/
(short article)