At halfway point, special session costs totaled $180,000

  • Jerry Cornfield
  • Friday, May 20, 2011 12:01am
  • Local News

Updated at 11:15 a.m. Friday with a chart of what House members received.

The tab for the first half of the special session reached $180,000 with the single largest expense being for per diem collected by lawmakers.

State legislators, who began the extra session April 26, are eligible for $90 a day to cover lodging, meals and other expenses incurred as a result of coming to Olympia to work.

Senate expenses were $107,160 through May 15. Of that, $60,525 was for per diem and $43,583 went to pay extra security guards and staff, according to information provided by Brad Hendrickson, deputy secretary of the Senate.

Printing costs amounted to $2,087 with $965 covering travel costs though some of those may have been accrued in the regular session.

Sixteen senators claimed the maximum possible per diem of $1,800 for those 19 days. Another 28 put in for something less than the maximum.

Five members – Democratic Sens. Karen Fraser, Derek Kilmer and Paull Shin and Republican Sens. Steve Litzow and Andy Hill – didn’t file for any per diem through May 15.

Attached is a chart detailing how much each senator received.

Meanwhile, the House spent $72,202 on per diem and mileage expenses through May 10. The bill for temporary staff was still being calculated Thursday.

Thus far, 16 House members have refused a stipend and four others are asking for less than their allowed daily rate.

And there are representative who have requested per diem for every day between April 26 to May 10.

Attached is a chart detailing the per diem and mileage expenses paid to each representative.

Costs of the special session are paid out of the existing House and Senate budgets. That means spending cuts elsewhere will be made to defray these expenses.

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