Niki Kelly has an excellent article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette looking at the budget of the Indiana General Assembly. By and large, the General Assembly operates on the cheap. They get by with about half the average number of staffers. Their accommodations are not luxurious — however, they did get an upgrade in that field within the past 10 years or so. When I was at Legislative Services, the facilities were a little run down. The House “offices” looked like study carrols in a college library. The conference rooms were shabby affairs in the basement of the statehouse – in at least one of the rooms, there were exposed wires in the ceiling. Like I said, they upgraded a bit since then, but still, they aren’t exactly wallowing in opulence.
There is some fat to be cut, however. The House has spent something like $350,000 in outside legal expenses on the House Prayer lawsuit, trying to defend the idea of making sectarian prayer an official part of House business. Putting aside the Constitution and the lessons of history for a second, a quick look at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew:6 advises against ostentatious prayer. Take the hint and save the State some money. Say your prayers just about anywhere else you want, but keep it away from the Speaker’s podium.
Apparently the General Assembly has found a need to increase the amount of money it spends on its legislative assistants, attorneys and communications staff members. They found they were losing these folks to private practice. I’m one they lost – for that reason among others. On the other hand, I’m happy they paid so little to start since it let me get a job as a very young, inexperienced attorney. But, from the perspective of the State of Indiana, I’m not sure the State is best served where the legislators are counseled by attorneys like me when I was fresh out of law school. Fortunately, there are a number of highly skilled attorneys and fiscal analysts at LSA who have been around for quite a while and are able to provide the legislature (and young attorneys) with pretty good advice. (Yeah, they’re my friends, and I’m biased.)
In any event, it’s a good article that looks at some of the nuts and bolts aspects of running the General Assembly.
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