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Eugene

(61,596 posts)
Tue Mar 22, 2016, 09:47 AM Mar 2016

Alabama governor under fire for giving massive pay rises amid financial crisis

Source: The Guardian

Alabama governor under fire for giving massive pay rises amid financial crisis

Governor Robert Bentley set against state legislature after giving
his advisers sizeable raises – some of which topped $73,000 in
increased annual pay


Matthew Teague in Fairhope, Alabama
Tuesday 22 March 2016 12.47 GMT

Alabama’s governor outraged his critics and disconcerted his allies recently by handing out gigantic pay raises to his advisers, while the state tumbles into financial crisis.

The maneuvers set the governor, Robert Bentley, against the state legislature just as it created the state’s general fund budget for 2017. So legislators took the opportunity to carve money equaling the pay raises – some of which topped $73,000 in increased annual pay – out of the governor’s own budget and put it toward Medicaid.

Bentley is expected to veto that general fund budget on Tuesday – he has said its $700m Medicaid budget still falls short of the $785m needed to keep the program functional.

Meanwhile, workers around the state who have seen budgets and their own salaries slashed – especially in education – reacted with shock at Bentley’s generosity to his inner circle.

“It’s disheartening as a teacher,” said Jennifer Gilmore, who works at an elementary school in Baldwin County. She said this is her seventh year teaching, and that she has never had a raise of any sort – in fact four of those seven years, she said, her pay went down. “When I heard about these nice, fat raises for the governor’s people I was taken aback. It’s a slap in our faces.”

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/22/alabama-governor-robert-bentley-pay-rises-financial-crisis
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Alabama governor under fire for giving massive pay rises amid financial crisis (Original Post) Eugene Mar 2016 OP
Yet I'll bet his moronic supporters hate government spending. nt Guy Whitey Corngood Mar 2016 #1
"Jeeves, bring me the feathered paddle for Governor Bentley. librechik Mar 2016 #2
Dr. Doctor Bentley was the governor who said he wouldn't take a salary LettuceSea Mar 2016 #3

librechik

(30,663 posts)
2. "Jeeves, bring me the feathered paddle for Governor Bentley.
Tue Mar 22, 2016, 10:00 AM
Mar 2016

Last edited Tue Mar 22, 2016, 10:43 AM - Edit history (1)

That man deserves a serious wrist-lashing, pro forma. Oh, and tighten the barbed collar on Governor Siegel. I believe he's still in solitary."

--His majesty Karl Rove of the Alabama/Texas Roves.

LettuceSea

(337 posts)
3. Dr. Doctor Bentley was the governor who said he wouldn't take a salary
Tue Mar 22, 2016, 10:16 AM
Mar 2016

He also wanted his first name to be "Doctor" on the ballot.

Governor Dr. Doctor Bentley

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