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

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/
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