PHOENIX It's one thing to balance the state budget with a 5 percent pay cut for state workers.
But most Republican state senators said Thursday it's quite something else to cut their pay by the same amount.
On a 15-14 vote, the Senate killed a proposal by Sen. Ken Cheuvront, D-Phoenix, to extend the across-the-board pay cut being mandated next year for most state workers should also apply to those who enact the budget.
"As an employer, I never ask my employees to do something that I'm not willing to ask myself to do also," said Cheuvront, who runs a wine bar.
"We are asking many people in this state to make sacrifices," he continued. "And we should also be willing to make those same sacrifices."
Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, who voted against taking the pay cuts, said the two situations are not the same. He said state workers have received at least one pay hike in the last eight years while lawmakers, whose salaries are set by voters, have not.
The last pay hike for legislators was approved in 1998, when it went from $15,000 a year to $24,000.
That $9,000 hike translates out over 12 years to $750 each year. And $750 happens to be 5 percent over that $15,000 base.
Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, who also voted not to cut legislative pay, said lawmakers are underpaid.
"People that serve in this Legislature make considerable sacrifices," he said, whether in time away from their businesses or even finding an employer willing to give them time off to go to the Capitol.
The cut actually is 2.75 percent, with the balance made up by requiring workers to take one day off without pay between now and June 30 and six days off in each of the next two budget years.
Only university employees are exempt from the pay cut. That's because trimming university budgets beyond what already was done would put their funding below 2006 levels, requring Arizona to forefeit $832 million it got in federal stimulus dollars.
Other Republican senators voting against cutting their own pay include Sylvia Allen of Snowflake, Frank Antenori of Tucson, Ed Bunch of Scottsdale, Ron Gould of Lake Havasu City, Chuck Gray of Mesa, Linda Gray of Glendale, John Huppenthal of Chandler, Barbara Leff of Paradise Valley, Al Melvin of Tucson, John Nelson of Litchfield Park, Russell Pearce of Mesa, Steve Pierce of Prescott and Thayer Verschoor of Gilbert.
