In these days of tight budgets, state employees packing their parkas for a conference in Alaska got co-workers buzzing.

Two employees from the state public health labs in the Division of Public Health are in Anchorage for the Association of Public Health Labs conference, Lynn Bonner reports.

They are traveling on scholarships from a professional association of public health lab directors, said state Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Renee McCoy.

The two have no hands-on duties in the state's response to the H1N1 flu, she said. One employee is an information technology specialist and the other is a quality assurance manager.

North Carolina legislators' salaries are far below their counterparts.

A comparison of base salaries in the 23 state legislatures that the National Conference of State Legislatures considers comparable to North Carolina shows their pay is at the bottom.

State lawmakers here have a base salary of $13,951 per year. Only Nebraska ($12,000), South Carolina ($10,400) and Texas ($7,200) give less, while Alabama and Kentucky do not have an annual salary.

The median is $24,012, the amount Alaska pays. The highest is $48,708 in Hawaii.

The NCSL divides legislatures into three categories based on the time they spend on the job, their staff size and their pay.

North Carolina falls into the middle category, where legislators spend more than two-thirds of their time on political work and have a medium-sized staff, but do not make enough to be full-time politicians.

California's full-time legislators are the highest-paid, with $116,208 as a base salary. South Dakota legislators have the lowest pay, at $12,000 over a two-year term, although 11 other states pay only by the day or week.

Is North Carolina ready for a Web 2.0 budget?

A grassroots group called Citizens Informed is pushing for the state budget and spending to be available online in a more searchable and linkable format.

For several years, the budget has been posted as a massive PDF — essentially an online printout.

Launched in November, the group is calling for the budget and spending to be "searchable, accessible and user-friendly," though it gives few details on exactly how that should work.

Director Laurie Onorio, a 24-year-old Garner resident who works in public affairs, said the group hopes the state will model similar sites in Texas, Missouri and Alaska. (Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue has also called for "Google transparency" on state spending.)

For now, the group has about 35 individual members and support from the conservative John Locke Foundation and Civitas Institute. The Web site also makes some conservative critiques of the budget, noting that "$50 million of your tax money is allocated for 'open space.'"

But Onorio said the group aims to be bipartisan.

"We want to get anyone and everyone who supports this on board," she said. "This is not a partisan issue whatsoever."

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr says Sen. Ted Stevens' fate is up to the voters.

In an interview Tuesday, the Winston-Salem Republican said that the Alaska senator should not resign before his appeals are exhausted on seven felony counts of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations. 

"I think that Ted ought to be allowed whatever due process the court system provides him," Burr said.

He argued that the decision on whether Stevens should remain in the Senate should be left up to voters in Alaska, where Stevens is currently in a close race with Democrat Mark Begich. 

"Clearly it's not advantageous to him while he's under appeal necessarily to (resign)," Burr said. "Prior to the appeal being heard, the voters of Alaska will decide and I htink ultimately the ball's in their court now."

Both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain have said that Stevens should resign. 

A new ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee attacks U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole on a number of votes.

What it says: The ad shows images of Dole and an Alaskan landscape, including a brown bear. Narrator: "Why is Elizabeth Dole ranked 93rd in effectiveness? She voted for millions in pork, including Alaska's bridge to nowhere. But for North Carolina? She voted with George Bush 92 percent. Against raising the minimum wage time after time. Against helping families struggling to keep their homes. For the largest cut ever in student loans. Elizabeth Dole, fighting for ... Alaska? Definitely out of touch with North Carolina. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising."

The background: The ad makes several claims about Dole's voting record.

BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens requested an earmark in the 2006 budget for the proposed $398 million Gravina Island Bridge, nicknamed the "Bridge to Nowhere" by detractors because it serves an island with just 50 residents.

In October of 2005, Republican Sen. Tom Coburn proposed an amendment to the bill that would have shifted $75 million from the bridge and another project in Alaska to the rebuilding of a bridge destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

The amendment failed, 15-82, with Dole voting against it.

Congress later stripped the earmark, but gave the state of Alaska an equivalent amount of money for any use it considered appropriate.

MINIMUM WAGE: Starting in 2005, Senate Democrats attempted to raise the federal minimum wage.

In March, Sen. Ted Kennedy proposed raising it by $2.10 over the following 26 months. As a counterproposal, Republican Sen. Rick Santorum proposed raising it by $1.10 over 18 months while exempting more businesses.

Either would have been the first increase in the federal minimum wage since 1997.

The amendments both came on a bill overhauling bankruptcy regulations. Both proposals could have complicated efforts to pass the overhaul, since House leaders had said they would only consider the bill if the Senate did not add unrelated amendments.

The Kennedy amendment failed, 46-49, while the Santorum amendment failed, 38-61. Dole voted against the first amendment, but for the second.

In October, Senate Democrats unsuccessfully attempted to raise the minimum wage by $1.10 an hour over 18 months. Dole voted against that raise as well.

After Democrats gained control of the Senate in 2006, they pushed the minimum wage hike again. Dole voted for the first, which was never signed into law. The wage hike was later included in an emergency spending bill that Dole voted for as well.

ENERGY ASSISTANCE: The fine print on the section of the ad on struggling families cites a vote on home energy asistance.

In 2006, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine proposed spending an additional $1 billion in the 2007 budget for one-time assistance to people who need help paying their heating and cooling bills.

Dole voted against an amendment on the measure, which later passed by a voice vote.

Spokesman Dan McLagan said Dole objected to how the money would be spent.

"The vast majority of the package was aimed at cold-weather states," he said. "All this money was going to go to northern states for a winter that had been mild, versus southern states that had a hot summer."

In 2008, Dole successfully pushed another measure for more spending on the same energy assistance program. She received an award for her efforts from the National Fuel Funds Network, a nonprofit coalition of energy assistance providers.

CREDIT COUNSELING: In April, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray proposed spending another $100 million on foreclosure counseling this year.

At the time, Congress had already budgeted $180 million for credit counselors.

Murray argued that spending more to prevent homeowners from going into foreclosure was "a smart investment," although it would require suspending budget rules that require any new spending to be matched by an equal cut somewhere else.

Senate Republicans argued that they needed to investigate whether the money was being spent appropriately before budgeting more. If more was spent, they argued it should be done through the regular budget process, not an amendment.

The amendment failed 44-40, with Dole voting against it.

PREVIOUS CLAIMS: Washington-based news service Congressional Quarterly compiles yearly figures for how often senators vote with the stated position of the president. The 92 percent figure comes from an average of the yearly scores for Dole, though Congressional Quarterly researchers says that method is inaccurate. Based on its overall score through August, they say the correct figure for Dole is 88 percent. The effectiveness ranking comes from an annual study conducted by the data service Knowlegis.

Is it accurate? Some of the claims are true: Dole voted against a measure to strip funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere," her effectiveness ranking was 93rd, and she voted against more credit counseling for families facing foreclosure. Two other claims are missing context: She voted against raising the minimum wage and providing more energy assistance, though she later voted for both. In addition, the vote on energy assistance had little to do with foreclosure. The figure for her votes with President Bush is off by a few percentage points.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole voted against an attempt to take money from the "Bridge to Nowhere."

An earmark for the proposed $398 million Gravina Island Bridge was included in a 2006 Appropriations bill at the request of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens. The bridge has been criticized as wasteful spending because it serves an island with just 50 residents.

On Oct. 20, 2005, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn proposed an amendment to the bill that would have shifted $75 million from the Gravina Island Bridge and another project to the rebuilding of the Interstate 10 twin span destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

The amendment failed, 15-82, with Dole voting against it.

Congress later stripped the specific earmark but gave the state of Alaska an equivalent amount of money for any use it considered appropriate. 

A recent ad by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee criticizes Dole for her vote.

"She voted for millions in pork, including Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere," a narrator says as Dole is shown in front of an image of a brown bear. "Elizabeth Dole, fighting for ... Alaska? Definitely out of touch with North Carolina."