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.