The Wilmington morning star., 1947-01-19

oNAs
yet to be named, now hold tt
Elemental salary bill in their
ence committee will be comp
is reasonable prospect the as
on the bill Wednesday or I'll
impossible to include any a
checks, but teachers and otht
increases later.
The house Friday morning re-
scinded its action OF Thursday in
discharging the five man confer
ence committee, and voted to re-
tain them with four additional
members. On the other side of the
capitol Senator Rivers Johnson OF
Duplin gave notice that on Mon
day night he would move to add
two members to the three man
senate committee and Lieut.. Gov.
Ballentine indicated he would be
ready to name them Immediately.
Speaker Tom P e a r sail an
nounced It's additional committee
members Friday. They are Eu-
gene Bost of Cabarrus, Roy Tay-
lor of Buncombe, Fred Register Of
Vance and Frank Simms of Neck
lenburg. Carry-over members un-
der house action resembling dis
charge are Reg Harris of Person,
Frank Taylor of Wayne, Oscar
Barker of Durham. Arch Allen of
Wake and Lew Wallace of Lenoir.
Hold-over senate conferees are
Wade Barber of Chatham, Willie
Lee Lumpkin of Franklin and
Wade 2rown Of Watauga. Two ad-
ditionaI Senate members are to be
named Monday night.
/ Stalemate on this reY1, which
was approved by the senate more
than a week ago, has been due
to house rebellion against nc more
than 20 percent raise FOR the rest
tof the c t biennium. The
budget bill, approved by the sen
ate, would have added a total Of
Sc, 900, 900 to pay checks for the
next six months. The house upped
this to So, 80, 900 and changed
some increases in favor of lower
scale employees. Conference COM
mittee recommendation was for
49, 50, 900. The senate accepted
this figure, but the house bucked,
and voted to concede nothing by
way of compromise.
1t was at this stage of proceed
ings that the house voted to dis
charge its %conferees; then next
day re-instated them n d added
four new members to the group.
But the house failed to get Of
fetal message of this action to
senate and that body adjourned
Friday without further action on
the bill. Following usual custom,
the Friday adjournment motion
carried with it provision that no
public bills. be considered at Sat-
urday's session, so the matter
goes over until Monday night.
Meantime, teachers a n d others
on the STATE payroll are trying to
make up their minds just where
their friends are located. Prompt
action by the senate on the origi-
nal budget bill and then on the
| conference report would have
made available additional money
in January pay checks. Delaying
action in the house has made it
impossible for the increases to be
reflected in January checks, and
most recent developments are oc-
casioning worry as to whether the
delay will be compensated by ex-
ira money later.
School teachers, who comprise a
little more than half the total
number of state employees, have
borne the brunt of the Lobbying"
for increased pay. This doesn't
mean clerical workers in the vari-
GUS departments, highway en-
| ployes and others aren't equally
interested. Apparently the depart
mental group would rather have
| S25 to $50 more right now than
take. a chance on $40 to $75 sever
al months hence while school
teachers generally seem more
concerned with getting the higher
rates approved even though it
means weeks delay in payment.
Experienced observers see more
involved in this scrap than the
surface matter Of a few dollars
differential in amounts paid to
employees. There is some playing
to the grand stand, some effort
to obtain. personal political ad-
vantage. and some apparent de-
sire just to embarrass the COVER
nor and the speaker of the house.
Underlying motives seem to be
not so much to give employees a
few more or less dollars as to
see which group can gain control
of the still embryo house organl-
cation. In other words, the tempo
rary salary supplement is being
used as a leverage for o i'm
portant legislation to come up
later in the session.