Who Pays for Three Week Shutdown in Wisconsin?

Wisconsin...a very costly three weeks.

Well, here goes it all...in our sound bite and word driven media war, with the goal to influence public opinion and future voting booths, it is difficult to understand what has just gone down.  Last night the Republican controlled senate voted without their Democrat peers.  One lone Republican voted against the measures.  But the budget of Wisconsin may now get back to repairing and fixing itself.  Maybe. 

But follow me on something that you have not heard anywhere - at least, I don't recall hearing it.  Mind you this is simply math and not exact.  It is just to prove a point and is the result of about 10 minutes of work.

Here's the deal: For three weeks the Democrats did not come to work.   Let's say that they each earn $50,000 plus benefits (probably more as this report is two years old). As a side note they receive on average, depending on temporary residence $66/day per diem, travel expenses, office expenses, health care (equal to state employee) and retirement benefits (with 2.6% employee/8.1% employer contribution as of 2005).  That quickly works out to $4166.66 per month, plus extras.

The Democrats have been out of work and vacationing in Illinois for three weeks.  That equates to $12,500 in salary for each member. A Per Diem of $66/day would equal $1386 per member.  Office expense is $3-10K per member, based on district size as of 2009.  Travel expenses might be up to $3,000 per month, depending on district.  Let's just focus on the salary, per diem and retirement (8.1% 2005 report), which is about $1012.5 per member for a three week period based on $50K yearly salary in simple 12 month division.

So, for three weeks the basic salary and health care cost of these AWOL elected professionals is $208,579.
Each day they are out of the office living it up in Illinios, they cost the state of WI $9932.33.

This does not include the cost of the many teachers who have walked out for any given number of days.  Where this is complicated is "how many are bussed in from even other states?"  So, this is hard to add to the scenario...but is no less present and a strain on the state budget.  Further, at who's cost are those bussed in persons?

How many of you can walk off your job for three weeks - in essence stating "I don't agree with you Mr. Employer, so I'm out of here...but, you can't fire me.  I'll be back sometime."??  Or, feel comfortable calling in six, yet showing up on the 6 o'clock news?

It was WAY passed the time to act legistlatively.  Three cheers for the Republicans! Click that hyper link and you will find plenty of very research documentations!

PS.  If the budget shortfall is 1.37 million, then the real cost of all the state legistlator and teachers being AWOL for three weeks would (likely/nearly) account for the .37 million easily.  FURTHER....can one not argue that the salaries of the Republicans, staff, and Governor may at least partially be applied to this "shut down" of the WI budget?  At that point, these three weeks have been very costly!

Now...how is this factoring in nationally?