A dispute about prison guard pay stops budget work in the House. The slow, methodical work on the $17-Billion dollars state budget has been shelved until the House can resolve a dispute on how big a raise prison guards should get. Lower paid guards would get a $1,400 raise under the bill approved in committee, which isn’t good enough for Representative Larry Crawford of Centertown who tells a colleague that $4-Million that could have been used for salaries has been shifted elsewhere. Representatives with prisons in their districts say low pay has made it hard to fill 70 prison guard vacancies.
