Joseph Spector and Sean Lahman report for The Poughkeepsie Journal that state legislators took $2.3 million in per-diem and travel expenses during the six-month legislative session that ended in June, about eight percent less than last year. Several mid-Hudson Valley lawmakers took no per-diem and travel expenses including Sens. Sue Serino (R-Hyde Park), and George Amedore (R-Rotterdam), and Assemblymember Didi Barrett, (D-Hudson) as they generally commute home each day. “I have constituents who travel just as far for their jobs each and every day and nobody’s picking up their tab, so how could I expect the taxpayers to pick up mine? That’s why I don’t take travel expenses or the allotted per diem, from my perspective it’s just not right,” Serino said in a statement to the Poughkeepsie Journal. Anyone living within 50 miles of the capitol is prohibited from taking travel expenses. Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause/NY, told the paper there are still many questions. “How are the new so-called reforms working? Is the per-diem level appropriate? Is it being handled correctly?” she said. “There are still no guidelines as to when it’s appropriate to charge” for them, she said. Read the full story in The Poughkeepsie Journal.