Topeka ? Every little bit helps, right?

More than two dozen Kansas lawmakers agreed to cut or stop their legislative pay in a symbolic nod to the budget cuts that are threatening to reduce services across the state.

Rep. Don Hineman, R-Dighton, knows stopping his roughly $84 per day wage is a drop in the bucket, but he said sharing the financial pain was the right thing to do.

“It’s symbolic,” Hineman told The Hays Daily News, “but it will amount to several hundred dollars.”

Hineman was one of about two dozen lawmakers who had agreed to stop their per-day pay. Twenty-one senators agreed to give up their $84 payments, and 19 of them also gave up a $116 daily subsistence payment. A handful of House representatives joined in.

“We’re in a budget crunch,” Rep. Charles Roth, R-Salina, told The Topeka Capital-Journal. “It costs $80,000 a day to run this place, keep the Legislature open. I figured I was going to be part of the cost savings and do my part and forgo my pay from Monday to when we finish.”

Lawmakers are normally paid for weekends during the session regardless of whether they meet. But many lawmakers in both the House and Senate agreed to limit their pay last weekend, and many are likely to do so again this weekend should the session extend past its budgeted number of days.

Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, asked senators to skip their weekend pay.

“You can’t force people to do that,” Morris said. “Several people did.”

Not everyone was on board. Sen. Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat, declined to request no pay for the weekend work.

“I have always thought that we should only get paid for the days we are actually here and actually work,” Kelly said. “That approach has not been received well by a number of my colleagues. At this stage of the game to present that and to make it optional just seemed gratuitous and political, and I just didn’t care to engage.”