Orr funds go to help others

Fulfilling a commitment he made in 2007, Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, has once again donated the proceeds from a legislative pay raise back to the community.
The controversial 62 percent pay increase was passed in 2007. At the time of the raise, Orr pledged to donate all the proceeds from his yearly increase to charities, non-profit agencies and other groups within his district.
He went on to donate the proceeds from two subsequent cost of living adjustments that were included in the pay raise resolution.
To date, Orr has donated almost $75,000 in pay raise income during his recently completed first term to help meet area needs, and he contributed more than $18,000 in proceeds during 2010 alone.  Throughout the quadrennium, he placed his portion of the legislative pay raise in a separate charity bank account until it was distributed to the community.
“When legislators were elected in 2006, they knew what the job paid when they put their names on the ballot, but the Democrats insisted on passing an immediate and generous salary increase and overrode the objections of many of my Republican colleagues and me,” Orr said.  “Rather than return my pay raise to the General Fund, where it could be used to fund wasteful spending and sweetheart deals under a Democrat majority, I put it to work here, in my Tennessee Valley district, where it was needed.”
As a former board chairman of the Volunteer Center of Morgan County, Orr has also kept a pledge to donate an aggregate of $5,000 each year of his first term to sponsor the Center’s annual Volunteer of the Year awards event and to help fund charitable organizations whose members are awarded Volunteer of the Year awards.