AUGUSTA (AP) – As Maine scrambles to fill a $10 million gap in its state budget, one area coming under scrutiny is the number of staff members who work full-time for a Legislature that meets only four to six months a year.

Late last month, well after the session adjourned, the Legislature had 156 full-timers on staff. The Legislature also employs more than 40 staffers whose seasonal jobs end when the final gavel comes down.

A survey by the Maine Sunday Telegram found that only six of the 17 states with part-time legislatures had bigger full-time staffs than Maine, and all but one of those six were more populous.

Some citizen legislatures, such as those in North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, get by with fewer than 50 year-round employees. Closer to home, New Hampshire had 147 full-timers for the largest state legislature in the country and Vermont reported 57 year-round workers for a legislature similar in size to Maine’s.

Jason Fortin of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a conservative think tank, questions the need for Maine to have such a large payroll.

“There are certainly legislative staffers who need to be there on a full-time basis,” including non-partisan fiscal experts and other analysts, Fortin said, but the need for full-time “secondary folks,” such as partisan workers employed by party leaders is less obvious.

Others, however, say the full-time staff has enough work to keep it busy and that partisan workers earn their salaries by handling complaints from constituents at a time when many lawmakers are at work on off-season jobs.

“If you start playing phone tag with bureaucrats (to investigate constituents’ problems), you lose any control of your time, and the ability to make a living,” said Republican Sen. Jonathan Courtney, R-Springvale. “We need the support” from staff, he said.

The 35-member Senate had 25 full-time employees last month, including four staffers who each make more than $70,000 a year, according to legislative records. The 151-member House of Representatives had 42 full-time employees, five of whom make more than $70,000 a year.

The nonpartisan staff had 89 employees, 30 of whom made more than $70,000 a year. Those workers handle the Legislature’s technology needs, run the law library at the State House, staff committees and study groups off-season, update law books, study the efficiency of state programs and analyze policy issues for lawmakers.

“The number of staff on the legislative side may look relatively high, but the value they’re producing is high,” said Christopher St. John of the Maine Center for Economic Policy, who has observed the legislative process for a quarter of a century.

In seeking to cut spending, the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee has asked state agencies for $30.2 million in possible cuts, including $1.2 million from the Legislature.

“I think it’s reasonable to look at all places where we might save,” said House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, and “those discussions are going to happen.”

Without proposing specific cuts, House Minority Leader Joshua Tardy, R-Newport, described the more thinly staffed Vermont Legislature as “a fair comparison” that Maine should study.