Often, the Maine Legislature is chided for wrong decisions in the frantic, waning hours of its session. Last week, however, seven members of the Appropriations Committee showed wisdom is possible, despite wildness.

By a 7-6 vote, the committee rejected funding LD 1693, which would have restored about $203 million in retirement benefits to state employees employed for fewer than 10 years as of 1993, when the benefit structures were changed under Gov. John McKernan.

These employees were subjected to stiffer early retirement penalties, which created inequity, and the unfortunate scenario where they are paying the same for retirement, but getting a lesser package than their peers.

These less-than-10-year employees are colloquially known as “rug” employees, because they feel the retirement rug was pulled from under them. They’re right – the current system has made separate, unequal classes of workers.

State and education unions fought heavily for LD 1693, to restore the benefits changed in 1993.

This was the proposal that reached Appropriations, a committee which had already slogged through the unenviable task of cutting $190 million from the state budget due to revenue shortfalls and federal Medicaid cuts.

They could have just gaveled it through. After all, the bill was approved by the Legislature, under pressure from powerful lobbies. And, by using certain pension funds for 2008, there was no upfront cost for the state.

Yet there were costs – foremost to state credibility. Approving a generous restoration of retirement benefits, while making Maine’s most vulnerable accept deep cuts, would have been wrong.

And there might be future costs, politically. One of the seven lawmakers who voted against the bill, Sen. Linda Valentino, a Saco Democrat, was quoted afterward as saying, “I may not get re-elected because of this bill,” or, she would at least lose her coveted seat on Appropriations.

This, too, is wrong. The lawmakers who showed common sense in rejecting LD 1693 should be praised, not criticized. Taxpayers should have not been saddled with $203 million over the next 20 years – atop billions already owed to the retirement fund for its unfunded liability – for a marginal public benefit, at best.

They made the right choice.

In the dwindling hours of the session, when ideas and bills and compromises and amendments are flying around the State House like disoriented bats, this can be hard to do.

But, as the Appropriations Committee showed with LD 1693, not impossible.