The Alabama legislature managed to pass a three and a half percent cost of living raise for state employees.. but they have to re-convene to pass an education budget.

The total cost: 110 thousand for a week, nearly half a million if it goes 30 days.

"It's a waste of taxpayer's money, it's a waste of legislature time," said Virginia Meigs.

People like Virginia Meigs say they're fed up with their elected leaders.

"It really does bother me, it's a waste, they should have resolved those issues in the regular session," she continued. "They're being paid to do a job and they need to do their job."

Now that the session is over, people are wondering why many bills that passed the house died in the senate or vice versa.

Among the casualties: immigration reform, the state education budget, and bills like this one that would have ended the state sales tax on groceries.

"I guess I was surprised cause in New Jersey we don’t have to pay any sales tax on food or clothes, well as long as it's food that you're going to eat and not pre-prepared food," said Linda Roberts, visiting Birmingham from New Jersey.

"It's like, what do they do?" wondered Sam Drummond. "I don't know what they do and how they do it, I don’t know, all I know is if they were supposed to pass the sales tax and they dropped the ball, that's not right."

Now we have to wait and see how much it costs and how long it takes to finish the people's business.

Some of the other bills that died on the floor of the legislature included a ban on smoking, a bill to exempt federal stimulus checks from state taxes, and campaign finance reform.