Legislators in special session are now examining ways to permanently reduce public employee expenses like health benefits and pensions so that taxes can be stabilized.

The applications specifically covered procurement, time management, employee expenses and resource management.

The first is related to stock options, which companies must account for as the employee expenses that they are.

Companies liked them because they did not have to be counted as an employee expense and they made earnings look better than they really were.

If you have unreimbursed employee expenses, tough.

Company stores can be built at any site to decrease employee expenses (and therefore lower employee cost).

He envisions a credit cards one day will be equipped with special computer chips to record all an employee's expenses.

But last year, after its wellness program began to take hold, its costs did not change even as other employee expenses were rising.

On the other side are companies trying to hold down health-care costs, the employee expense most likely to break the bank.

Stock options dispensed to executives and workers are not accounted for as an employee expense, even though they clearly are.