Speaker William Howell (R-Stafford) announced in a news release yesterday that “House Republicans have pledged not to support earmarks that do not pertain to core state services in the amendments to the 2008-2010 Biennial Budget under consideration in the 2009 General Assembly session. In addition, the Speaker announced that the House will institute reforms resulting in an overall budgetary savings of $1.1 million, approximately 15% of that chamber’s operational expenditures.”
“Right now, Virginia’s families and business are making necessary and sometimes difficult adjustments to deal with the effects of the current economic climate,” Speaker Howell remarked. “The people they elect to represent them have the same responsibility. We will meet this challenge, and I am today announcing that House Republicans will not approve amendments to the Commonwealth’s 2008-2010 Biennial Budget that include earmarks.”
To place some restraint on spending, here are some of the reforms the speaker proposes:
- Member Salary: Maintain current salary level at $17,640 annually. Prior to 1991, delegates and senators were paid $18,000 annually. In May 1991, delegates agreed to reduce House members’ salary by 2% to its current level. That reduction has saved the Commonwealth a total of $630,000 over the past 17 years.
- Member and Legislative Assistant Session Expenses: Forego without session expense (per diems) increase allowed by federal IRS guidelines. The current rate of $135 will remain in effect.
- Member and Legislative Assistant Orientation: Cancel legislative assistant orientation program for 2009 session. Postpone Committee Chair Training for members until after 2009 elections.
- State Plane: Suspend use of the State Plane for weekend travel home by members who live in Southwest Virginia.
- Conference Travel: Dramatically reduce the number of members and staff who are reimbursed for attending regional and national legislative conferences.
- Study Committees: Eliminate the use of study committees during the interim to study certain legislation.
- Carry Over Legislation: Cancel meetings for the express purpose of considering carryover legislation.
- Session Support Staff: Eliminate more than a half dozen support positions and reduce hours for additional four positions. Reduce hours for secretarial support staff. Postpone any wage rate increase for session support staff. Reduce training for various support staff.
- Clerk’s Full-time Staff: Freeze hiring for any and all vacancies. Eliminate any discretionary personnel costs. Create job sharing opportunities for full-time staff to cover eliminated session staff job duties.
- Printing of Stationery & Publications: Reduce costs by 15% by modifying internal procurement practices for printing. Review publications for necessity and print as many in-house as possible.
- Discretionary Projects: Postpone all discretionary projects, to include the legislative assistant e-mail initiative and renovation of office space to committee room space in the General Assembly Building.
- Office Supplies: Reduce office supply costs by 15% through the use of stringent purchasing policies.
- Office Equipment & Furniture: Freeze purchases of office equipment, furniture and food service equipment.
Additionally, and this is somewhat bittersweet, Howell made this announcement:
For the first time in history, delegates will be limited in the number of bills they can submit during the so-called “short” 45-day Session which originally was intended primarily to amend the state budget. Solely because of this reduction in overall legislation, we can further increase the efficiency of our operations and better utilize legislative staff. As a result, the added task of placing recorded votes taken by the House, its standing committees and subcommittees online on the Legislative Information System (LIS) has become possible and I have directed the Clerk of the House to begin this practice – for the first time in history – during the 2009 session.
Bitter in the fact that our legislators will have their speech limited by an arbitrary figure of how many bills they can submit, but sweet for those of us interested in transparency and accountability in government by having the votes online.
