Republican legislators are committed to being good stewards of the taxpayers' money.
Since the people elected us to lead the Legislature as the majority during the last election, we have championed proposals that will make government more efficient, eliminate waste and provide taxpayers the most bang for their buck.
In March, facing a tight budget, we cut $1 million from the Legislature's budget this fiscal year - roughly $500,000 from each house.
In addition to these cuts, when Gov. Tomblin asked state agencies to reduce an additional 4 percent from their budgets, we volunteered to do the same, even though his request didn't apply to the legislative branch. The Legislature's willingness to join in these cuts will result in an additional savings of roughly $938,000.
Meanwhile, we enacted other reforms to make the Legislature more efficient. One way was to streamline the Legislature's interim committee process.
In previous years, interim committees met once a month, with most lawmakers meeting in Charleston, at taxpayer expense, for three days in a row. This often led to long periods of down time between meetings and an inefficient use both of taxpayers' funds and legislators' time.
To improve the process and make it more cost-effective, we decided to condense these interim meetings into two days instead of three and cut down on the number of meetings during the year.
Lawmakers and full-time staff continue to explore many topics and craft potential legislation in between meetings, but without the added expense of having to pay for legislators to spend three days each month in Charleston.
As a result, our committees have been able to cover roughly the same number of topics as in prior years, now delving into them in even more depth and detail, while saving taxpayers about $500,000 - a significant savings in a year of tight budgets.
The success of these meetings has been due to the dedication and efficient work of our legislative staff, committee leadership and members, who put in countless hours of work in between meetings to ensure our interim sessions were focused and productive.
One shining example of this streamlined process has been the work of our Legislative Rule-Making Review Committee. This committee doesn't attract a great deal of attention, but it serves a vital role.
After the Legislature passes laws, state agencies are often required to draft new administrative rules to help citizens, businesses, organizations and other agencies comply with those laws.
These draft rules then come back to the Rule-Making Review Committee, which reviews and modifies them if needed to ensure they follow the Legislature's intent and provide the clarity citizens, businesses and agencies need to comply with the law. These modified rules will then be presented to the full Legislature in the following session for approval.
In past years, this Rule-Making Review Committee has often had to meet all the way up until the start of a session in January to finalize these proposed rules.
However, this year, due to the efficient and tireless work of our staff and committee members, the committee was able to finish its work during November interims. According to long-serving staff members, some who have worked for the Legislature since the 1980s, this is the earliest this committee has ever wrapped up its work.
This occurred as the committee considered several weighty and complicated issues, including aboveground storage tank regulations, rules related to implementation of the increase in minimum wage and precise definitions of public official self-promotion under our new elected official "trinket" ban.
Their work, like the efforts of all interim committees this year, shows that government can work in a more efficient, focused manner to serve our citizens well while also being careful stewards of their tax dollars.
Republican leadership and legislators remain committed to ensuring that our government functions in the most effective and cost-efficient manner, always keeping in mind that every dollar spent by our government is one that was earned and contributed by our hard-working taxpayers.
Bill Cole, R-Mercer, is president of the West Virginia Senate, and Tim Armstead, R-Kanawha, is speaker of the House of Delegates. They wrote this commentary in response to Phil Kabler's Nov. 22 column.