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Where's
the Watchdog?
Republicans
have failed to wield their budgetary powers to
control the size of state government. It's time for
the General Assembly to exercise more
oversight.
In
1970, I had the opportunity while serving as legal
counsel to the Governor's Management Study to talk
at length about government and politics with its
consultant, Weldon Cooper. It was a tutorial that
greatly affected my thinking about public affairs.
One of his insights was that accountability,
effectiveness and efficiency in government can be
achieved in a substantial way only through the
budget process. Any other approach was nibbling at
the edges.
The budget process is where program managers and
sponsors must justify their spending requests and
legislators evaluate alternatives, set spending
priorities and identify waste.
Since Republicans gained control of the General
Assembly, they have failed to use the
budget/appropriation process to control the size,
direction and performance of state government, a
principal reason for this year's legislative
debacle.
Making the budget process serve the interests of
Virginia taxpayers as it should is not easy, but the
alternative is excessive deference to the executive
branch and to those special interests that have
longstanding and deep involvement in particular
state programs. Taxpayers deserve a watchdog to
protect their interests.
Statements emanating from a retreat held by
Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates last
month reminded me of Cooper's lesson. Despite all
the talk about reforming state government and
eliminating wasteful spending, there was no mention
of strengthening the legislature's role in the
budget process.
Some GOP delegates have lamented that they are
severely limited in what they can do to make
government more efficient because the executive
branch is headed by a Democrat, Gov. Mark R. Warner.
It may be worth the money for the Republican Party
of Virginia to pay these legislators to travel to
other states to see how legislators can actually
assert themselves in the budget/appropriations
process, regardless of who the governor is.
House Republicans could begin to play a larger role
by insisting that Warner respond to the reasonable
information requests made by the House of Delegates
last March. Without this information, legislators
can't responsibly appropriate state revenues.
The governor can't impose taxes or appropriate state
funds. Only the General Assembly has the power to
tax and appropriate. With that power comes a
responsibility to assure that taxpayers' money is
wisely spent.
The General Assembly has a larger role in program
oversight than it has exercised for the past quarter
century. If carrying out that responsibility
requires more professional staff, legislators should
authorize those positions. If it means compelling
information from a non-cooperative executive branch,
legislators must act. If it means extra time on
committee work, particularly in the House
Appropriations Committee, then time must be found.
The General Assembly should avoid the kind of lapses
that led to the breakdown in corporate governance in
many companies here and abroad. Boards of directors
of these private companies too often failed to take
their audit and oversight responsibilities seriously
and deferred excessively to corporate officers.
Just as the remedy for those corporate breakdowns
inevitably produced a more adversarial relationship
between independent directors and corporate
officers, the General Assembly must do more than
meekly request cooperation from the governor. It
must insist that he provide in a timely way and in
the format it chooses the information it needs to
evaluate programs, monitor spending and set future
appropriations.
Our constitutional scheme doesn't function well
unless the legislature serves as a check on the
executive. It's time to begin.
-- July 26, 2004
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