The mantra of the West Virginia Republicans is smaller government. GOP leaders promised when they won control of the House of Delegates and the Senate in the 2014 election that the cutting would start at home.
Figures from the just-approved pay resolutions for legislative staff show they have been making progress on that front.
House Speaker Tim Armstead (R-Kanawha) says full-time staff have been reduced from 49 to 43, while the number of per diem employees (workers paid by the day during the session) has dropped from 68 to 52 since the GOP took over.
Armstead says those moves amount to $367,417 in annual payroll reductions (from a payroll of $3,121,075 in 2014) not including additional savings in benefits.
“While we have trimmed our staff, it has not had any effect on productivity or the level of services provided at the Legislature,” Armstead said in a release. “I commend our employees for the excellent work they do to assist lawmakers and serve our citizens.”
The Speaker said another $1.6 million is saved annually in legislative spending by streamlining the interim committee meeting process which reduces compensation and travel.
The Senate has also cut costs. Figures released by the Office of Senate President Mitch Carmichael (R-Jackson) show full-time staff have been reduced from 49 in 2014 to 37 for this session for a savings of $348,578 annually. Over the same period, the Senate has reduced per diem staff by 22, to 55 people, for a savings of $105,330 annually.
Granted, these are not big numbers. The savings constitutes only a fraction of the projected $400 million budget shortfall next fiscal year, but they do serve as examples of how government can find efficiencies.
Now what the Republican-led Legislature, working with Governor-elect Justice and the Democrats, need to do is replicate that exercise over and over across the spectrum of state government.
That’s a much bigger challenge, and state agencies have already cut back through budget reductions and hiring freezes. It’s possible the legislative offices had more fat to cut in the first place.
However, given the pending budget shortfall, the reluctance to raise taxes and projections of only a weak recovery of the state’s economy, the watchword for state government must be frugality.