RD166 - Biennial Report to the General Assembly (2005)


Executive Summary:
The statutes which empower the Commission also require this biennial report, as a means of keeping the full Assembly informed of the Commission’s work. This document includes an explanation of our oversight role, summaries of some of our recent reports, and follow-up information on study impacts.

Our purpose is to ensure that Virginia’s government serves the interests of its citizens. We want the programs and services that Virginians support with their tax dollars to be as effective and efficient as they can be. We share a belief that this goal can be accomplished by holding government accountable to the highest possible standards.

The Government Performance Project, a nonpartisan group dedicated to public policy research, recently released a report giving Virginia the highest grades nationally on state management. Virginia’s executive branch received much praise and publicity for this honor. On the legislative side JLARC was prominently mentioned in the study as a contributing factor to the Commonwealth’s top ranking. The “remarkably high quality” of our audit studies was cited in one of several acknowledgments of the Commission.

NCSL’s Legislative Program Evaluation Section (which includes most of JLARC’s peer organizations across the country) selected JLARC for a 2004 Impact Award for our study of information technology in State government. And our study of Emergency Medical Services won a 2005 Impact Award. These honors and many others are displayed in the JLARC office lobby on the 11th floor of the General Assembly Building.

In this document, you can browse among these and other recent achievements.