As the legislative session wrapped up, I was asked by several reporters, “Where do things stand now?” My reply was that we obviously had both wins and losses, but in either case I hope I was judged on how consistently I pushed for change in the way some things are done in Columbia — and how consistently I stood up for the taxpayer.

I think we’ve done both, and I consider this start in changing the mentality in Columbia our biggest success. In life, attitude has to change before you can change results.

As for more concrete activities over the past 18 months, we’ve focused on three broad fronts: the budget, legislation and day-to-day governance. Here is an update:

• The budget. The front-row seat in any legislative process lies in how much you spend and where you spend it. In our state, the governor’s office has not historically had much of a say in answering either question. That’s been the Legislature’s sandbox. For more than 200 years, governors didn’t even produce executive budgets, until Carroll Campbell began the process a little more than 10 years ago.

Yet the governor’s office brings with it a unique statewide perspective that Gov. Campbell believed was critical to the budget process. It is precisely for this reason that we need the executive branch to nudge and challenge the General Assembly into going just a bit further in examining the trade-offs inherent in the budget process.

We got involved in a way that has never happened before in our state, and as a result of our budget, $125 million in direct savings was incorporated into the final budget. The coming sale of the Bull Street facility, Port Royal and 6,000 surplus state cars are examples of changes that were in many cases long overdue.

• Legislation. We fell short of where we’d like to be on this front, and my two biggest disappointments were not seeing passage of our income tax relief proposal and government restructuring. We ended up three votes short of breaking a filibuster in the Senate that would have allowed a vote on income tax relief. Had it happened, we had the votes to win.

Restructuring was our second major disappointment, and here it’s interesting to note that the Department of Motor Vehicles — the agency that some argue is the new poster child for efficient and accountable government since we passed DMV reform — requested 17 percent less money in next year’s budget than in this year’s. Change to the structure of our government can make for a remarkable difference in not only what government costs us, but how well it serves us.

Probably our most significant legislative accomplishment came with the Fiscal Discipline Act, which we worked on together with House and Senate leadership. This means not only that our state’s unconstitutional $155 million deficit will be paid off next fiscal year, but also that the rate of government growth will be capped next year to 3 percent. Deciding how big the table is before we try to set it is just as important at home as this is to rational budgeting — and this has the added benefit of protecting our state’s Triple-A credit rating.

In the legislative arena, I’d give particular credit to Speaker David Wilkins and other friends in the House for passing almost 90 percent of our Legislative agenda. I’d also thank such Senate allies as Sens. Greg Ryberg, John Courson, Greg Gregory and Glenn McConnell. Unfortunately, the rules in the Senate make it nearly dysfunctional, and it is my hope that many of those rules are changed this fall. If that happens, I believe we will pass “trapped” measures such as income tax relief next year.

• Governance. I think our Cabinet has been thoughtful in administering its various pieces of state government. Judge Bill Byars’ presence at the Department of Juvenile Justice had a lot to do with ending a court-run system that’s been in place for more than a decade. Bob Faith has worked strenuously not only at economic development, but also at ending a culture at the Department of Commerce that wasn’t particularly accountable to the taxpayers. SLED Chief Robert Stewart and Natural Resources Director John Frampton have saved about $1 million by consolidating our law enforcement air fleet.

The list goes on, but we have asked all agency heads to try to serve people while running their part of government more like a business. As an administration, we have tried to lead by example — reducing hotel and mileage expenses by 84 percent, leaving 60 positions in our office unfilled, reducing the operating budget at the Governor’s Mansion by 50 percent and simply being available to folks in things like “Open Door After 4” office meetings that give people a chance to sit down in my office for a visit.

For more details of the year’s activities, try our Web site at http://www.scgovernor.com/. In the meantime, we will keep pushing for change in Columbia and ask you to join us.

Mr. Sanford is governor of South Carolina.