As we trudge toward the end of January, many of our New Year's resolutions already have been broken. But state Senate Republicans last week revived their efforts to change the old habits of the Legislature.

Members of the caucus are reintroducing a package of 10 bills that read like a roadmap for improving public policies in Harrisburg. Nine of them passed the Senate last year but didn't make it through the House.

Senate Bill 105, the only one of the measures that wasn't already passed by the Senate, would create a searchable online budget database, which should make it far easier for citizens to track where their tax dollars are being spent.

Senate Bill 101 steps off from last session's successful rewrite of the open records law to increase the penalties against government officials and agencies that conduct secret meetings, violating the state's Sunshine Law. We'd go further in expanding what's covered by that open meetings law, but this is fine as a first step.

Senate Bill 102 could have far-reaching benefits in that it would extend the requirements for open bidding to some consulting contracts where none is required now, a way to curb officials from rewarding their friends and political benefactors.

Other measures would ban, as a matter of law, bonuses for state employees; increase accountability in the use of state-owned vehicles; post government salary information online; and improve access to logs that indicate who is using the state airplane and why.

Two of the bills would require constitutional amendments and couldn't be accomplished without winning voter approval -- one would eliminate so-called lame duck sessions at the end of two-year legislative sessions and the other would empower the sitting governor to fill any vacancy in the office of lieutenant governor. When Catherine Baker Knoll died last year, the president pro tem of the Senate, Republican Joseph Scarnati, automatically was elevated to the post, even though Gov. Ed Rendell is a Democrat.

There is room for debate in the details of some of the bills, but they all start with worthy intentions. We hope they won't go the way of most well-intended resolutions that start each new year.