Honored guests, friends, my family and, of course, our first lady, miss lori. Before i begin, allow me to add my welcome and my best wishes for all the new members of the legislature joining us here today. Thank each of you for bringing your Life Experiences and your unique perspectives to our important work here in the peoples house. Also, i have the privilege today of introducing newly elected Supreme CourtJustice Robin brodin to this chamber and to the idaho judiciary. Congratulations, madam justice. The new year also brings some key departures from our executive branch of government. Im sure you will join me in wishing kevin kemp god speed in his new responsibilities as two eventful and successful years as the director of the department of corrections. We are also losing sam hodge to a well deserved retirement from the office of aging. And kelly pierces experience and leadership will be missed with his recent retirement as administrative of the division of building safety. I extend my thanks and best wishes to each and every one of them. Finally, this will be the last legislative session for Dick Armstrong as director of the department of health and welfare. His stalwart and tireless leadership has set a High Standard for whoever takes on that difficult and often thankful responsibility next. Dick will be retiring in june and hell be leaving big shoes to fill. Dick, i wish you god speed. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my high honor and privilege to report to you today that the state of idaho is resurgent and, in fact, is gaining National Reputation among the states for our stability and our strength. Our finances are secure. Revenue is exceeding expectations. Economic growth is outpacing the overall growth of government and our own operations are more transparent and efficient than theyve ever been. More of our people are at work today than at any time in idahos history. And wages are rising, slowly but surely, along with employer demand for more skilled workers. Meeting that demand is among our most serious challenges. We are facing it head on. And i know that you share my commitment to finding idaho based Solutions Rather than waiting for our National Governments dysfunction to get turned around. So as we honor that spirit of independence, and selfdetermination, i can testify to you today that our citizens are energized and engaged in growing our economy. And improving our communities, caring for our families and neighbors, but most importantly, preparing our youth for a rapidly changing world. Seldom has the future seemed either as hopeful or as uncertain as it is today. Or that any State Government, it is beyond any State Government to bring our National Government into order. But it is our responsibility and our duty as elected leaders to preserve and protect the steady framework of opportunity that the people of idaho need in order to confidently pursue their dreams and freely express their civic virtue. Thats why such a large share of the executive budget recommendation you have before you continue addressing our fiveyear plan for improving idaho Public Schools as well as our efforts to create a seamless, Sustainable Education and Training System extending from kindergarten through career for every idaho citizen. My budget recommendations are about more than fulfilling our shared commitments and implementing our Task Force Recommendations. They are more than just about living up to our constitutional responsibilities. They are even more than providing for the Skilled Workforce that our employers need. Ultimately, my Education Funding proposals are about doing the right thing. For the next generation of idahoans and laying a foundation for their retirement, refinements and adjustments to keep pace with a dynamic global marketplace. So allow me to briefly outline some of the most crucial parts of this next round of investments. My first and most significant recommendation is for an ongoing allocation of 58 million, implementing the career ladder pay model for our Public School teachers. Along with the 75 million that we invested in that effort during the past two years, this new and largest tranche will keep us on track in reaching our fiveyear funding goal for attracting and retaining more of the best and brightest educators available. Im also calling for an ongoing investment of 2. 5 million a year for leadership training of principals in low performing schools and another 2. 5 million a year to train School Administrators on idaho teacher evaluation framework and process. As we work to improve the competitiveness of the idaho teacher pay, it is critical that we have a solid basis for rewarding excellence. Looking beyond the recent challenges that weve experienced with teacher evaluation, this training will help ensure that School Administrators can professionally, thoroughly and meaningfully assess teacher effectiveness and help guide their professional growth. Another of my k12 budget recommendations is for 15 million to help School Districts cover the cost of Higher Health insurance premiums for their employees. That will help them avoid having to backfill those costs fromreie of the Great Recession. Our Task Force Recommendations call for investing a total of 60 million a year in Classroom Technology statewide. Weve allocated 18 million so far, so now im asking for 10 million a year more in starting in fiscal year 2018 for achieving our remaining Technology Funding goal more manageable. Theres also an ongoing 6 million request in my executive budget for improving Teacher Professional Development and the opportunities therein. The idea is to ensure that teachers have the time regularly to share lesson plans and instructional resources, collaborate with each other and learn from one anothers works and what works best in the classroom. My funding recommendation additionally includes another 5 million for expanding and improoufg college ai improving college and career counseling in high schools. Based on your Rising College enrollment rate, that kind of investment helping more students, parents and educators determine the most appropriate options for enabling young people to go on to Higher Education or career Technical Training and state of alecertif. Im also urging you to continue to support the Stem Action Center and its groundbreaking Computer Science initiative. They already having a a Significant Impact on thousands of educators and tens of thousands of students. But the demand is there to expand their reach and to help ensure that every idaho student and teacher gets the chance to embrace the stem fields and the tremendous growth of Career Opportunities that they provide. Thank you, bop. [ applause ] Stem Education is critical to developing those skills most in demand in todays workplace. Sometimes the challenge and complexity of a life interrupt our best plans for pursuing our own Career Opportunities including our good intentions to cleat complete a College Degree within a traditional four or fiveyear span to my budget recommendation once zben for to 18 includes funding for an adult completer scholarship. It will provide an inaccept tif for those with some College Credits who have been away at least three years to return to the classroom and finish up. Its an important part of our strategy for reaching the ambitious and worthy goal of ensuring that at least 60 of idahoans between the ages of 25 and 34 have a College Degree or a certification by 2020. In pursuit of that goal, im recommending the transfer of 35 million to the Permanent Building Fund for Higher Education, education facilities throughout the state. That includes 10 million for the career Material Science Center at boise state university. That includes 10 million for the university of idaho to build a fund for agricultural food and environment for the cafe in magic valley. It includes 10 million for lewis and Clark State College to construct a career Technical Education building adjacent to the proposed new Lewiston High School cte facility and finally 5 million toward remodelling the gayle Life Sciences building at the Idaho State University campus in poke tella. Let me call your attention now and encourage your support for an effort to make Postsecondary Education in Eastern Idaho more affordable for students, more competitive for businesses, and more attractive and responsive to employers needs. Im speaking of course [ applause ] im speaking of the campaign to turn idaho falls into a full flenled community college. Establishing a college in Eastern Idaho will spur Economic Growth and complete a comprehensive statewide system of Affordable Community colleges options along with the Northern Idaho community college, the college of southern idaho, and the college of western idaho. This completes the cycle. This body has already set aside 5 million for startup costs. Now the people of Bonneville County must decide if the polls in may whether to invest their own future by advancing plans to provide better opportunities for students and families for those looking to improve their Career Readiness and for businesses looking to locate or expand. After seeing the difference that the college of western idaho has made right here in treasure valley, after seeing how quickly that cwi has grown to meet pentup demand for new educational opportunities, and after seeing the overwhelming positive response from employers, the college of Eastern Idaho campaign has my full and enthusiastic support. [ applause ] for those of you in canyon county, i usual your support and positive consideration of the college of western idahos effort to expand its napa campus and build a new campus here in boise. Cwi is bursting at the seams with an enrollment of 20,000 students just eight years after opening with 1,200 students. The employers who provide jobs and tax revenue here in the valley are relying on your help to meet that need. My other Higher Education priorities continue reflect the k12 career emphasis. They focus on workforce government and expanding programs at the fouryear institutions and Community Colleges that support such in demand fields as energy, Computer Science, and health care professionals. That includes 2. 4 million request to expand the Residency Program in the graduate medical education that are needed to atrez our chronic shortage of physicians and other Health Care Providers especially in idahos more rural areas. [ applause ] as many of you know, idaho ranks near the bottom nationally in number of doctors and medical residents per capital. In addition, a significant pledge of allegiance of our physicians are approaching retirement age. But we also know theres a better than average chance that when aspiring physicians have their residencies in idaho they will stay in idaho to practice. Thats why im grateful for the work of the Stakeholder Group in developing a plan for increasing medical residencies and implementing other solutions to idahos physician shortage. That includes significantly leveraging my request for expanding reden si programs with federal funds. A generally Historic Development toward making health care more accessible for all idahoans is Idaho College of osteopathic medicine. Idahos First Medical School is being developed on the Idaho State UniversityHealth Sciences cam mus in meridian with construction to begin early this year. They plan to have its first class of students with their studies in 2018. It already has secured 78 new residency positions for eventual graduates at hospitals throughout the region with more on the way. So i hope you will join me in embracing the opportunity and welcoming this important new institution to idaho. [ applause ] i also want to offer my thanks and congratulations to the Community Leaders responsible for making our Behavioral HealthCrisis Center program such a tremendous success. A third of our Community Facilities opened in twin falls about a month ago. It already joined sites operating in idaho falls and coeur dalene and a fourth is in the work in boise in providing accessible and Cost Effective alternatives to jail or emergency room visits for those struggling with Mental Health or Substance Abuse issues. They are providing significant savings on Law Enforcement responses and hospital costs and already have become critical parts of the local system of care. My budget recommendation inclulds 1. 5 million to recover remaining cost of standing up the twin falls and boise facilities. Once again, these are investments that can save our communities millions of dollars a year on the cost of emergency services. That means less stress on local taxpayers. To continue improving our statewide Mental Health system, im also requesting 10. 3 million to build an adolescent Mental Health facility in treasure ral schlie. That would also cover the cost of remodeling a unit at State Hospital south in blackfoot as a secure Mental Health facility. Now lets talk for a minute about Spending Priorities and living within the peoples means. Its no surprise that we all want tax relief. But its a top priority for some in this legislative session. But i would remind you that together we have reduced the burden of citizens on taxes nearing this tenure in fact since 2010 about 1 billion. And youll soon have legislation before you to reduce the tax base rate for Unemployment Insurance paid by idaho employers by 6. 3 this year. Now, thats 46 million in tax relief in the coming year alone and 115 million over the next three years. [ applause ] im as committed as ever to limiting the size of growth of our State Government and we should continue to make many of the efficiencies realized during the Great Recession a part of our standard operations. But i also understand the cost of failing to invest prudently and substantially in our future. So i will not entertain anything that undermines our commitment to meeting the essential State Government functions. And at the top of that list is our investments in improving education and Career Readiness in idaho. [ applause ] we are not alope in our effort to build and improve idahos workforce. From Stem Education to advanced research, we have a Strong Partner in the Idaho National laboratory. It was great to hear recently that a 1. 6 billion stateoftheart facility for handling spent fuel from the navys Nuclear Warships will soon be built there. Now were work to strengthen the capabilities of our colleges and universities by collaborating on one of our most complex challenges, addressing the growing threat of cyberattacks, like the one that was against the fish and game online licensing system just last year. You soon will be seeing the work product of the Cybersecurity Task force led by Lieutenant Governor little, and i ask you to take its findings seriously because make no mistake, we got off lucky last time. Cyber crime and even cyber warfare are very real and growing threats. The next hack here in ild i. D. Could target more Critical Infrastructure including our electrical grid, industrial control systems, military equipment, or even our own personal vehicles. Theyre a world leader in Cyber Security and our partnerships are positioning three universities to be on the cutting edge of addressing the global challenges. Work already is under way to establish and expand a joint cyber lab that i proposed and you funded last year. But we can do more to protect ourselves and secure our future. So now im encouraging the legislature to express its support for an even more substantial step toward i. Daho leadership and cybersecurity, super computing, and new nuclear technologies. The state board of education and the Idaho National lab and our universities are working to finance and build two World Class Research facilities near the center for advanced Energy Studies in idaho falls. The cyber corps and the Collaborative Computing Center will be financed and owned pi the state but paid for by inel through lease payments. Those payments would continue for decades long after the buildings are paid off. Providing another continuing revenue stream for Higher Education. But this initiative will pay dividends far beyond our budget. It will help to address our Workforce Needs by growing a Talent Pipeline for inel and related idaho industries. And perhaps most important, it will enable some of idahos best and brightest students to find highpaying Career Opportunities right here at home. [ applause ] folks, we all aspire to be more selfreliant. We strive for it in our personal lives as well as in the operation of our State Government. Few federal edicts in recent years have been more intrusive, more damaging, or more harmful to our selfdetermination than the Affordable Care act. There is broad agreement in this body on the need to help tens of thousands of idahoans with incomes too high to qualify for obamacare substanceies but too low to afford the Health Care Coverage on their own. Just as clearly, there is very little support for expanding medicaid. I understand that. It would mean subordinating our idaho priorities to the song of federal dollars and neither the National Government nor taxpayers can afford either. So beyond continuing to seek elusive answers to the policy questions weve been asking for years, we now have the option of waiting to see what the Trump Administration and congress will do with obamacare. But waiting by itself is seldom a solution. Instead, while we wait, i would encourage ways to make idaho less dependent on the feds. That includes in building to address idaho goals of improving Health Care Accessibility and affordability. However, i believe that waiting in this case is not entirely an exercise in kicking an oversized can down the road. I mentioned earlier that our immediate future is marked by hope and uncertainty. Nowhere is that dichotomy more striking than in the upcoming change of leadership in washington, d. C. While few people know just what to expect from president elect or his cabinet, i am far more hopeful than anxious about the promise of a new and better day and the relationships between the federal government and the states. [ applause ] dealing with obamacare should only be the start. This is uncharted territory. There is no history or precedent from which to draw a path forward. But i for one look forward to the years ahead to see the renewal of a National Commitment to the principles of federalism, of which our system of government was founded. For years we in the west have been frustrated by the increasing imposition of federal governments will over our livelihood and quality of our life. Federal bureaucracies and entrenched interests have become practiced at reaching far beyond the letter of such laws as the clean air act, the clean water act, the endangered species act to essentially nullify the commonsense stewardship of states and local jurisdictions. I am optimist that i can president elect trump and his team will work to ensure meaningful reforms are implemented to keep such agencies at the epa, forest service, u. S. Fish and Wildlife Service in check. Their focus must be shifted to working more collaboratively with states to develop National Policies that are flexible enough to accommodate local needs and realities. [ applause ] i recently provided the new administration with some detailed advice on improving the federal approach to such issues as protecting the sage routes and their habitat, delisting grizzly bears, and developing needed Energy Infrastructure like the gateway west electrical transmission project in southern plain idaho. I hope and trust that my advice will not fall on deaf ears pause idaho has an exemplary record of managing and protecting our own natural resources, our sewn citizens and communities have the civic virtue and the proven knowhow to ensure that lands and resources are responsibly used for longterm economic and recreational opportunities that they can provide. Im not advocating for the state to take over more than 60 of idaho owned in the federal government, but we should continue to expand on the efforts weve made so far to realize the potential of such idaho values as active management, local stewardship. Our initiative to improve water sustainability is a great example of how idaho can do very well, caring for our own needs without punitive federal oversight. Simply put, states need the opportunity to be full and equal partners in decisions that affect the land, water, wildlife, and other resources within our borders. [ applause ] states must be able to be the architects of our own deszny. We in idaho are already making great use of those rare opportunities where real collaboration with the state is actually encouraged for the feds. Good example. The Good Neighbor authority granted under the 2014 farm bill invites idaho to increase the pace and scale of forest and watershed restoration on federal force. Under agreements reached through the program, ild i. D. Is paying playing a more active role in improving the health of our intermingled timber lapds. Thats reducing fuels and the threat to communities and watersheds from catastrophic wildlivs while creating more jobs and economic benefits for our own citizens. Im not recommending so i am recommending the allocation of 250,000 for additional foresters to keep advancing that effort. Thanks to your support, the lange rand Fire Protection program has been growing in popularity and impact. There are eight groups now organized so far throughout southern idaho. The blm Program Provides training and equipment for local ranchers and other landowners to offer that help that stopped the fires before they can devastate the landscape. In the past year, about 250 idaho ranchers provided Fire Suppression resistance on more than 7. 7 million acres of federal, state, and private lands. As a fringe benefit, letting idaho protect the land from which they drive their live hoods, also serves to protect the sage grouse from habitat destroying wildfire, the biggest single threat to their survival. Folks, federalism can and does work, but only when it involves willing partners. This past election has provided us here in the west with a window of opportunity to make broader and better collaboration between the federal and State Governments a reality. Voters have expressed the desire for government that works both here in boise but also in washington, d. C. Theyre tired of timid representation that seems more concerned with the next election than the next generation. And when government reflects their highests a pragues and understands that individuals as well as states must have both the tools and the freedom to rise up and meet their own best potential [ applause ] the people are still in charge, not special interest, not the news media, not even the political parties. Im proud that idahoans voted in support of real and substantial change in our National Government and against the stuck in the mud business as usual. Now its up to us to put the lessons of 2016 to work for idaho. Now its time to recognize differences that we may have in policy, in personalities, or in priorities do not mean differences in principle. More than ever we have the opportunity and the responsibility as sit seps to help secure idahos future. So good luck. Thank you for your attention. Your talents and your willingness to serve. My door is always open and i look forward to your conscientious and constructive work during this first regular session of the 64th idaho legislature. May god continue to bless idaho and the United States of america