Nearly 870 million. Her comments were about half hour. [ applause ] ladies and gentlemen, guests, fellow oklahomians, the governor of the great state of oklahoma, governor mary fallin. [ applause ]ans, the governor of the great state of oklahoma, governor mary fallin. [ applause ] thank you. Lieutenant governor lamb, state elected officials, speaker mccall, president pro tem schultz, members of the court, honorable senators, representatives, cabinet members, our tribal leaders, guests and citizens of the state of oklahoma, it is my pleasure to be here with you today as we discuss the state of our state. Im joined today by my husband, wade christiansen, and our wonderful children, christina and adam and our daughter in law, elizabeth. And other family members. Welcome, guys. [ applause ] i look forward to working with our new legislative leaders, ro testimony schultz and speaker mccall and continue to work with our Senate Minority leader sparks and House Minority heard inman. And thank you to our leaders for committee to better government. I especially appreciate the second bond issue enacteded last year to renovate this wonderful irreplaceable building in which we now gather. You might have heard a little bit of construction noise. I asked if they mind to stop while i gave my speech today. We will celebrate its 100th birthday on june 30th and we have planned a great celebration for it. Well, this is my seventh year ive had the pleasure of delivering the state of the state message. And we have accomplished a lot. And i plan to be just as productive in my remaining two years. In a book of leadership by stan tollen it is written great leaders are never satisfied with the current levels of performance. They are relentlessly driven by possibilities and potential achievement. Those who try to do something and fail are better than those who do nothing and succeed. Today i want to talk about what we can accomplish to give hope to our state and to chart a course for a better future. There is no question that the dramatic downturn in our Energy Sector and increased loss in our sales tax revenue from Online Shopping the last couple of years has affected both our state and both our private and public sectors. But we are a resilient state. Made of strong people with a long proud history of facing challenges headon and coming out in a better place. We love our families and strive to improve our economy. We are patriotic and respect our Law Enforcement officer and veterans. We value our freedoms and our liberties. And preparing this speech, i thought about our strengths which i just mentioned, along with our weaknesses, our opportunities, and our threats. Oklahoma will continue to struggle if we dont fix our structural deficits in our budget. [ applause ] a well respected ceo of American Express is fond of paraphrasing a quote attributed to napoleon. Leaders define reality and provide hope. So as our states top leaders, lets focus on the reality of our state budget deficit. So start for decades we have attempted to balance our budget for too long with the use of onetime funding resources. We cannot afford to pass another budget using a large amount of nonrecurring revenue. It is important to provide sufficient revenues to meet the base i basic responsibility our government owes its citizens. [ applause ] and here they are. Educating our children. [ applause ] ensuring health and Public Safety for our people. [ applause ] and preserving and improving our infrastructure. [ applause ] now no one can oorg u these are not fundamental States Services and youre ability to provide them to oklahomians reliables and inefficiently is not cutting it. Government in and of itself does not create jobs but it should provide the right environment to grow the economy through a free market system unfettered by burdensome regulations. It is our responsibility to prepare a plan and a workable budget for longterm solutions to the challenges that our state faces. We must deliver services that work for the people and put people over politics. Go right ahead. [ applause ] but lets face it. The continued uncertainty of our budget affects the services we provide to our services but also affects the effectiveness of our government. So lets Work Together to get the job done to ensure the best outcomes for our people. Now to do so, we need to invest in oklahomas future. So what do we do about it . Today we are proposing a series of bold reforms to stabilize our state regarding both our recurring revenue and repairing the structural deficit of our budget. We must put oklahoma on a Solid Foundation for its future. This proposal represent a modernization of oklahoma tax laws and growth so we have the ability to flexible spending on newly elerjing needs. This plan eliminates the most aggressive taxes on the books today, the state sales tax on groceries. [ applause ] this will benefit all oklahomians, eliminate the state sale tax on grocery says expected to result in an annual savings somewhere between 350 to 676 for a family of four. It also gets rid of one of the most volatile sources of revenue that Corporate Income tax. [ applause ] it will work to reduce the paperwork and the red tape burden of many Small Businesses in our state and boost economic development. This tax provides more transparency as it also eliminates the need for the legislature to pick winners and losers with specific tax credits. Third, sales tax modernization. For many decades, when the Legislature First complicated excuse me, contemplated the sales tax laws to boost revenues, we did complicate it too, by the way. You know, sometimes it comes out what you are really thinking on your mind. Right judges, justices . Lets start that back again. Oh, goodness. For many decades ago when the Legislature First contemplated the sales tax laws to boost revenues, the economy depended on the manufacturer and sale of goods. As an economy in the United States shifted from a manufacturing based economy to servicebased economy the way we impose taxes and collect revenue no longer reflects our current economy. But instead an outdated system that has not changed much since its inception. So by expanding the Sales Tax Base this allows us to eliminate the state sales tax on groceries and the Corporate Income tax and it may be possible in the future to further lower the sales tax rate. [ applause ] too improve the health of our state im also again asking you to raise our cigarette tax. Smoking remains the number one cause of preventable death in oklahoma. It cost our state 1. 62 billion in health care costs. Now the revenue raised by this can be spent on other Current Health care needs. Next for decades, we have talked about how gasoline and diesel taxes should go to roads and bridges. My tax reform plan does that. My plan will ensure that taxes associated with roads and bridges are the Funding Source for the maintenance of roads and bridges, period. Now what this does is it returns the individual income taxes to the general revenue fund. This plan does not, by the way, impact the department of transportations eightyear plan. It will stay in tact. Oklahoma currently ranks 48th in diesel tax in the nation and 49th in gasoline tax. So im proposing a new revenue stream by increasing our gas and diesel taxes to the Regional State average but below the national average. By trading out the use of individual income tax to a gas and diesel tax dedicated to roads and bridges, this budget change dramatically improves the percentage of revenue collectiones this legislature will be able to control. As weve discussed for decades, lets put fuel taxes to roads and bridges. [ applause ] my working together and avoiding distractions, we can solve todays problems and make oklahoma grow and prosper. First to improve the work force and education. I want to talk about that. As of august 31, 2016, there were more than 71,000 open jobs in the state of oklahoma. Of these jobs, almost 18,000 of what we call critical occupations such as engineers, teachers, nurses, chemists, accountants and truck drivers. Therefore in my budget im providing 20 million for critical occupations. A thriving prosperous economy must have a skilled educated work force and that starts with good teachers in the classroom providing our children with a quality education five days a week. And my budget provides for both. And in a recent meeting i hosted with some Major National site Location Companies an executive asked me how he could persuade businesses to come to oklahoma when some of our schools have fourday education weeks. We must have fiveday school weeks. [ applause ] now lets act on a pay raise for Public School teachers. Its what the public wants and what our families need. The pay raise may need to be phased in and it may be targeted but it must be done. However, we also know that a pay raise alone will not improve student outcomes. We have to ensure that more existing dollars are reaching the classroom by tackling administrative inefficiencies head on. [ applause ] we have a very topheavy system that needs to be reformed to provide teachers and students more resources. The state already provides a number of services that school could voluntarily take advantage of to save money such as our i. T. Services, purchasing and bonding assistance. So in addition to in addition to that, im creating a task force to review the States Education funding formula. Funding sources. And analyze the k12 system footprint. Just as we must fix our states budget structural issues we must do the same for our k12 Education System. [ applause ] our Education System must be focused on creating the best outcomes. To do so we must ensure more money goes he to the classrooms and to teachers. We must empower students and parents by giving them more choices. So they can best address their own needs. [ applause ] we must be accountable to the taxpayers on how we spend our education dollars. Second, Public Safety. [ applause ] did i wake you up, commissioner . He liked that part, didnt he . He was awake, im just teasing him. He has been ringing off my phone. So here we go, commissioner. This is your part. Second. Public safety. We need to keep our families and our communities safe. Last fall a dangerous man named michael vance, jr traveled across oklahoma on a deadly crime spree for a week. Law enforcement was desperate it find him and stop him. He was found in a rural area in western he oklahoma. Trooper brian ka castaza 230 miles in eastern oklahoma to help. Driving at a high rate of speed, trooper castanza chased vance down a dark rural road, blowing out his patrol cars own windshield while exchanging gunshots with vance who had an ak47. Im sure youve seen the video. Its pretty incredible. Trooper castanza along with other troopers who helped to apprehend vance are here. And trooper hanover. Please stand as i call your names. Trooper keezler. Brandon stewart, micah willington. Ho helicopters pilots, paterson and trooper castanza, please stand, and let us thank you for your service. [ applause ] thank you to all of our Law Enforcement officers and their families. Who make sacrifices to keep us all safe. We appreciate you. Now approximately 26 of our current Highway Patrol troopers are eligible for retirement. We must prepare for the future and fund a trooper academy. And while were at it, no trooper should be furloughed or restricted to drive 100 miles a day because of lack of funding. My budget accommodates these issues. And best thing about Public Safety is not just about investing in the oklahoma Highway Patrol, Public Safety is also about investing in ways to be smarter on crime and tough on true criminals. [ applause ] its no secret our prison population is in crisis with over 61,000 people under the jurisdiction of corrections. Our prisons are way overcapacity and our prison population is expected to grow by 25 over the next ten years. Oklahomas overall incarceration rate is the second highest in the country. We lead the nation in female incarceration, incarcerating women at 2 1 2 times the national average. Now contrary to what some of you may think, oklahoma women are not meaner. Without reform, oklahoma must build or lease three new prisons and expense of proposition, even in the best of times, we would need two new prisons immediately without any further reform this year. So that is why i created the Oklahoma Justice Reform Task force to find Datadriven Smart on crime policies to focus on improving Public Safety. [ applause ] 75 percent of our new admissions in prison are nonviolent offenders per statute. The number of drug possession offenders sentenced to prison with no prior convictions has more than double in five years. My budget includes new money for corrections he and treatment which includes a 50 million bond issue to build wings on a mens and womens prisons for Substance Abuse offenders and rehabilitation. [ applause ] now there is unprecedented conservative support on this issue from groups like the America Conservative Union and Law Enforcement leaders to reduce crime and incarceration. Meanwhile smart on crime states conservative states such as texas, utah, georgia, kentucky and south dakota are already headed in this direction and states have seen better Public Safety outcomes by pursuing these types of reforms. As roy williams, president and ceo of Greater Oklahoma city chamber of commerce recently said and quote oklahoma spends too much money without positive outcomes locking up lowlevel nonviolent people. [ applause ] the legislature seriously needs to consider these recommendations. Then we then went on to say taxpayers have to spend billions to incarcerate or people. While im talking about Public Safety, send me a bill to fix the real id licenses. [ applause ]