different than the port authority which has a capital plan that they're pursuing, different from the department of transportation that has a capital plan that they're pursuing, different from the department of housing that has a capital plan that they're pursuing. it makes no sense. it never did. this is not the time to be squandering resources. you can't have that many agencies and authorities coming up with their own vision for the state. we need a comprehensive vision. and we need the expertise, frankly, to help us get it done. it's not the state's forte. there are people in the private sector who are expert at this who want to be helpful. we want to incite them in, put together a task force and actually lead this effort. we want a comprehensive master plan of all of the state's construction over the next few years and how we can coordinate and maximize that work to have a positive synergy among the projects.

we also want to accelerate the construction. we can't do this on government time. this is going to having to happen on realtime. it can't take three years to put a shovel in the ground. it just can't work that way anymore and it's not going to. and as i said in the beginning, the task for us is to find leverage with private sector partners. we want to find a 20-1 leverage throughout these projects so we maximize the impact of the state money. we are planning to improve more than 100 bridges which will include building a new tappan zee bridge because 15 years of planning and talking and could miss rating is too long. it is time to build and to act and perform. we're going to repair 2,000 miles of roads.

that's from buffalo to new york city five times. we're going to finance upgrades to 90 municipal water systems, improve 48 state parks and historic sites that are visited by 47 million people per year. and hurricane irene and storm lee repair 114 flood control projects all across this state. we need power to power our economic growth. let's build an energy highway system that doesn't exist now. we have supply of power in northern new york. quebec. we have power supply in western new york. we have a tremendous need for power in downstate new york. let's connect the dots. let's connect the supply dots to the need. what eisenhower did the '50s by building an interstate system is

what this energy highway can be to the next generation. if we want the state to develop and we need the jobs and we need the businesses, we're going to need the power and this is the way we're going to do it. the state can master plan a system and issue an rfp will allow private sector companies to come in to bid it and build it. we believe they will finance it over a period of time, and we believe it can generate $2 billion in from structure. >> this is no doubt a comprehensive and ambitious jobs program. $15 billion in infrastructure, $4 billion for a convention center, $2 billion for javits advance formation, $2 billion for energy highways, $1 billion for gaming $1 billion for buffalo that we believe will actually generate additional money from the private sector. a total of about $25 billion. this program will make a major

impact on the trajectory of this state's economy if we get it done. and the people of this state desperately need it. because it call comes down to one word, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. that's what's people need in this state. and that's the focus of this plan. part two, we need to reimagine the government that can make our plans a reality. this is not going to be a question of tinkering around the edges. we started last year with our sage project. the more i've seen, the worse the situation is with the state agencies. this is going to be a ground up reorganization. i'm going to be giving you more details in the budget. but the system has just gotten to a point where it is not

operational. and we've been cutting the budget for many years and reducing personnel. we never reduced the workload, and the wheels have come off the car. we're going to need to fundamentally reimagine how the government operates. and we're going to need a government that performs better and costs less. a government that works for the people of this state must commit to fiscal discipline. the state's competitive advantage is increased when we are reducing taxes, not raising taxes. we have to commit to hold the line on spending this year and close the remaining budget deficit with no new taxes and no new fees. we can do it. we must do it. we must do more on mandate relief. because the pensions are going sky high, as you know.

100% increase in pensions from 2009 to 2013, believe it or not. we need to reform the pension system and create a new tier 6 in the state. i understand the politics. i understand the political opposition. but the choice for you this year my friends, is this. when we're talking about pension reform for union employees, we're talking about union employees who don't even exist at this point in time. because current employees are covered by the current pension system. we're talking about changing a pension system for employees who may be hired in the future. employees who may be hired in the future. no one ever said a pension system was a legacy or an inheritance where it got passed from one person down to the next. i refer to these people as the unborn. they're not even hired yet. and if they look at a job with a

benefit package and decide to take the job with that the benefit package, that is their decision. and their opinion. but to protect a pension for years in the future as a legacy when the taxpayers of this state just can't afford it anymore is a violation of the public service and the public duty. we have taxpayers who are suffering today. and we have taxpayers who need help today. and let's respond to them. we need to help local governments. the property tax cap we passed worked. it forced fiscal discipline. forced being an operative word. and it stimulated a citizen dialogue. but it stopped the assumed annual increases. and property taxes were going up at a rate that was unstainable.

unsustainable. 6%, 7%, 8%, every year. and it was just on automatic pilot and you heard it all over the state. the tax cap doesn't stop as we know, the taxes from going up. but it engaged the citizens. what is this tax cap? what's this about? more people are now turning up at the discussions, the local budget discussions because citizens are engaged and it's put presidential on the local officials to think before increasing. but that's exactly what we wanted to happen. and we want the citizens engaged. and it is working. but the local governments are also right that we have to do more on mandate relief. we set up a mandate relief council in last year's legislation. i want that mandate relief council to have public hearings all across the state where

citizens participate and local elected officials participate. let them come up with a package that they present to the legislature this year on mandate relief. let the legislature take it up or down vote this year because the local governments deserve that. we must change the focus and reimagine the government. in our priority area. priority mission for this state government is public education. i can we can all agree. i want you to know i learned my most important lesson my first year as governor in the area of public education. i learned that everyone in education has a lobbyist. i am not kidding. surptz, they have a lobbyist.

principals, they have a lobbyist. teachers have a lobbyist. school boards also have a lobbyist. the maintenance personnel, they have lobbyists. even the bus drivers have lobbyists. the only group without lobbyists are the students. this year, my friend, the students do have a lobbyist. i'm taking a second job. i'm going to be the governor in -- of the state of new york and i'm also going to be the student lobbyist. and we're going to having to

take a fundamental look at what we've been doing. because the purpose of public education is to help children grow. the purpose of public education is not to grow the public education bureaucracy. we are driven by the business of education. more than achievement in education. business of public education. and the attention to the business of public education has brought us to a point where we spend more than any state in the nation. the lack of focus on the achievement and the students has brought us to a point where we're 38th in graduation rates. it's not about the business.

it's not about the lobbyists. it was about the student and the achievement. and we have to change our focus and we have to switch those two numbers. then we'll be a success in public education. we need major reform. we have to change the paradigm when it comes to transforming education, we need to focus on student achievement. and we're going to need a real teacher evaluation system. the law that was passed in 2010 during the race to the top law just doesn't work. we recently even saw the board of regents threatening to stop money going to school districts because the teacher evaluation system has never been put in place. two years, and it hasn't even started yet. furz our children deserve better than that. and hopefully, they get it this year.

>> we must also transform education when it comes to the management of school districts. there's a vast disparity between how school districts manage the money and manage the system. some are managed much better than others. it's a point that hasn't been evaluated or looked at. we need to demand management efficiency and have a real management efficient system along with a teacher and school academic system. we need a new blueprint for education. i want to form a commission to really come up with an overhaul plan for our education system. i want to do it on a bipartisan basis. i want to do it cooperatively with the legislature. where we have joint appointments, but i want the report done this year because we've wasted enough time and i want to do it together. public education is a core

mission. we simply cannot fail. we will not fail. we all say it's about the children and the funnel. it is about the children and it is about the future. that's one obligation every person in this room takes seriously. i know we'll accomplish it through you this legislative session. public safety is also a core mission. and we learned the hard way last year that we must anticipate and be prepared for all emergencies. we need a statewide network of emergency responders who are prepared for anything at any time. i don't want to get into a long debate about global warming. whether it's happening or whether it's not. but i can tell you this, 100-year floods happen every two years now. so something is going on. i witnessed firsthand last year the work we need to do in the breakdown in communication

transportation and the need for better deployment of personnel throughout the state. we have a spotty emergency response system. some areas of the state have more expertise, more equipment, more personnel. other parts of the state don't. we must have the best state emergency management operation in the country. it is literally a matter of life and death. it is one of the foremost responsibilities of government. we are blessed to have a gentleman who has more experience in this area than anyone i've ever met. he has come up to join us to put together our state emergency operation. he previously ran the emergency operation for the city of new york and for the state of indiana. he then went to washington where he is a biodefense expert at the u.s. health and human services. but he's a new yorker first.

we asked him to come back and leave washington to come put together our network. he agreed. we owe him a debt of gratitude. i'm excited to have him. let's give a big round of applause to jerry howard. >> part three, a new york version for a progressive future. we are still in a financial crisis. it's still taking a terrible toll on our state's homeowners. last year we created the department of financial redded by ben jan min lawsky. it was a new york state innovation, which combined financial regulation and consumer protection. this year we'll establish the foreclosure relief unit. which will provide counseling and mediation services to help banks resolve mortgages and help new yorkers stay in their homes, finally.

last year we enacted the best tenant protections in 30 years. this year we're going to make sure the laws and regular lays are being enforced creating the protection unit at the department of homes and community renewal to investigate fraud and prosecute unscrupulous landlords. too many tents have been abused for too long and it stops now. we are committed to expanding mwbe opportunities and doubles the goal of 20% for mwbe. we've identified an obstacle which as many of the mwbe companies can't obtain the bonds that are necessary to participate in the state contract. we will now be providing support for that bond which will allow

companies to qualify for up to $200 million in state contracts. our sun ty system is the great equalizer. and for working families, the sunni system said that any student in new york could get the best college education in the nation. and suny has done that magnificently well for many years. it is a precious jewel of this state, and it's a jewel that we starred polishing last year and we're going to continue. we started the new york suny 2020 program last year that allowed campuses to compete for grants to improve the academic excellence of the college but also become an economic development generator for the region. the research centers competed last year. it's going very well.

we want to expand that competition to the 60 other campuses for suny all across the state and have three awards of $20 million each to spur competition and provide funding for suny to reach the level of excellence that we all want them to reach. it is an exciting program. suny is doing mastly well. we are blessed with a great leader. let's give a big round of applause to chancellor nancy zemp fer. slurg for all the progress and for all our sophistication, we still have wrongs to right. and some of them are frighteningly basic. one in six children in new york live in homes without enough food.

and when you think of that statistic, with all we've accomplished, with all we have, we still have in this state children who go hungry. my friends, that is just simply my friends, that is just simply unacceptable in this great state in the year 2012. the federal food stamp program is available for many of these families who are not taking advantage of it. 30% of the people who are eligible for food stamps don't enroll. that's 1.4 million people in the state, $1 billion in federal funds unclaimed. we want to start a program where we promote outreach, we increase enrollment, and we end the stigma of applying for food stamps. one of the things we do now, which makes the stigma actually worse, and creates a barrier for families coming forward to get

food stamps, is we require fingerprinting. i'm saying stop fingerprinting for families with children for food, stop it all across the state. and let's stop it this year. i understand fraud detection. i understand fingerprinting. but don't make a child go to bed hungry because your government wants to come up with a fraud program that requires fingerprinting. [ applause ] and we will make sure no child goes to bed hungry in this state. i want to expand the dna data bank, which has been a great technological revolution in the area of criminal justice. it helps prove guilt or prove innocence. it's helped with 2,700 convictions. it's helped with 27 exonerations of innocent people.

right now the data base is applied to 50% of all crimes. i propose we expand it to 100% of all crimes. let's provide justice for all. let's be the first state in the nation to do it. new york can lead the way once again. [ applause ] we have done great work when it comes to tax fairness. there is more work that we can do. we can go through that tax code and we can close loopholes, we can make it more fair. we can make it more pro-growth. there's a lot of work to do. i want to appoint a tax reform and fairness commission to go through the code to close the loopholes. i want to do it on a bipartisan basis in partnership with the legislature and let's get new york the fairest tax code in the nation that incentivizes job growth in the state. [ applause ]

i'm going to be sending you a bill on campaign finance reform that puts public financing, match contributions, lower limits and increased enforcement at the board of elections, new york currently rates 48th in the country in voter turnout. we have a government that we can be proud of. let's have -- let's build on that and let's have elections that new yorkers can be proud of also. let's pass campaign finance reform, and let's do it this year. in closing, let me say this, by all accounts last year was a historic success. i'm hearing it, and i'm sure you're hearing it. people ask, how did you do it? how did it happen?

they have all sorts of complicated answers for why we had a successful year or complicated theories. i think it's simpler than that. i think we had a change of attitude last year. a collective change of attitude we were done with the dysfunction. done with the label of being dysfunctioned. we were tired of dealing with the incompetence of government, and we made up our mind that we were going to change it we disregarded the political extremists. on the left and on the right. and we did what was best for the people of this state. we believed in the people of this state. we honored the people of this state. and we showed a mutual respect to each other.

institutional and person. and by the end of the year, i really believe we put our politics aside, and we were new yorkers first. not democrats first or republicans first. and we acted that way. [ applause ] and it worked. and we delivered. and we got things done. and we made the state a better state. and that's why we're here in the first place. and the people get it. and i am so honored, so honored to be part of what you did. and i've been so overjoyed to be able to go out to the people of this state and explain to them our accomplishments and how we worked together to make this state a better state. now, you will hear as you're

back in the town the nay sayers and the cynics are saying, well, what happened last year was a fluke. you can't do that again. that was, for whatever reason, the stars, the planets, but it was a one-time situation. that we're going to slip back to the old way. that we're going to slip back into dysfunction. that's what you'll hear from the cynics. i'm here to tell you, the cynics don't know us and they don't know new york. because there's no way we are going back. we are going forward. there's no way we are going down. we are going up. i am telling you, we have just started to explore the potential of this partnership.

we have just started to explore the limits of our imagination. we have just started tackling the problems that this state needs tackled. this agenda we laid out today is an ambitious agenda. more ambitious than anything this government has done in decades and decades and decades. but it's an agenda i know we can do because we are new yorkers and we are part of the best government historically in the nation. and we can do this. we can build the largest convention center in the country. we can rebuild buffalo. we can transform the jacob javits site. we can build a whole new energy highway system. we have that capacity. it's who we are.

it's where we come from and we're not going back. this whole state's legacy, our history, was about seeing challenges and attacking the challenge. and always going forward. we did all sorts of things that they said we couldn't do. we built the empire state building 102 stories in the middle of a depression. we built that erie canal to open up the entire western commerce. we did it on time, on budget, with men and women and mules. we've always been the progressive capitol of the nation. we ended slavery in the state 35 years before they signed the emancipation proclamation. we heard the women's suffrage movement, the workers' right movement. it was all born in this state, in this capitol by this

government. this state has served so many purposes. we've been the gateway to immigration. other states build walls to keep people out. we open our arms, and we invite people in. we're not afraid of diversity. we celebrate diversity. we are a state of immigrants. [ applause ] and we are up state and we are down state. we are black. we are white. we are gay. we are straight. but we are one state at the end of the day and we act that way. we come together because we are new york. and if we remember those lessons, my friend, there is nothing that is stopping us. this isn't the end. this is the beginning. last year we learned to walk. next year we're going to run. we hth