we have 340 kindergarten and first grade students who are learning science, social studies, and mass in either chinese or spanish. in 15 or 20 years, it will make a difference. in a global world, and have to make sure we have a workforce host: this is lance on our republican line for our guest.

good morning. caller: thank you c-span. recently, i understand that your office or you have proposed gun legislation in delaware chled require law abiding citizens to report within 48 hours to police the loss or theft of a firearm from their residence. can you explain how you think this will reduce criminal activity or criminal use of guns? guest: sure. and let me step back and say there are actually several pieces of this. first, gun proposals should be looked at in the context of three main initiatives. one is the increased focus on mental health. we've identified a significant gap in mental health services particularly at the middle school. we have programs at high school, we have people in the elementary schools but we don't have anybody in the middle schools. so we're proposing a tenfold increase from three to 30 the number of baverl health

specialists at the middle school. we've also got a significant effort under way we started a couple years ago in the area of school safety. and then we have basically making sure that every school has a high quality safety plan. and then several pieces of gun safety legislation. one being the background checks for all purchases. and then one of them also being this responsibility within 48 hours of realizing that somebody has stolen a weapon or lost a weapon, to report that. and one of the main things we think this will do is help with respect to the issue of straw purchases. so it's not like any one of these bills is the ultimate answer but we think collectively they can make a difference. we also believe this has absolutely nothing to do with taking guns away infringing on the second amendment whatsoever. we support the second amendment but we think the proposals collectively can be helpful.

host: what about the proposals to act on those proposals? guest: many of them are quite similar to what we're doing in delaware but we also felt that we couldn't just wait to see what happens in washington, that we thought it was appropriate to take these steps in delaware as well. host: louisiana, independent line. caller: good morning. i would like to know this. i would like to say good morning. i just think that everything is going downwards really. because you see all this money going out of town and having all these luncheons and dinners. and my governor will in louisiana must have taken 20 trips to different states and cities during the republican convention that was going on and he still lost. i'm independent. i didn't really care who won. i'm independent.

i feel like as republican is for the rich white your democrat for the poor blacks independents is for everybody. i don't care. the -- host: the question the specific question for our guest? guest: the specific question is why do you have to cut spending that's going to help the poor and help the people that's in need in health care and help people that get into trouble and all that? guest: one of the thing that is you'll see if you look at the budgets of states across the country, certainly my states, most across the country over the last many years the amount of money that we spend on health care specifically which i think is what the caller was asking about has been increasing significantly. and it's a challenge. and because of that and the fact that we have limited resources at the state level unlike at the federal level where they can just essentially borrow to pay operating

expenses we can't do that. so we're required by our own state laws to do a balanced budget. and because health care expenses have been increasing so significantly that's limited what we've been able to spend and invest in some other areas. so i know that states across the country are working hard to figure out a way to improve the quality of health outcomes, reduce the cost of health. i know a lot of people say you can't do those two things simultaneously. we think you can and a couple days ago the federal department of health and human services made a number of what they called innovation grants to states across the country working very hard to figure out how to reduce costs at the same time so that in fact states are in a position where we can invest in some other areas, return money to taxpayers as appropriate and do everything we can to make our states better. >> host: this comes at a time where governors of states are

deciding whether to expand medicaid under federal requirement. are states concerned about how many people they can take on and if the federal government can meet its obligations when it comes to finances? guest: let me explain this whole medicaid expansion issue. essentially what this is all about with respect to the passage of the affordable care act in delaware we made the decision to do this medicaid expansion and what it really means is that the federal government will pick up 100% of the costs for three years, 90% thereafter so long as we're providing medicaid coverage to an additional group of part of our population based on income. now, this does a couple things. first of all it means more people will have access to good care. otherwise, when people get sick if they don't have this kind of coverage they get sick, they get sicker they don't see any kind of health care professional, they probably end up in the emergency room which is the most expensive place of all for them to get care.

and this provision will mean that more of these people can get access to less expensive primary care at the right time. in addition to that at least for the sake of delaware, this move made sense. this really was not a philosophical issue, a democratic or republican issue, this was an issue of math. and for the taxpayers of delaware this made sense because there would be a higher reimbursement for medicaid for some of the people that we're already serving. so we believe that it made sense financially. we believe it also made sense in terms of getting more people quality care. >> do you believe the government can meet its financial obligations then mblingtsdz i do. because i menchingsed a moment ago one of the biggest challenges has not been getting as much attention but it's about trying to do what we call payment reform we've. moving away the fee for service model. where we focus more on health outcomes, rewarding quality. not just rewarding and not just

compensating for more and more procedures but really rewarding quality outcomes. and a lot of the interesting work about that will be going on in states across the country and one of the things that we'll be talking about this weekend in washington amongst the governors is learning from each other about some of the things that are happening in our states. host: what is the significance of florida signing on this week? guest: i think each state has to make the decision for themselves and that's the beauty of our system. states are laboratories of democracy. each governor working with their respective legislators have to make decisions about what's best interests of the people of their states. so i'm not surprised to see more states signing on but these decisions will be left up to the local leadership. host: another resident of delaware on our democrat's line. caller: good morning. first governor thanks for representing delaware so well. i'm calling to ask about with

the gun legislation that you proposed here in delaware. i want to thank you for that. i also want to encourage the enforcement of the gun laws with the republicans tend to really want to have happen i want that also as a democrat. so i wanted to advocate for that. my question is that with the governor's association and the meeting that you're having altogether, are there efforts for governors to collaborate across state lines to enforce the gun legislation laws that they have in their different states so that we can get some movement going along those lines without waiting for federal houses to get their act together? >> well, this is a very interesting question and it's a good question and let me mention two things. first of all, you may remember a couple years ago delaware passed -- i had proposed the general assembly passed and i signed a bill requiring delaware to submit names to the national instant criminal data

base, basically around people with mental health issues, people who should not get guns. before that delaware had not reported anybody and now we are. and so this is really the kind of participation beyond state lines and we think that was the right thing for us to do. secondly with respect to collaboration between states. a couple of years ago governor o'malley in maryland invited me to come down with members of our law enforcement team to really focus on cross border law enforcement. that can certainly include gun crimes and i think that kind of collaboration can be valuable. it's not just about what happens at the federal level but it's really about smart policies at the state level as you note in your question laws may differ from state to state. and we're not all trying to seek exact consistency across states but we're trying to learn from each other. and obviously the most important thing is we're all trying to figure out how we respect the second amendment and keep people safe all at the

same time. host: we go next to pittsburgh, pennsylvania. democrat's line. caller: good morning governor. guest: good morning. caller: i want to ask you a political question. how much discretion does the president have in distributing the sequestration cuts to districts or states and how much -- and if he does have influence or does have discretion, will that have influence on the negotiations for a solution? guest: well, it's an interesting question probably better directed to the administration. my sense not probably a lot of discretion in terms of choosing what state over the other. and i think probably the office of management and budget's going to have to make some very difficult choices. >> we leave this conversation now. you can find it on line at c-span.org take you live to the winter meeting in washington,

d.c. for a discussion on employing people with disabilities. >> that may be my only chance to use a gavel so i just wanted to give it a try. i'm the governor of delaware and i get to -- well, thank you. very nice of you. thank you. what a great way to get this meeting off to a good start. so as the chair of the national governors association, i want to take this opportunity to welcome you to this 2013 nga winter meeting. may i have a motion for the adoption of the rules of procedure for the meeting? thank you. all in favor. all right. part of the rules requires any governor who wants to submit a new policy or resolution for adoption at this meeting will need a three-fourdses vote to suspends the rules to do so and please submit any proposal in writing by 5:00 p.m. on sunday, february 24th.

i want to thank the vice chair for being here and for her leadership. and -- go ahead. i heard a scattering of applause here. that's it. and i want to take this opportunity to welcome our newest governors. i'm not sure all of them are here at the moment but i would like to introduce them. i think there are seven so if you will hold your applause to the end. the new governor of american snowa. the governor of indiana. the governor of montana. the new governor of new hampshire. the new governor of north carolina. the governor of puerto rico. third time today i've got to use my spanish accent. and the new governor of

washington state. congratulations to all of you. we are delighted to have you here. i also want to recognize our guest from the white house with whom we work very closely the office of intergovernment al affairs. thank you f thank you very much for being here as well. we have a significant international presence at the winter meeting this year. i'd like to take a moment to recognize our guests. we're joined today by the new ambassador from mexico. the mexican ambassador to the united states. thank you. and also the executive secretary to mexico national conference of governors. with us once again is the president of the chinese people's association for friendship with foreign countries whom we're working

with to plan another u.s.-china governor's forum in beijing this spring. thank you. we're also joined by the premier of man tobea, a delegation from the canada-united states interparliamentary group and our friends from the brazilian embassy and typea office. if you all could stand, please. thank you for being here. thank you. thank you very much. you honor us by being here. so when i became chair of the national governor's association in july, i began my year-long initiative. it's called a better bottom line, employing people with disabilities. this initiative focuses on the roles of both state governments and business ks play in advancing employment opportunities for people with disabilities to be gainfully employed with the labor market. now, as governors we know how

critical jobs and employment are to our constituents and to the economies of our states. and when barriers present a significant segment of our population from participating in the workforce, talent is being wasted and our economic competitiveness suffers. and for individuals with disabilities, employment outcomes have not improved since 1990. during the recent recession, employment realities for people with disabilities got even worse. workers with disabilities left the workforce as five times the average rate. the median income for these workers is less than two thirds the median wages for other workers. so that is why i chose this initiative, building a better bottom line, employing people with disabilities. we can do better and we must do better. an estimated 55 million americans -- one in five -- has a disability. it's the largest minority

population in our country and disability crosses every demographic and it's the one minority population that any one of us could fall into on any day. anybody who can work and wants to work should have the opportunity to do so. advancing employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities is the right thing to do. it's the smart thing for governments to do. this is an issue of workforce competitiveness. it's part of preparing for an aging workforce, for increasing the number of veterans returning to work, and for meeting the needs of businesses with skilled workers. and it makes good business sense. employers cashe about the skills that an individual brings to the job. it doesn't matter whether you're born with additional challenges or as in the case of our wounded veterans you acquire them later in life. what matters is a person's ability. and that's why we're opening this 2013 winter meeting with

the discussion about why employing individuals with disabilities is better for businesses' bottom line. we'll hear in just a couple of minutes about the c eeo from wall greens about why that has been good for that fortune 500 company. and it's our jobs to make sure that people with disabilities are fully included in our society. and that means part of the competitive workforce. making a difference will not be easy but it's most definitely worth it. employing people with disabilities means improving our constituents' quality of life, spending the -- bending the cost curve and contributing to workforce competitiveness. it's an incredible win-win-win that cuts across party lines and the initiative is dedicated to making a difference. we launched the initiative last july and since then there has been a ground swell of support. many of you have contacted me

to express your support and the support of your agency staffs. many of whom have shared the innovative practices under way in your states. we've convened representatives from advocacy community. we've convened experts and business executives to inform our work. and as the initiative continues for the next six months we're going to focus on educating both the private sector and the public sector as employers about accommodating people with disabilities in the workforce and the workplace and the benefits of doing so. we're going to focus on how we support state governments in joining with business partners to develop strategies that promote the hiring and retention of individuals with disabilities. and integrated employment. and we're going to focus on how we establish public private partnerships that result in increased employment of individuals with disabilities. now, my goal for this initiative is to provide all governors with examples of best

practices and other resources for states to advance these goals and to achieve these goals. so this coming may, the nga will hold two regional institutes to provide governors and their senior advisers with an opportunity to learn from each other and to visit local companies to see first-hand how successful businesses are employing people with disabilities and high-skilled competitive and integrated settings. the first will be in pittsburgh and governor corbeth will be our host and the second will be in seattle with governor insly as our host. i encourage all to attend and send teams from your states who work on these shizz every day. finally, i want to thank several organizations who have made important contributions to this initiative. intel, banks of america, rezz care, bloomberg philanthropies and wall zpwreens. the cross section of private

sector support underscores the widespread enthusiasm that i've seen since the initiative began. we're pleased to have this broad support because moving the needle on this issue, which is our objective, is going to require shared responsibility. and already support has been demonstrated across political lines, across the public and private sectors and across communities. and before i introduce our speaker, i did want to mention each of you should have gotten in your rooms a bag. it's a very attractive bag. it says building a better bottom line. it was made by people individuals with disabilities from bank of america at a facility in delaware. the bag is filled with cookies, popcorn, dog biskets, coffee, note cards, and a number of other things made by people with disabilities from around the country and we are very grateful to many of you to the

first spouses and to many of the folks who work on your staffs for sending these items to us. we really wanted to spotlight many of the things that people across the country with disabilities are already doing. i'm making special note of this because if your troopers are anything like mine they could have taken your bag to eat the cookies and if you've not seen it in this room, please ask them. we actually have a few more cookies available. but it was really intended for all of you and your spouses. so now it is my great pleasure to introduce greg watson who is the ceo of wall greens. he has worked at wall greens since 19 8 started as a pharmacy intern. he is now president and c e ofrpblte he soid on the board of directors since 2009. wall greens has demonstrated ain credible -- they've been an incredible leader and roll model since for outstanding

hiring and support for people with disabilities. it started as a pilot program in one distribution center in south carolina. their inclusion practices have now resulted in great increases in productivity and improvements in company culture. the practices have now been expanded to other distribution centers and they're expanding to retail centers across the country. i met greg a few months ago when i was invited by senator tom harken and congressman pete sessions to a meeting that they were hosting for business leaders up at a walgreen'ses distribution center near hartford, connecticut. and mr. watson at that meeting was sharing with other business leaders, the ceos of ups and office max and other, his view that hiring people with disabilities is not about charity it's about doing what's best for the business. and that's really much of the message that he brings to us today. we are very, very fortunate to have him and with that i ask

you to join me in welcoming greg watson. >> thank you, governor, for that kind introduction. it's a pleasure to be here although i must say getting up at 4:30 on a saturday morning to catch a 6:00 578 flight, this probably was a better idea three months ago. but it is good to be here. i did get the opportunity to go down and see our new store that's opening at 7th and h in china town just before i got here that's going to open in a couple of weeks. and maybe a little humerous story. i was talking to our construction folks and i wanted to make sure that we had pharmacy signage in the building in mandarin. and construction guy said yeah we did but we had to send the first sign back because when we translated it actually said funeral par legislator. so we do try to fit to the local community. and i invite you if you get a

chance to go down there. i will start by applauding all of you and certainly the national governors association on your initiative to improve employment opportunities for folks living with disabilities. i think your better bottom line initiative is spot on. anyone that knows me now will not be surprised that i put my remarks into three buckets for this morning. first i will give you a brief update on walgreen'ses and i promise i won't turn that into a commercial. second i'll review our experience with employing folks with disabilities and third and most importantly i will discuss ways that i think we can work together with the nga's better bottom line initiative. so let me start with my first by thanking all of you and your states for working with us over the last several years on tackling some of the nation's and your states' health care issues. today is our health care system strives to expand care and lower costs we believe walgreen's is even better positioned to help if you have

been in some of our newly renovated stores hopefully you'll see that we're not the old drug store any more. we're trying to be and we believe we're being a leading health care provider in your communities and states across the country we have more than 8,000 stores. we're in all 50 states including puerto rico. we have 70,000 health care service providers that we believe are on the frontline of health care. includes more than 26,000 pharmacists whose time we're freing up to allow them to spend even more time providing services such as medication therapy management. we know if people take their medications, properly, we can avoid billions of dollars in medical related costs. we've also certified all of our pharmacists to be able to provide immunizations and vaccinations. we're now the second largest provider to the u.s. government. we have over 350 nurse

practitioners who we are colocating in stores across the country and what we're trying to do is expand the scope of services we're able to offer in communities even further beyond our pharmaceutical services into primary care and chronic care management. we have over 400 health and fitness centers on the campuses of large employers where we're helping employers such as ourselves lower our health care costs and try to lower that bend or bend the curve. we have nearly 200 medical campus pharmacies in health systems across the country and working with many of them to help reduce readmission, which is obviously a costly impact to employers and government entities such as yourself. and finally we're the nation's largest provider of what we call specialty injectables and infused drugs which is probably the fastest growing sector of pharmacy. so our goal is to advance the

role of community pharmacies can play in health care and bring additional solutions to payers across the country. so hopefully i didn't turn that into a commercial. forgive me if i did. my 33 years with the company i tend to get excited. i'll turn to our sirked bucket and that's why we made the commitment to employing people with disabilities. how we're doing that and the result that is we're seeing so far. and one thing that we do believe is that you can do good while doing good business. and i think this is a great example. giving folks with disability as chance to work is doing just that. so we recognize as gove nor has said that people with disabilities are a vastly underutilized workforce. these are folks who want to work. they can become qualified to work in a variety of positions with simple training and they have a deep down commitment to do the best job they can. the fact is a company of our size with 250,000 employees in

locations in just about every community, we simply can't afford to overlook or underestimate any talent. and frankly i don't think any company can today. so that's the why behind our commitment now walk you through the how. our efforts began over ten years ago with our senior vice president of supply chain and logistics randy lewis who just retired and is with us today i believe. randy. randy's son austen is aust stick and randy has had a life long dream of creating a work environment that would allow us to employ folks with disabilities and he convinced us that it was the right thing to do. so as the governor said we decided we would start with the opening of our next distribution center in south carolina at the time in 2007. so here's how we did it. we worked with the local

agencies to train and attract people with disabilities for employment at the facility. we made sure we had the appropriate training for our managers at the distribution center. we committed to ensuring an exclusive workplace for people with and without disabilities working side by side. that was critical. and i want to be clear this was not charity. this was business. jobs and expectations were the same for folks whether they had a disability or not. all employers were held to the same work standards and for the same pay. so we also set out to create a sustainable model that we could implement at our other distribution centers and or roll out with our next generation of centers as we opened them. so as i said, we opened our first center in anderson in 2007. two years later with the learnings from anderson we opened our center in

connecticut. today, 43% of the employees at anderson and 50% at windsor have a cognitive or physical disability. i can tell you, these folks have absolutely proven themselves. and i've got a quick video, if we could play right now that could probably tell this story better than me standing up here. >> this is not about charity. we didn't lower any of our performance standards. every team member is expected to perform at the same high level. same pay, same performance side by side. >> i need to learn from this person. i may be the manager but i'm learning here from my team

members. >> he walks and he talks and just a more positive way. i just feel that he is going to make it now. >> every parent with a child with a special need or autism is, their hope is to outlive their child by one day. and i don't have that fear any more. i don't have that feel like i have to outlive him by one day any more. >> as his mom and dad, i want to work at walgreen's. this is what i wanted. that's where my heart was. and since i come over here, i have fell in love with this place. i wouldn't trade this place for nothing. >> the surprising thing is we started out wanting to change the workplace. what we found out was we were the ones who were changed. >> and of course giving a chance is great for a lot of people especially with special needs like i said basically come out strive be their own person and not feel like

they're held down by anything. >> my first check and i took it home. my mother looked at it. and he started crying. why do you think she did that? i don't know. i don't know. but i do. you know. >> so as the governor said last summer we did host our first ceo summit on employing people with disabilities at our windsor connecticut center. and during that summit we gave all the attendees including the governor a tour and a first-hand look at what we do and we also shared some of our result which is i will share with you now. we gathered 400,000 hours of data across distribution centers and 31 job functions. this data has been studied published and peer reviewed. it shows without a doubt that people with disability ks perform as well or better than employees as a whole.

here's what we've seen. a 20% -- 20% fewer accidents in the distribution centers, 70% less workers comp costs, lower absenteism, and twice the retention. and that's not even counting the positive impact on our overall workplace culture. like randy said in the video, we started out to change the workplace and but along the way we discovered that we were the ones frankly who were changed. as a result, the managers who have worked at anderson give it our highest rating and those are the folks that have gone from maybe one distribution to others. team members working there with or without disabilities turn in the highest performance in our supply chain. so here's a very important point. we learned that a commitment to employing people with disabilities did not require automation. so that meant we could do it everywhere. we could spread it. on average over the last two

years, one out of three new hires in our 20 distribution centers across the country has been a person with a disability. so we now employ more than 1,000 people with disabilities in our distribution centers. that's about 10% of our totalle supply chain workforce. they earn the same compensation as their typically abled colleagues. now, next up we've been piloting a program around employing people with disabilities at our retail location which is we call ready. acronym for retail employees with disabilities initiative. imagine the impact that we can have with our 8,000 stores in all 50 states and puerto rico. so we started with a pilot in texas two years ago. we've expanded it to more than 150 stores throughout texas. new york, delaware, and connecticut. and we recently announced an expansion of the program across the state of wisconsin. i want to thank the governor

for the accommodation your state extended just a few weeks ago. so altogether more than 200 folks across the country have completed their four weeks of training as service clerks using training developed with local community agencies. many of them certainly in your states. about 60% of the folks we have trained have been recommended ford hire. so these are folks -- these folks are busting a myth that should have been busted a long time ago that people with disabilities can't perform well and these kinds of public facing fast-paced multitasking jobs. our new store clerks are proving that, with training, people with all sorts of disability ks do quite well with in a retain environment. now, we didn't or couldn't do this alone. we collaborated with state and local agencies along the way and providers that soy people with disabilities and we worked

with them to help us find qualified employees and develop the job training programs for them. so that leads to my third and final bucket and that's working together with states and agencies. there are three ways that i hope we can work together to help with your bottom line initiatives and by we i'm suggesting not just walgreen's but all companies that are moving in this direction. we can share our experience including the ideas and suggestions that came out of our ceo summit last summer. we can share the pitfalls and the best practices that we've seen. and i think we can more importantly raise the visibility around the effort and importantly we can raise awareness of the bottom line business results. and that's what's critical. the second way we can work together i think is more tangible. i think we can help your state agencies and their contractors work with each other and work with the public sector or private sector. i think we can identify barriers and help untangle some red tape. we can develop active partnerships with companies.

that means creating a custom tailored solution for each company and locations. we found that this cannot be a cookie cutter approach. each company is different. and i think we can help agencies identify ways to be as creative and flexible as possible without breaking the rules of course in applying regulations. and finally together i think we can support and encourage our schools to play a significant role in this effort which can make a big difference as they help develop our youngsters and their work capabilities. the third way we could work together is the simplest i believe as all and that's just opening doors and ice to what works. so in that light i would invite all of you to come and visit our distribution centers. i think bring representatives from companies in your states if you'd like. certainly we will have team members and managers that will help you and help them see the best practices and hear the best practice that is we have.

and i think the important thing is if you have companies come visit, you know, have them not just bring their leadership but have them bring operators because those are usually the ones that ask the right questions and toughest questions and we certainly host an old boss that told me years ago the best form of management is show and tell versus just telling. and i think seeing it is believing it. so if you want to see for yourself how employing people with disability ks benefit companies, the work place and the entire workforce, just let us know and we'll plan a visit. so the reality is a true public private partnership is a win-win-win for folks with disabilities, companies, and certainly i believe states. people with disabilities who want to work get a chance to work. they get a chance to earn a living and contribute to the economy, and they gain independence and may become less in need of other assistance programs. companies like ourselves get a whole new pool of productive

enthusiastic empowered talent. and for states certainly can positively affect your economy. a case in point we're told that employing people with disabilities at our anderson center actually saved south carolina $1 million in medicaid services in two years. so i think i'm just about out of time governor. i've probably violated the number one rule of business which is don't share your trade secrets with other companies. but this certainly isn't something that we think we should keep to ourselves. so with all the good we can all do for these folks our companies and the economy, that's a risk that i'm looking forward to taking. so if your helps your states and companies benefit, so be it. as mike ang low said the greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short but in setting our aim too low and achieving the mark. i can think of no better way for a company to do good and doing business than employing folks with disabilities. so thanks for the opportunity.

and hopefully that's been beneficial. i appreciate that. >> so we're going to open it up and greg is happy to take some questions. so please let's go ahead and get started. >> first of all, i want to thank you, jack, for having decided that this was your personal project for your year at the helm here. it is a great project. and it will have long lasting impact. every person with disabilities who has previously not been employed and who we can have employed as a result of the leadership being demonstrated by walgreen's and your leadership as well, you know, stands as a testament to our humanity and our willingness to save ourselves some money at

the same time. i have to say that i have visited the center, took the tour with randy who is a great tour guide. very proud of what you all have accomplished. if i remember correctly, your original goal was to have 25% of your employees with disabilities. you've blown through that to 50% and i await the day you get to 80%. what i will also tell my fellow governors is since i first went to the walgreen's site in windsor, we have reached agreement with three additional companies to build large customer fulfillment centers. one of which is an online marketer of products who weren't too happy with us when we decided that they should be subject to our sales tax and now we've reached an agreement with them to collect that sales tax and to build a customer

fulfillment center. but my point is every time we're having a discussion about such a center, we are taking people to walgreen's to see what's going on. and i urge you all to come have kathy and i would be happy to put you up at the house for the night if you agee to go see walgreen'ses in windsor. it's about 20 minutes from the house we live in. i do want to make one point. there is a tsunami of folks with disabilities who were once thought to be unemployable who are really employable. and this issue with autism and the spectrum means that we're all going to have a bigger problem to deal with in very short order and then quite frankly if you look at the impact of the two wars that we have fought and continue to fight for some number of months additionally in one case we've

also produced a lot of people with disabilities. there is nothing better we could do to honor the service of the men and women who have become injured and come home with disabilities than to find them a job. and there is nothing more cost effective than to do that and to make sure our children with autism and other disabilities have a job. and this number on the medicaid side is extremely important but it's always about all of the other wrap around services that we are otherwise providing which walgreen's in this case has stepped in and provided thraw salary. so we need to do all that we can to bring this about. final point. they're great partners. we work with them. our commissioners work with them. we put all of our social service commissioners instead of having them work in a silo we meet in my office on a regular basis and we talk about

walgreen's and what other companies are trying to do on a regular bafse. they didn't ask for much. one change we had to make is we put a bus stop at their front door. that's it. we put a bus stop at their front door. instead of having people unload themselves or load themselves 250 yards away, we simply agreed to bring the bus in, have it stop right at the front door, discharge, pick up people and have them leave. this is doable everywhere. and so what i want to know is when you're going to build another one in connecticut. >> well, thank you for the kind remarks. one of the things i will say is you're right. our goal was whatever, 20, 25%. we far exceeded that and i think that's the key is to set a high goal. because it just challenges and forces everyone to go out and do thing thace didn't think were possible. so thank you very much. >> john. >> thank you for being with us. one thing really intrigued me.

you talked about the early stages of how you capped the vision for the workplace and set this in motion and how it emanated in large part from one of your executive officers. could you speak more fully to how you set that vision internally, what kind of buy-in you got and how that worked really from the internal perspective. >> good question. i think first and foremost you need a champion. with any big company initiative you absolutely need a champion. and so -- so a lot of that credit goes to the guy behind me randy. i aled would say that in many cases you need it to happen in operations. you need a line representative that can kind of drive it within a facility. tremendous support obviously from central hr. but you need -- it's best done in line operations i would say. it's interesting. it was very easy to get a

grounds swell of momentum and support. because people knew it was just the right thing to do. it was really more of the how. and once we figured out the how and began to really put focus on it, it just took on a life of its own. and one of the thing that is we're finding is that a lot of the barriers, frankly, that i'm talking about we've learned that we can remove or frankly, some of the standard processes. for example, an online job application. we didn't realize at the time that many, in many cases we were blocking someone with a disability that may not be able to navigate that who could be a very good employee from even getting the opportunity. so number one, you have to have a champion. you have to empower them. and then sticking with operations would be my perspective to where they can get it off the ground and let it gain the momentum it did.

>> good morning. i also want to thank the governor for putting this important issue on the agenda. and greg, your leadership the and your business. i have a question that's related more to your core business but i think it's valid obviously people with disabilities and people without disabilities need medical care. and my question is i used to practice emergency medicine and increasingly we saw people showing up in the er who didn't have emergent problems but needed some care that fit their work schedule. and opening health care facilities in places like wall greens make imminent sense to me. the question i have is you move more into chronic care management and maybe this is a question for your hr people. how do you deal with continuity of care given the fact that in many cases you have a person with a chronic condition seeing five different physician whose don't know what they're doing? if people are getting more of

that care. how are you dealing with that and elect tronic medical records for these folks? >> and that's exactly it. we need connect tivity. in my opinion our health care system does not need further fragmentation and certainly as we began to expand our scope of services and try to allow our pharmacists to practice at the top of their profession, colocate nurse practitioners who can practice at the top of the profession those two combined can provide a high percentage of primary care in the country but we don't want to fragment so we're investing in medical records connect tivity. we want to be the primary care physician's partner, not a separate solution. so we think that access to affordable high quality care is absolutely something that we can help the nation with. and to your point, it, health care it is a big part of that. we have to connect with

physicians. >> thank you very much. it's not clear to me when you're speaking about disabilities and a little bit in the abstract or in general. can you give me some example of the spectrum of disability that is you're speaking about? i'm thinking myself as an adult i've acquired a seizure sinned zrome, epilepsy is a generic term. very little known about it. scares people. many people who have to contend with eplepsy in its arc of constant seizures to occasional find themselves in a situation where they can't be employed. people are afraid to employ them. will they be able to deal with it. the other spectrum you mentioned autism. but the entire spectrum of what

constitutes disabilities. some has to do with limbs, some have to do with conditions that may be sporadic in nature. so i'm interested, what is the spectrum of disability? how is the word disability defined for you at wall greens? and then second, how do you coordinate with those agencies that deal with helping people to be able to contend with life ? i'm a member of the federation of the blind dealing with deaf children. those kind of things. do you have an ongoing relationship or contract with agencies from good will to the national federation of the blind to say eplepsy societies that may consist principally of parents and researchers and people who have been affected

by it as opposed to something perhaps more broad based? >> good question. i'll take the first one without seeming too high level folks with all cognitive and physical disabilities we think are candidate. now that doesn't mean we can employ every single individual or every type of disability but it really what we're finding is we can indeed employ many more across the spectrum than we probably even realized. for example, we used to have policies to where number one thing in a distribution center you want to make sure you've got safety and lift trucks and so forth. so in the past where we may have had to your point someone that may be missing a limb, you know, wouldn't have thought that maybe they were a candidate. but now we realize with the proper training frankly our accidents have gone down across the spectrum. so i would say first i would not recommend limiting across any disabilities. it's really the range and opportunity figuring out how you can put them to work. as far as the agency, that's probably the biggest

opportunity i think together we have. and i think there's some great agencies out there that are trying to do some great things. i think some of the things we see would be many times to your point, we're working with several agencies that focus on maybe one situation where as it would be kind of good to kind of collaborate and work together. the number one thing we need as we move forward, we have to find good partners. and spending time with the states and spending time with agencies who can really be good partners. because it's really about the sourcing. it's the identifying. we can create the training internally ourselves. it's really working and finding partners who can help us source and then bring people in that we can take through the certification process and employ. i hope that helps. >> could i just add something to that? it's important governor in our approach in connecticut is we're not asking these companies to provide social

services beyond the job. now, they accommodate people. but, for instance, the rule is the person's got to be able to get to the job themselves. you don't transport the person. and this is about convincing people simply to open their doors, make positions available, and then the state and society and interests, groups that have interest, they need to continue to do their part on behalf of these individuals in making sure they get the services outside of employment that they need. and so we can't have employers think that we're also asking them to provide a full body of services. otherwise, we believe in connecticut the whole system breaks down. >> before i go to governor nixson, let me just say i think the question that kneel is asking is really at the core of what we're trying to get at. we do have a session tomorrow where a number of governors -- we invite all of you but a number are going to be talking about specific things they're doing in their states on that

point. u one thing that too many om our agencies do is they will take a list of names to an employer and say can you please find employment opportunities for these people? as opposed to first going to the employer and saying can you please identify for me the skills that you're looking for. and then here are the people i have. they may have any range of disabilities but the focus is on the ability rather than the disability. and i can tell you as part of our initiative for the first part of your question, we have been consulting with and informed by people covering every possible disability. and it has been an incredible educational process. and hopefully at some point the governor can tell his own story because he's got really amazing insights into this as well. >> everyone represented here also not only is involved in

public policy but also significant employers. as you look at this from the business side towards the government side, what kind of initial adapteders what kind of tasks, opportunities are there? literally millions of people represented as employees here obviously we have to the taxpayers our fiduciary responsibility very similar to that you have your shareholders and what not. what advise do you have to us in the public sector to tasks or responsibility that is might be quick adapters so that we could be not only partners in breaking down barriers for you but also partners in the actual accomplishment of employment of folks with disabilities? >> i think the number one thing -- and i want to come back to the point as well. the number one thing is with an employer, is to invite the agencies in to come in and identify so that we can help them with the services we're looking for. in the retail setting, you know, we're finding that we can

employ folks all the way from front cash shir to plant gramming and so forth. so there's really not a limit. as far as the state if you're asking me how do i think you can employ folks with cognitive or physical disabilities, i wouldn't limit yourself. i that -- and that may sound i don't quite have the answer but i would not limit yourself. we are finding there are opportunities to employ folks that we never would have deemed of before. i will say this. that it has to be good business. to make this sustainable, it absolutely has to make sense for the business. and we constantly say it is not charity. and we want something that is sustainable. so i would say just don't limit yourself. begin to identify tasks within the state that you believe that you have opportunities for, and then figure out and bring the

agencies in and say look these may be opportunities we're looking for help and let them go source candidates for you. >> and that's part of the initiative the public sector as an ploir. >> thank you governor for your leadership on this shufment it's certainly brought light to a lot of issues that we might not have considered as governors. but i was intrigued by your comment that you saw a 70% drop in your workers compensation costs because normally you might think that if someone has a disability that there may be a safety cost to that. but you're actually seeing less costs in your workers compensation costs which is one of the big issues. so can you talk about that? >> thank you for bringing that up. it's across the entire enterprise whether we're seeing -- not just folks with a disability but also our typically abled folks. i think what happens is as you begin to really look at how you

can best employ and make sure that all hires are productive, you gain productivity and improve safety across the entire enterprise that you can -- you may be able to transfer from the learning from what you've done to make sure you can allow someone to do a specific task that just trance lathes across the entire enterprise. so that's what we talk about the fact that it is not just an opportunity to employ someone in an agency may come in and say how can you use our folks. it's really identifying the needs and then really focusing on how it can help your business and then your entire enterprise benefits from it. >> anybody else? >> thank you, governor. thank you for your comments. one question i wonder and i don't know if this is to you or to other governors that may be experienced in this area.

do you come across employers who are worried that gee if i open up the door to applicants with disabilities and i don't hire them, now i'm worried about discrimination lawsuitses? i would rather just not get into it. i don't have to worry about those lawsuits so i'm not going to open the door. do you see that at all? >> we haven't. and we are working with a lot of different employers one of the common questions we get to, if they are not performing, what do you do? the simplest answer, you treat someone with a disability the same way you you treat a typically able person. you have to be consistent across the board. we have not experienced that. i do not know if any of the governor's staff. certainly, we have not.

>> anybody else? for greg.ear it [applause] multiplied the spy thousands. that is the opportunity we have -- multiplied this by thousands. it is incredibly helpful and i am sure that grad will not mind when you tell business leaders that the ceo of walgreen's says this is not about charity. this is about good business. the more we can get that message out there, and walgreen's is not the only one, it is a big businesses, medium-sized and small, we have an incredible opportunity. so many people across the country who have the willingness and the ability to do the job.

we have a role to play. i think we will find willing business partners across the country. we're very grateful to you for your leadership. i urge the governors tomorrow, we have a great session tomorrow where we can get into the next level -- that is what tomorrow is about. let us move on to the public- private partnership awards. this recognize corporate fellows, companies to have partnered with the state the positively impact citizens. each fall, the governors are invited to nominate a corporate fellow for worked in his or her state that demonstrates a

significant investment at the state level. winners are selected by a volunteer group. i want to thank the members of the selection committee for their time and energy. many governors nominated -- i understand deliberations were difficult because of a high quality of the nominations. one company is being selected. i would like to invite one of our newest governor's to the podium to prevent -- present indiana's when in nomination for the 2013 public-private partnership award. >> thank you very much. let me also break training in say how inspired i was by

walgreen's example of corporate leadership and the public and private partnership. what a blessing that was to see. it is my honor today to present the public-private partnership awards. in indiana, i like to say that we want to be the worst place in america to commit a serious crime. we also want to be the best place in america once you have done your time to get a second chance. a win for taxpayers and for public safety and a reduction in recidivism. i would ask tom barnes to join me at the podium for this presentation.

would then handed indiana -- they have pioneered a part -- a program called in to work. it addresses the state concerned about dwindling funding for vocational training and leverages its expertise in preparing healthy and nutritious meals. secondly, it empowers correctional professionals by using the work program to increase public safety and reduce recidivism for a successful reentry programs. it is clear the statistics support the fulfillment of both of these goals. they provide the work program at to more than 27,000 offenders and 27 facilities. since 2005, the state has saved $85 million through this partnership. the evidence of the success is that in january of 2008, at

indiana opted to apply a six month credit to an offender sentence with the successful completion of the 18th month program. the sentence reduction reduced the prison population, but it save taxpayer resources. the recidivism statistics for graduates can from the power of vocational training and employment upon release. in the year 2009, at graduates, 7.7% have three offended. in 2010, only 4.1% have rescinded. the average across our system and the state is approximately 37%. it is a win for taxpayers, a win for public safety and a win for the hoosiers bill for a second chance. i invite my fellow governors to join me in offering congratulations for imagining and implementing the successful partnership program.

[applause] >> it is our pleasure to your from the governor walker to talk about -- to hear from governor walker. [laughter] >> i had to have a different prop.

[laughter] plenty more for you there as well. i was born in colorado springs. williamsburg was a great time last year at the annual meeting. i invite all of you to join as august 1 through the fourth in milwaukee, wisconsin, for the annual meeting. we do not have the kind of colonial history that they do across the potomac, but we have a little bit of different history. in august, harley-davidson motor company celebrates its 110th anniversary. as part of that, one of our great events during the annual meeting, will be at the harley-

davidson museum. there will be food and entertainment and a great time overall. if you have never heard of it, take a look. it is an attractive opportunity for you and your family and staff. we also have -- is an interactive opportunity for you and your family and staff. before we kickoff that event, we will take off from your the va grounds on a ride. i will get my harley out. we will provide bikes and safety gear to any governors and their spouses who want to join us. if you have not read in a motorcycle before, we will provide a course for you. if you like to join us, the veterans will ride with us. we thought it was a great opportunity to share, a little different than colonial history.

if that was not enough, on the next night, we will be at miller park, the home of the milwaukee brewers. i know a lot of folks have great stadiums. espn named miller park the best baseball stadium in all of major league baseball last year. it is the only retractable roof and all of professional leagues. we have a unique chance because we will be on the field for an event that night. it is not just -- we will take batting practice. a couple of former brewers will join us. a great chance to literally be on the field and enjoy batting practice. beyond those two big events, we will spend another night on the

milwaukee lakeshores on the shores of lake michigan. we will be at the discovery museum. we will have the first -- we will have a great time. a lot of fun, a lot of activities. some important policy things able be discussing. if that was not enough, other things are going on throughout the weekend. the milwaukee airshow is going on with the thunderbirds. for those who want to come early or stay late, whistling straits is one of the world's greatest golf courses. for those of you have kids or grandkids, the water park capital.

a lot of great things. we do not have the colonial history, i cannot tell you that patrick henry and thomas jefferson stayed in my residence, but i can tell you it is pretty cool to hear the roar of the harley. we hope you will join us. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, governor. >> i have one question. you forgot an important part. i will be bringing down some cheddar cheese. >> we all look forward to seeing you in the locker -- in milwaukee. that concludes this session. we are a little bit ahead of schedule the governor's only session begins at 12:45. thank you for coming.

next we will have more later from the nga meeting at 3:00 for a discussion on cyber security. as well as security risk management firm and the chief security officer for the state of michigan. more from governors from across the country. we will year from the ohio governor in his state of the state speech. it is an hour long and includes remarks on jobs, taxes, and

education. [applause]

[applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen -- >> thank you. thank you, mr. president. thank you, mr. speaker. thank you, members and colleagues from the general assembly, members of my cabinet, the great people of lima. we love the way you welcomed all of us here today. am i right, members of the general assembly? [applause] and, of course, my wife, karen kasich. sweetie, would you stand and say hi? [applause] i believe that jobs are our greatest moral purpose. and when i say it, i have a couple of thoughts in my head, a couple of videos that run

through my mind. think of a dad who goes home one day. mom's at the dinner table. maybe she just got home from work. kids are gathered around. dad says to the family, "i've got some news for you. i lost my job today". maybe the kids don't all understand it. maybe one of them begins to cry. think about the mom. single mom, dad ran out on her, two or three kids, struggling every day, she hears word of layoffs. she says, "how am i going to make it?"

she doesn't tell the kids. just switch that picture for a moment. put that same family at that table, and dad comes home, and he sits with his family. says, "honey, kids, i got a job today". and the kids start to squeal and clap. or the single mom who gets the oldest daughter and takes her up to her bedroom and said, "you know, honey, i thought it looked pretty bad for us, but i got a promotion. we're going to make more money. things are going to be better for our family." that's what i think about every day when i get up, and my mission has been to create a growing economy that allows people to realize their hopes and their dreams and their purposes. because it's through our work that some of our life has meaning. it's about our mission.

it's about the purposes that the lord set out for us. and my mission is not just to give some people work. my mission is to make sure that everybody in our state has the chance to realize their hopes and dreams and that their families can do much better. because it's not good enough for some to do well while we leave others behind. and so we must work every day to make sure that everyone has a chance in ohio. when i came into office, i came in and built a team of really great people, including members of the assembly that would put ohio to work and reclaim our rightful place in the united states of america as one of the great states. ladies and gentlemen, tonight i can tell you with great confidence - we are succeeding here in ohio in turning our state around, and it is fantastic.

today we are up 120,400 jobs -- 120,400 families that have a better life. we're number one -- number one -- in job creation in the midwest, and number six in job creation in the united states of america. our budget is balanced. in two and a half years at the end of this fiscal year -- this is pretty breathtaking -- we have gone from $ 0.89 in our rainy day fund to a $1.9 billion surplus.

and our credit outlook has improved. when they downgraded countries all over the world - in fact, even downgraded the united states of america -- ohio's credit outlook has improved. and as you know lima and allen county, right where we are tonight, of course, are shining examples of a community that is coming back strong. thanks to the hard work of the people here, thanks to their creativity, and you've learned about it today from manufacturing to advance manufacturing, to the ability to move things through this area because of their strategic location. we're doing better here in allen county. the unemployment rate has fallen from 10.8 percent to 7 percent in the past two years, and right here in lima, 2,200 new private sector jobs have been created. lima is winning, and ohio is winning.

this took a lot of effort; it took a special partnership with you, the general assembly. the first thing we had to do was restore confidence and respect in our state. i mean, we had to balance the budget. no more smoke and mirrors. no more moving things around. we needed to have a structural balance and it had to be done for no other reason than common sense. hey, folks, i know many people have lost their way in washington, d.c. , but you can never spend more than what you take in. overtime, it makes no sense. if a state can't manage its money -- if it can't balance its budget -- what can it manage? how can people have confidence in it if we can't get the common sense things right? well, in the process of balancing this budget, i hope you all note, we didn't just cut, we re-engineered many of our programs.

thanks to the great work of greg moody and john mccarthy, we reformed medicaid. for 25 years, this state wanted mom and dad to have the resources to stay in their own homes if they were able and not be forced into a nursing home where they could stay in their own homes, where they could be more independent, more healthy, more independent at a much lower cost. for 25 years, this was, this effort was made to fix this. we did it, didn't we? we got it done. and now mom and dad can stay in their own homes, and they can be healthier and more independent. we won that battle. we moved to coordinate care. you know, 4 percent of medicaid recipients drive over 50 percent of the cost. their care was not coordinated. it didn't make much sense to them.

and you know how complicated it is for all of us to be in a position to be able to understand health care, and the ins and outs. we're now coordinating the health care of that 4 percent so their care is not just coordinated, but logical, and where they are healthier. and the whole country now is looking at our program. we have slowed the growth of medicaid to 3. 2 percent unthinkable in many places in this country and we're now one of the great leaders in the country for medicaid reform. other states are looking at what we have done in ohio to not cut people off, not to reduce their benefits, but to make the system work better. and that's the way you move to balance a budget. we've also reengineered state government. we've used the private sector techniques of six sigma, kaizen and many other reforms. joe testa over at the tax department joe figured out folks here in allen county and across the state who are watching, that many businesses have been over paying their tax bill.

and you know what the government did? never told them. kept their money in a drawer somewhere. kept the secret from them because after four years, that money became the property of the state of ohio. well, joe figured it out through his team's efforts and we have returned millions of dollars to over 3,500 businesses who had overpaid their taxes, and joe is just getting started. it is time that the government treat the taxpayers with respect and help businesses when they pay their bills. we've reduced the number of state employees to the lowest level in 30 years, and you know how we've done it? teamwork. we don't need to fill all the positions. we can get people to think differently. we have a way to go on all that, but we're making progress.

and we needed to lower taxes, and we needed to make our state more competitive. ladies and gentlemen, this is not ideology; this is just the way the world works. you know, it is necessary to grow an economy and to create jobs by reducing that income tax. i just want you to know, i talk to these ceos all the time i talk to them through in the state, and i talk to them around the country, and not long ago, i talked to them in other parts of the world and when you tell them that you are reducing taxes and reducing the taxes on income, they get it. it sends a message and a signal that ohio's open for business. and at the same time we killed the death tax. the driver behind thatbill batchelder. and you know why? the heirs of our entrepreneurs the owners of these small businesses and our great small farmers they shouldn't have to sell the farm and sell the small businesses to pay the death tax for their parents who built something. something.