the alabama transportation rehabilitation and improvement program, atrip - along with its program, atrip - along with its companion program, the rural assistance match program, known as ramp are making over $1 billion available to counties and cities, and allowing -- [ applause ] >> >> and allowing much-needed road and bridge projects to move forward. today more than one thousand road and bridge improvement projects are underway or soon will be because of atrip and ramp. alabamians elected us, and have expected us to operate their state government more efficiently, and to live within our means. when we entered office in 2011, our state was broke. we took a serious look at all areas of state government to identify savings. thanks to the hard work of lieutenant governor ivey, speaker hubbard, president marsh and the legislature, we made history in the state of alabama. tonight i'm proud to tell the hard working people of this state that we did what we set out to do. in just three years' time, we have reduced this state's bureaucracy at the third fastest pace of any other state in this nati