private sector how you see this now that you left the government space. >> well, i'll start. you know, this is an area where we are continuing to grow our engagement. we appreciate that roughly 85% of the in this case's critical infrastructure is actually in private hands. we have to have those connects. the way the department is created, we have critical infrastructure counsels with each of the major components of the economy, but i believe that as we move forward, we're going to have to do even more with the private sector. i think congress moving forward on a cyber bill will be helpful because it will establish what we're practicing under, but it will establish in law what the authorities and jurisdictions are, and i think that will be important, but, jane, i think you put your finger on on

incredible area where it's not just where we have to intersect internationally but across the public-private sector. >> but does the private sector want to share information with you? >> sometimes. >> sometimes? >> sometimes they view it not to their competitive advantage to do so or they have information that is something they'd like to protect because it's part of their intellectual property, but it also imp -- implicates some other things so we have to be creative and create things like information lock boxes, looking at different secure networks, other ways of sharing information that we could then share more generally, and these are easier things to say than do. this is an area that's going to require best minds over the next months and years. >> i completely agree with that. the public and private sector have to work together. they will not always be able to have conversion interests, but

it just is going to have to be done. it's a huge task. >> you know, it's the most complicated problem of our times because it brings together technology, culture, social issues, privacy issues, and it's changing all the time. that's the other problem. it is like going back to the invention of gun powder and wondering what was, you know --

>> with the government on this because the terrible ramifications when there's such that you almost need a demonstration effect here to get everyone focused on the right page. >> the potential's out there. >> the potential's out there. it will probably happen. the cyber pearl harbor will probably happen sometime, and then we'll have national commissions and say why didn't we do it ten years ago.

>> questions over here? >> thank you, all. warren, former deputy assistant secretary defense of homeland security. thank you for your participation this morning. the grand talent commission report, world at risk, pines that we are likely to see a terrorist organization use a weapon of mass destruction by the year 2013, and it goes further to say that there's very strong likelihood that would be a bilogical weapon of sorts. i ask all three of you, do you believe from a biosurveillance and by -- bio perspective are prepared to deal with that? >> good one. i'll start with where we are. we do have deployed in a number of states of the united states biodetection devices. you know, one of the issues in the current budget climate is

whether we move forward with the construction of a new national biolevel for laboratory that would deal with pathogens, the disease, which is a concern as well, and that's something that we're working on right now. the -- when you think about bio, you have to think about the development of detection and detection technology, diagnose not ticks, better and quicker diagnose not ticks, and the development of response and response medication and how they would be delivered if you were to have such an attack, kind of -- and so moving back towards to those, we have been working with hhs and others on kind of the response mechanism. we have been working on storage and storage of prof lat ticks

and certain pathogens. we have been improving the technology, although we are not where we need to be in terms of detection. this is an area where intell plays an incredibly important part because bio is easy to imagine, but difficult to execute, and it does require training, education, and the like, and so there's opportunities there for intelligence to help, and then in terms of our overall ability to develop these things and improve them, we have to at some point look at what our national laboratory facilities are and what they need to be, and those are -- that question is really part of the ongoing debate. >> general joneses, is biotechnology growing in the world, and is that a concern? >> yeah, i think it is. when you talk about proliferation, i know people immediately gravitate towards nuclear, but chemical and

bilogical threats are out there. i don't know whether i agree that, you know, i wouldn't be picky here to be honest with you, but i'm sure there are hose still non-state actors out there trying to figure out how to do that, and this is a very dirnlings world we'll -- dangerous world we'll continue to live in. we are going to be fighting unconventional a-security adviser metric threats and what that means for the foreseeable future. >> you said it was run down -- >> we work hard on al al-qaeda's weapon program years ago, to a degree i'm sure we still do, and it did run cold especially on the anthrax program.

>> that's a concern? >> it is. why had someone done this up until now? everybody tells you the barriers to weaponnization, the barriers to delivery and the barriers to culture acquisition have dropped significantly in the last ten years. look at the doctors plot in the u.k. years ago. they were not into biology but shows medical personnel get involved with terrorism, they have access to cultures. there's stuff on the internet to deliver a bond of pathogens to pennsylvania avenue very easily, and so this a way, and you can make this stuff in your kitchen with your mother's cab nant of chemicals and goods, and 10 the mystery is why they have not done it, and it is hard to execute as the secretary said, but the bottom line is here i don't know whether there's a date on it, but it has to be at the top of the concerns because

like some of the other things we talked about, it would be a game changer. >> and internationally is hair on fire about this one, or are people just watching and waiting? >> i don't know to tell you the truth. my guess is that people internationally, someone else would have to answer this, may not be as concerned and focused as we are because it has not happened yet. i think the probability of a cyber attack is higher than any of the other three. it would be easier in terms of the near term, and it's not as kinetic in terms of lives loss, and it could be disruptive of how things work in the country. >> a question back here in the dark shirt with the hand up.

[inaudible conversations] >> is it on? >> yes. >> my question is really for janet, and that was how much does the -- jane, how much does the soaring if you will of the deliver process in congress impact our credibility for the administration in this country to negotiate all of these aspects? >> i think everyone in this room can answer that question, and the answer is a lot. it's obviously personally painful for me to watch this and paul because we were in it, and i sadly think the paradigm's changed to blaming the other guy for not solving the program rather than working with the other guy for solving the problem and there's huge blow backs for the executive branch, and i'm sure everyone serving in

the executive branch knows that. george webster is hardly a relic, but a vital young man on the committee and he served in the government at a better time when people solved problems. these problems are exponentially harder, and there's the image people have abroad that we might default on our debt, they surely can't take us seriously. it's for a longer conversation and i think i'll now take medicine after trying to answer it. [laughter] it's a big factor. >> if i might, one of the things that is not happening yet in the congress is to rea line itself with -- realign itself with functions of a security department that has an international aspect that is significant and the old lines pertain -- >> [inaudible] how many now? >> over hundred committees have jurisdictions over our

department, but it's the only 9/11 recommendation on which there's been no movement, and what it does mean, however, is that there is no opportunity for a lot of opportunity for the strategic thinking at the congressional level opposed to program. >> another question, the gentleman with the glasses, hand up there. >> washington correspondent for europe politics, and the question is for secretary napolitano. what's the future of the program, and there's countries knocking on the door vigorously and perhaps croatia next year if it joins the e.u.. another question on the container rule. i believe there's a july deadline for when you have to extend the waiver and i believe

you signaled you would do that. what's the latest on that? >> we are working with several countries on visa waiver with a proposal to adjust criteria. what -- visa waiver is exactly what the name says. you can travel the united states without visa waiver, without a visa. we get information about those problems and we get information into the united states, so it continues to be an important part of what we do. it's continuing to be something that we work with other nations on, obviously becoming a visa waiver country is key for travel and tourism as it makes everything easier for people. i was trying to -- with respect to cargo, we will -- and are in the process of screening 100% of

high list cargo coming into the united states, but 100% of every container coming into the country is requiring an international engagement far beyond what is accomplishable in the near term and requires free design of court, ect., that ship cargo to the united states, that's why we have in their place put together efforts that allow us to differentiate high risk from low risk cargo and shippers and transshippers and cargo forwarders and refineries and the like. that's why we have container security initiatives. they are all designed to give us intelligence and into sharing opportunities that basically serve the same function as putting every piece of information through the same kind of device. >> one more question here, yes, right here.

>> hi, thank you -- is it on? >> try one more time. >> thank you for being here, and i want to ask the secretary -- you talked about air travel and efforts this that department and port of entry, but can you give us a sense of the threat at the border, canada and mexico, not just the immigration that people talk about, but of people coming into the country from areas we talked about like somalia, yemen, and other places where there is a threat. can you give us a sense of how dhs is tracking that? >> well, actually, we've done quite a bit in that arena recognizing that there are many things that could transit these

huge land borders that we have. the president and prime minister harper announced beyond the border which is 5 prim steer sense of security coming into north america. trying to take some pressure off of the airports and land ports on the border in that regard and also enabling us to follow travel patterns of the like, and with respect to mexico, we've been working very closely with them. there's a whole category called sia, special interest aliens, is what it stands for. we watch that carefully, work with the mexicans on it. we had been working, not just with mexico, but countries in is south america in terms of following people more closely in airports and the like, and, again, our efforts there are to try to get as much info and to take as much pressure off of the

physical land border as we can. >> and alas, we're out of time. thank you, secretary, general jones, and john. >> yeah, i'd like to thank all the panelists and our -- [applause] ed 340 rat -- and our moderator. we could go another hour. there's a lot of questions, and there -- this is a subject near and dear to my heart, and i could ask another hundred question, but i wouldn't. just go keep us safe, janet, please do that. thank you for -- thank you, all, for coming. i would now ask that the members of the audience remain seated just briefly until our panelists leave and until the members of the aspen homeland national security group move down the hall for a different meeting. again, i'd like to thank the aspen institute for joining with the wilson center to put on this

activity and to say that i'm very proud to co-chair the as person institute group with my dear friend michael chertoff. thank you, again, for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> the u.s. conference of mayors is holding its annual winter conference in washington focusing on jobs and the economy. speakers included labor secretary. this is a little more than a half hour. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. let me welcome you once again to our preconference session of job creation and employeability crisis, preparing the future work force as a competitive city strategy. again, i'm mike rawlings and

have a jam packed afternoon for you with speakers and five sessions to cover a gamet of things we want to talk about. howfully we'll give you best practices and strategies you can take back to your cities and implement. we're working as well on codifying and pulling together the best thoughts to be able to present to congress and some of the things that we think how this should be funded in the future. let us move today to the highlight of the day, and that is i'm honored to start this session by introducing the secretary who was prior to confirmation was secretary of

labor represented the 32ndcongressional district in california, a position she held from 2001 to 2009 a recognized leader on clean energy jobs, she offered the greens job act providing funding for green collar work for veterans and placing individuals and families under -- she's focused on a subject that is near and dear to my heart which is the youth of america. we are delighted she's able to join us to talk about the jobs plus program, an initiative launched by the white house and the department of labor on january the 5th. this initiative is a call to action for mayors, businesses, non-profit, and government to work together to provide pathways to employment for low

income and disconnected youth in the summer of 2012. december pilot the lack of federal funding for the summer jobs program, she's worked tirelessly to ensure that young people in america have an opportunity to find valuable work throughout this summer. we look forward to her remarks. i think it's a great way to start this afternoon and we'll have her speak and then we'll have a few questions and answers. thank you, secretary, for being here. [applause] >> thank you, major rawlings. what a wonderful opportunity to be leer. good afternoon. it's a pleasure to be here again with you this year, and i want

to thank you for the opportunity and privilege you've given me to join you here. this is one of the first events where we officially will get started, and it couldn't have come at a better time for me because i'm also traveling again tomorrow, but thank you for providing me the opportunity. i didn't see one of my local mayors. i don't know if he's here, but i know his staff is. mayor antonio, who i also wanted to give him my best wishes also for the work he does here with the mayors and with all of you. to everyone in the room, i can't underscore how important the role you play in terms of work force development and your staffs, and i know we have a lot of folks representing industry as well as the work force and how important that is for our families because of the work that goes on locally in our neighborhoods and communities. you know, it's no secret.

you all have a very tough job, and it's gotten harder in the last few years, but even in the touchest times, sometimes against all odds, i know that all of you here have stepped up to the plate in so many different way, and you may not always get recognized for that, but i had the privilege of working with many of you, and i know many of you spend tireless hours over time and on the weekend and doing a lot to help provide support to the needed constituents 245 you serve every single day, and i know you care deeply because you wouldn't be doing what you're doing. some of you obviously have other professions on top of being elected officials. of course, yao not doing it for the money but because you care about what you're committed to, and i understand that as a former elected official. my first job as an elected official was serving on the board of the college. there were five members.

believe me, the rubber meets the road when you have constituents, faculty, staff, vendors, and people coming upright in front of your meeting telling you, i'm sorry, this agenda item didn't get on this time, what are you going to do about it? why were changes made and not appropriately noticed for things? i know how that is, but i know what it's like to work in the state legislature and having worked in the state of california for some 12 years there in the assembly and state senate and also in the congress representing los angeles county, and one of the most hardest hit communities during this resession or past recession which was the area known as east los angeles in southern california so i know what some of those challenges are and how important it is, and what it means to be able to have support by our local and little bitted officials. it's something i know, at least

i know we have to work with many of you to get our job done here at the federal level, and i listen at the information you have to provide. some of you have come up with great ideas and we have been able to put some of those into play, but more importantly, i want to ask you to help us do a lot more because that's what it's going to take. right now, we're in this situation as you all know where fiscal hardships are being faced by many of our con titch went, but particularly in those hard hit cities around the country where we have not seen a quick recovery or as quick as we would like, but i would like to see that it is important for us to keep our eye on the ball and to understand that every single day here, we are working towards refining, reforming, and making our programs more efficient, and one of the things that comes out of my mouth every single day is

jobs, jobs, job, and what that means for our economics, stability, and stainability. that is so important because jobs are not created here in washington, d.c.. they are not created by the department of labor. unfortunately, many people will run into me saying secretary, you're worried about job creation? i say, yes. well, why are we not creating enough jobs? my priority is job training. that's what i get funds for. we implement regulations to do that. the bottom line is creating that energy with you all in your communities and be businesses and business leader, and i know there's a couple here in the room because i've seen some of them already, but the bottom line is trying to create an environment where people don't always view federal government or my agency in particular as one that is somehow an impediment to the progress that you want to see at the local

level, and i want to make that very clear because oftentimes people, businesses, are the first ones to say, well, i have not interacted with your department, and quite frankly, i'm afraid to because i think there's going to be a lot of red tape that comes with it or some type of restrictions placed on me or my city or business, and i try to tell them we're here to provide service. i am a service related agency. ..

the federal government can provide to assist you in finding that for the work force with its connecting you the business person with the community college with the training group that is out in the service area making those connections, posting those positions, actually going through and screening employees and giving the right kind of direction, counseling, resume, coaching and that is needed. all of that comes at the expense of the workforce. that is what we are supposed. i will tell you it surprises me that there are a lot of businesses and even perhaps a

few localities that haven't really taken up this issue of working closely with the work force investment on programs and i can tell you that in many cases it is a well-kept secret and some areas a lot of you personally i've worked with you. you are our best advocates. there's no way i can get on the ground to 3,000 stops. there's no way i can get on the ground to talk to all the small businesses, medium-size and big businesses and big businesses they're thinking about maybe leaving and going to another community, you all know that better than i do. you are the folks that can access and understand what your local economic needs are. if we can work together in partnership, then that's the way i want to go. and i will tell you right now resources are very limited. and will be even more competitive in the next few years. and all i can tell you is i want to make sure that we are at that

stage we are really competitive. we are really making sure we are giving people an opportunity to be able to get the best training, certificates, credentials and that we are hooking up those community colleges and training groups and the cbo because i'm not going to leave them out, community-based organizations, and institutions of higher learning who are all partners in the one stops in the workforce programs. to be partners with you that you can call them a factor is going to be closing down if someone is thinking of contemplating of coming into your community is questioning you as the mayor or the local official what kind of work force is here, what kind of educational institutions aren't available, we want to be able to help package that to help work with you. some of the best results i seem have occurred because there are outstanding leaders on the ground that get.

they are on it right away and able to pull together those resources. and if you haven't been able to do that as effectively, we want to help you do that. we want to create partnerships and share with you what are we knowledge base is and what successful programs there have been that we've actually funded that we will fund and there are some exciting ones and that's what i want to talk a little bit about, some dates and deadlines and dollar announce that you might be interested in. you know, last week you may have seen there was a group of business leaders that met with president and the white house staff in bringing jobs back home. instead of outsourcing, we are calling it in sourcing meaning in sourcing in your communities in your neighborhoods and in your locale. but the only thing we can do is to make sure that we are connecting with you and we are connecting the dots, the employer with the institutions that can find better programs so we have that work force ready and available, and i want to

talk about this first stream of funding or competition the department of labour is going to be putting out and it's the work force innovation fund. some of you are familiar with the acrid acronym is wiff, w-i-f-f. for individuals who need our help the most, and i'm going to underscore the need our help the most. i'm talking about vulnerable workers. what does that mean? well, it means targeting the low-wage low-skilled workers, dislocated workers and especially those long-term unemployed because of the 13 million people that are unemployed right now, we are talking about half of them or about half of them about 45% that have been out of work for six months or longer. that's want to say that they are not qualified. many are very highly skilled and some need to have refreshing courses or certificates and things of that nature.

but more importantly, we are faced with a staggering number of people who have been out of work for so long, longer than just six months. we are talking maybe two or three years and some of them represent some of our cities right now. we need to address that need. that's why we are putting the competition out and we'd like to be able to get your input and i want to mention that because i've heard a lot lately over the course of my visits around the country about the long-term unemployed and the point is somewhat bothersome as there is discrimination going on with people that have been out of work for out of six months so employers are basically saying don't imply and as the department of labor secretary i'm saying that's not acceptable. that is not acceptable. if people are qualified, we are here to provide assistance, to list those jobs, to make sure that we need the best connection

so those employers can find them more easily. i refuse to sit back and say some of these individuals shouldn't be given a second shot. those individuals in many cases have worked hard in your communities for a number of years helping to establish economic growth. and now they've fallen on hard luck, some through no fault of their own because the industry is gone. nevertheless, there is a subtle discrimination that i would call that's going on, and it's got to stop because it is hitting everybody. whether you have a ph.d. in engineering degree or if you are an npa or accounted what have you i see it happening. and i would hope that he would to have those discussions with some of your industry officials that we not do the wrong thing that we allow for people to come in and get those interviews and to allow for growth and more opportunity.

the deadline is march 22nd so that's coming up right away. and you should be working with your work force investment words and i don't think i can overstate how important it's going to be. making sure you bring in the partners i mentioned is something i as the secretary of labor will be looking for. the second competition i want to mention is known as r-e-x-o that is toward reintegration ex-offender program for adults and last week as some of you know i announced a $20.6 million grant of new funds that will be giving out to help organizations , help former incarcerated individuals become taxpayers again. and just last week i was at any event over here in virginia with congressman bobby scott and we heard from the department of corrections support system and

other law enforcement agencies and everyone unanimously said the best way of helping our economy is making sure that we are not expanding money on that part of the ledger. the we bring down that cost because we are training people and giving them an opportunity to come back into ever society come to get free integrated, clean up, learn how to get back into the mode of working and also get education and skill training and anything else they might need and i emphasize the fact that we need to get some of our faith based groups involved in that. so it is an entirely just law enforcement but to give you an idea i heard last week from some folks in virginia that they are working closely with the permission department with the courts, and also with juvenile youth programs as well to help provide the kind of services

they need. given these kind of different groups have had their funding cut back and instead of each individual or applying for one of these grants, we are saying work collectively. come about the consortium or so and put and submitted applications we expect to a word about 17 of these grants and should range anywhere from $1.2 million coming and we are looking very much in the next few i guess maybe two and a half months or so where we will actually announce these awards. if you have some folks already doing this and you can use an augmentation and maybe fine-tune their programs this is a major initiative of the federal government and of this administration. i don't think i have to go on too much about that but i know that the costs are extremely high when we have to put costs toward defending our communities, fighting crime. but if we can put people back to

work, get their families together, make sure that we put an end to that i think all of us would be better off. so, i think that is very important. the other thing that i want to mention to you some of you may be aware of is recently the president reverts with that part of education but mostly the department of labor we are issuing as you know the ta community college career training program fund and the dollar amount overall for the three-year program is about $2 billion. we've already pushed out about 500 million have done that purposely to work with community colleges and some of you might say why the community colleges? we know they do training with one of the things they haven't done as well as i would like to see and we need to do more of is working with you locally and businesses to make sure we're trying for a real job that there is a license or a credential that comes at the end of the

learning experience but it's done in a manner where you help to identify where the need is. so if you have a shortage of health care workers, nursing, i.t. individuals if you see a growing industry that needs more individuals with more technical skills for scientists but you need technicians i would encourage you to put forward in formation, market based information to you could compete and put together a grant these grants can start anywhere from about a 2.7 million for each state and had in the first round of funding some states that didn't have everything together and we are ready and prepared to help those states that aren't they may contact you or you can contact us and you can see how you can be a part of that but more importantly these grants range anywhere from on average

maybe three to $520 million. we are talking about a new way of doing business as well. as i mentioned earlier the consortiums. we funded actually some of these programs in the combination of community colleges across and counties and cities so why replicate or duplicate when you can say maybe no. road there's a community college that as a better job at one area we know that is a high need but i met another community college and we had a different expertise and that there's a growing industry that wants this and you can even include other institutions of higher learning for your you can input obviously you have to have as a partner a major entrepreneur and the would be decided by you. but it should be market-based. and we are looking at competitive fields so let me give you an idea.

silicon valley, right, that potentially is an area that is a high need always demand. people on the cutting edge. in north carolina it could be medical, it could be i.t., it has been. florida could be also. we are talking about local, all kinds of things, space industry. we are talking about defense, cyber, all these things could be categories that could qualify. if you know that there is a need in your area in a growing region that hasn't matured because you don't have the work force, then this might be the type of grant that you want to go after. it is very competitive. but each state at a minimum is guaranteed something. so i want to make that known. the next application for grants notice will be going out in february. that's for another 500 million. so, be ready for that. you can contact my assistant

secretary who is here, jane oats. can you stand, please? i don't know if everybody knows jane. [applause] but she's the person you can talk to and you can go on line and actually see the kinds of programs that we have already funded. so there is a half or guide that you could use that is free and available. we are trying to be very transparent in the work that we are doing at the department of labour. there is no secrets there. lastly, before i wrapup let me tell you some questions. the mayor talked about something that he cares about, that i care about and i think many of you in the room care about, and that has to do with our young people. with the whole notion of putting young people back to work. i don't think i need to underscore that in many of our cities and communities across this country we have seen very high rates of unemployment with our young people. 16% on the national average, and

in some communities embarrassingly it goes up to 25 come 30, sometimes 40 and depending on where you are it goes as high as 60% and that to us is very alarming because we are talking about a mixture of types of individuals because those that never had work experience, young people, also talk about college-age high school age community college-age that can't find employment and part of it is because of the way that our economy is working right now. not for these moving on. we have a lot of people holding on to jobs but we still feel there's a need to create opportunities to give an individual some work experience. i that there is probably a number of you in putting others that started out because somebody gave you the chance to work in your youth at a summer job. i know that i fit that mold. i had one of my summer jobs as a

recreational aid and as a library assistant. back in the use of the dewey system. i knew everything that summer about where books go. not only was i stacking them, but i read them. and i could direct people where each subject area was at. and it blew my teachers away. we thought what happened to help the. i got a job. but more importantly, i got a paycheck. deride i come from a big household growing up. that paycheck meant a lot. it didn't mean my mother and father had to spend extra on me it meant i could not be independent and start to put my own money away and start saving for things i care about. but just think how important it is for young person who is struggling to make ends meet to take the extra course at a community college to buy those pieces of equipment or maybe get that other computer or that young person that right now needs a summer job because nobody in the household is

working and they are on some other type of assistance, government assistance. that check can make the difference for some kids and i will just share very quickly when story. san diego, true story, young man came through in california our summer youth program out there. he was homeless and got a job, seat of his checks and was able to put his family into an apartment. young man, not even in his 20s. so, you can look at the spectrum and see that there are some kids, youngsters who really needed because it is a financial hardship for the family. you've got others that is the first time they get a job in high school and for others it's community college. for others as an adult who's 22-years-old. there have a summer job because maybe they need to get that extra skill bigot the mentoring. they need people, etiquette, they learn the social skills that they are not readily going

to get say when they go back to maybe a high school or sometimes even a community college doesn't offer all of that. you can't put a price tag on it but it's so necessary. when i talk about summer jobs is their money for it? i wish to god there was. in the president's american jobs that he asked for at least $1.5 billion. it didn't make it through the house or the senate so we are not going to wait. we are going to move ahead. the president called together individuals from different companies to help us meet this initiative. we can of about 170,000 slots and not all necessarily paid some of them are but some are just entering. some are just giving someone a work experience on the job training meanwhile they're going for the summer internship at a place of employment it can be a community college.

could be a pharmaceutical company or a bank or the community service center and a local recreational facility in your city. different things can happen. it can be in a library. it can be that kind of experience. nevertheless the president has asked us to put this together. it's all volunteer. and there is one centralized form. it's going to go through the department of labour. and we are working to go on line so that any employer, any individual that is seeking a position can go online and get all this information. we are working with google, we are working with microsoft, we are working with a link, everybody to see that we get the right information on. you know what, last year i did this on my own and we had about 80,000 jobs created and some of the mayors are right here. i'm looking right at them. mr. coleman who came in to see me and said we've got to do something about summer jobs and i said i hear you. i hear you. let's do something and we did

and we started on an initiative. we had about a dozen. some of you are in the room. some are not helped to come forward. menino can put several in boston. we had a good turnout, but we didn't even have. maybe 25% of the mayor's. so everybody to be on board with this to help, again, do what you do best. talk to employers to create that space and opportunity and we are still going to push ahead for funding if we even lose the fact of the matter is our goal is to get people into those jobs. 170,000 already lined up, 250,000 is our goal. would i like to see more? absolutely. and i hope he will raise your hand and be part of our challenge because we are going to take names, right? we think it's a very important, but more importantly i think it's good for you. it's good business because you

have these young people occupied, trained, ready to go, understanding the majority that it takes to hold on the job, the experience that young person has been bringing home a paycheck and being independent and learning with the value of work and dignity is a lot to her what some names of corporations that have already come on board that want to help us again how many of you have heard of jamba juice. if you're from california i know you've heard of jamba juice. they came up with about 27, 2500 jobs and are going to be branching out to d.c. so i know they are going to hire people out here. ups, you know who those folks are the delivery of our goods. wells fargo bank. also stepped up. they gave us about, frigate, 1200i think it was. 1600, balzar group. then a nonprofit cannot. we are golf. they are in the golfing

industry, getting young people opportunities to work out in the field not just landscaping that actually learning the profession and learning what it takes to interact and work with individuals that have that as a sport with an exciting experience maybe i should do that i don't know how to play golf. nevertheless we want to encourage you to be a part of it. so i'm going to end with that and just tell you that we are here to work with you. i will have my stuff available. i think during the duration of your conference to be able to help you navigate the system at the department of labor and please, keep attuned to what's coming up in the next week in the state of the union we are going to hear some exciting things come about with respect to skills and work force training and all of things we need to get people back to work i'm delighted to be able to be here with you this afternoon. thank you so much. [applause]

>> i think we have time for a couple of questions. so a few can come up to this microphone would love to answer. any thoughts? >> tom phillips from the capitol work force partners in connecticut. madam secretary, just wondering if this initiative that you mentioned with the president, could this become something larger that could be potentially a year are not effort because we talk about about some of the youth employment but we also know that we like to have these kids engaged 12 months of the year i was wondering if you could comment on that. >> it's entirely of to the participants if there is an employer who is willing to extend that experience beyond the three months or whatever it takes, absolutely. that is the whole point here to make sure people have an

experience that's valuable that can grow. one thing i want to change the subject on jury quickly that i think is important for you to understand is that we are also rolling out initiatives for the inventions. there are a lot of young men and women who fall under the summer youth category. but more importantly, we are revamping our own services. we've created this gold standard initiative where basically any returning veteran from the two wars in iraq and afghanistan can notify the work force investment to go on line and apply right away and get certified as a gold card standard veteran. that allows them to get six months of free assessment training, everything that we have to offer. and if you are not a part of it, you need to know about it but i would direct you to go on line, dol.gov. that's a gold standard, something we are all pushing

forward and working jury closely with our business communities to see that we get them employed. they also are experiencing very high rates of unemployment especially that number category that i'm talking about. so i wanted to mention that. there is a handout also, summer jobs should be at your table. if you didn't get one, raise your hand and my staff would be happy to pass along. i would love to be able to list all of the mayor's and all of your local employers that want to be a part of our family because what it does is spur competition. and competition is good for our young people. so i would just encourage you to do that. >> madam secretary, let me just ask one question. one of the things we hear about our companies that have jobs but they don't have the qualified work force, what are you seeing about that? what type of industries to we need to work on the most to get people qualified?

>> again, it goes back to making sure that there's that conversation with the employer. and the business can talk with some of our guarantees or work with our work force which you, with the mayors, community colleges, we can fine-tune some of the skills training that's needed. doesn't have to happen in a classroom it can happen on the assembly line right there on the assembly floor if that is what is needed. we are willing to fund those kind of innovations. i've seen in texas we actually have a manufacturing component mobile unit that went out to the company assembly line and on the ground was showing the work force how to use the latest technology and a computerized engineering the machine really did come all these things of are not that hard to provide and many industries that already provide equipment but if we can help provide and fine-tune that training we will be happy to

find that, but that comes from the ground up. i can't tell you what your needs are. you need to tell me based on market research what your long-term plans are and what the returning is, and the thing we're saying is you are not just going to get money because you asked for it, we want results. we want to know that at the end of the day that credential was going to mean something just like anything else. it's a business investment but it is a human capital investment. >> great. thank you very much. [applause] >> the u.s. conference of mayors forums on jobs and the economy included a discussion of how cities are treen to improve their employment situation. >> some of the things the secretary just spoke about, education strategies which are critical to the united states and then we will close and i will try to summarize. i'm taking some notes appear and

i will try to summarize for us what we have heard without being redundant. so it is my honor to kick this off. the panel will include the partner of work for solutions stellas texas and lloyd thar and president of the danville area chamber. good to have you guys here. we will wait until both presentations are over to start the q&a. so, it to handle your questions i'm going to kind of co-present with ms. larrea a veteran who's taught me a lot and very short amount of time. during her tenure, the system has received the prestigious theodore work force partnership awards from the national association of work force boards and alfred p. sloan business for excellence and workplace flexibility.

so it's great to have you here. .. the foundation for success and the key ingredients for work for

his engagement. and then will give you some examples of that. and they bring in its delightful talk a little bit about workforce solutions. just to give you a bit of a backdrop on the numbers, we have 10 fortune 500 companies in dallas, 16,000 employers. at that 8,000,003 citizens and about 612,000 in the workforce. long story short, our employment numbers are better than the nation by about 1.3%. our december numbers aren't out yet, but in november we were at 8.1%. so our moran is getting better as well. not quite as good as the whole state of texas, but rather to the good in that regard. this is the way i look at it.

i am just fascinated about folks that top publicly about this whole issue. and they seem to take one side or another. there is a focus on workforce or focus on business. it seems to be this dichotomy and americana on who you're rooting for in this thing. and it just seems ridiculous because you've got to have the votes to do it. as many of you have probably read jim collin county caught the tyranny of your commenters says the genius that began when you're able to accomplish. are voters have elected us to be genius is, not either or sort of folks. so i don't believe we come up they get the solution must become up with a solution for both of these factors. and i don't mean small business or large business or deserted business. i mean business business. and a workforce of people that

want jobs and want to go and have a good time on the weekend. so what does the workforce need? first and foremost, nec have an environment for business growth. economic environment, public policies, technological infrastructure. i think also workforce needs to be prepared. we'll talk more about that later this afternoon. when a basic education that's critical of united dates indefinitely critical in dallas. we are working hard on that. definitely training programs. some of the things you heard secretary and other things. higher education, the role that plays to make sure we don't outsource their important jobs to folks overseas or folks coming from overseas here. lastly, a portfolio of workforce abilities. one job does not fit for

everybody. we have to have a portfolio of solutions to make sure we make this work. i do believe we need an organizational catalyst in time to time. if disney and then we need that in the public sector as well. we need to make it easier for business in the workforce, not harder. we need knowledge and data to drive decisions that we need strategies as well as tactical programs we need to look at. in our case, workforce solutions is that catalyst. and for me and faster to look at it, again, i don't know workforce solution as well as laurie does, but i look at it from the eyes of business. to have a successful business, you have to have these six things i believe. first of all, clear and bold goals, something that is not too better, work harder, but something very specific. a competitive value proposition in the something that

differentiates few versus the competition and takes care of your customer. third, sustainable operation platform comes something you do to make that value proposition better. fourth, an ongoing drive for efficient heat. taken a cost that its system and making the value proposition better and better constantly. then you have to measure it, clear metrics for success to decide whether you fail or succeed and lastly come you have to prevent the market play with news, innovation, things to come up with this year that didn't exist last year. when i look at businesses, i looked up at what workforce. i was pleased to see that if they appeared first to, they've got clear, bold goals. 115,000 jobs each year is that they're past their lives. a competitive value proposition we want to be employer focused.

one stop shopping here. we want to combine all of the different phone calls to have to make selling a player gets to make one phone call and deal with all the federal bureaucracy and state bureaucracy there is. that is they think a clear differentiator. second, our sustainable operating platform is the breakdown of silos. there are too many people out there that have their one-inch and their one-sided though. and they are not crosstrained. so although you're doing is trying to solve their little niche in the customers and businesses much to make it simple so it's got to be able to cross train them. an ongoing drive for efficient c. laura's thing is to constantly reinvent the bottom line. how are we going to zero-based base and provide more services with less dollars all the time? are metrics as we talked about our jobs. we don't care about filling out

forms. we care about putting people to work and that is the most important metric here. lastly, we believe in technology. we have an online workforce center that brings all of this into it once.shop to make it a reality. so laurie has some examples and i think it will bring it to life. [applause] >> thank you, mayor. working with the mayor has been an eye-opener. working for someone who comes out of the set at says workforces about employers and business. we are here to serve. he's asking the right questions and a lot of the questions that don't normally come up in a workforce i think it would talk about the rules in washington. our vernacular. it's nice to talk to somebody

and say how does that contribute to economy? and makes an interesting for the two of us. go in there because she tedious presented with you to add a few things to disk, 115,000 jobs -- i will point out that the dallas program is benefited us all texas programs are typing in point of the texas model. the city known some of you should know in texas system not raise some more funding in most states. there may be five to six states that integration offending at this level. but in texas it is extreme. read the workforce investment act can't foodstamp comments that program. we'll see his stats from the employment service. not money, but the human talent as a human resources part of our workforce centers and lo and behold the biggest sum of money and it is the most incredible chef for all of us as child care

for working families. if you don't have quality childcare readily at a-level and affordable, the workforce doesn't show up. the workforce to centcom. so we are talking on how we've managed to childcare piece about we do do as well. also reinventing the bottom line. anyone in the nonprofit and we are a stand-alone nonprofit. if you just go by cash he got under budget, that doesn't work. you have to challenge yourself every day to say, is this the most efficient program i can run? can i get the outcomes for less money, less time. can make people do more quality things and time intensive activity? i think it applies to workforce more now than it ever has in a declining budget year. again, a governess conversation with airport after it is dead the governance model that says

let's talk about what you're doing and don't tell me how you're doing it. i do want to spend my time in your boardroom talking about the churn. i want to know the outcomes will be. as we present our story and workforce development can work for you, they really don't want to hear about silos or cross training professionals. but they want to hear about is what you do for them and what is going to cost them. moving on, we love to brag a little bit, but there's a lot to brag about. we are seeing jobs, development. when you look at the window in downtown and see a lot of these creams in the air, that means business is good and there are jobs and that's putting the right people in this chance and that's one of the things workforces here for. our award-winning program this year, northgate construct theirs is a kiewit cooperative that came on board and won the contract to build the connector to the airport. our airports are also booming. the debut field have both enter

reconstruction the past couple of years. amazing traffic coming through those airports that we need better roads to get there. so this was a magic did not anticipate. your books in front of you that are workforce leadership. this is our annual report and a culmination of the efforts of the dallas work first program. work for solution county, my colleague judy nick donald and david sent there. north texas authorities singled out by the secretary, talking about their mobile unit. we have amazing projects and i wanted you to see all of those projects. if you turn of the center for book book ec infrastructure. we took a infrastructure from the president's council's definition. it includes everything from broadband to road construction and we jumped on road construction. turns out federal grants and road construction require on-the-job training, meaning people have a curriculum they must follow on the job. they also required that more

women beheading construction. they ask the veterans be hired and more minority vendors. we made a pact with northgate. we started out with a different company. with three companies working on our sector initiative beardsworth gave us the most ready, willing and have the job. their challenge is great diversity. they need the government to do construction. that is not easy. i've done this for many, many years. women in construction jobs, women in hard hats. it's very difficult. training was accomplished under oct admitted time crunch. i will say they are ahead of schedule. we came together three companies that do road construction and they said here's what we need in here so fascinated. we joined forces with community college and samarra on-the-job training that we previously done.

a very short turnaround come about seven, six month making. 51 hires in 22% women. 47% gave us the ui rules, 30% back to work. what is texas back to where? another initiative that benefits us greatly. state came to terms with let's get unemployed people of low skill and prior low-wage off the roads pay getting a $2000 credit to hire them and keep them preferment. it makes a difference. anything years date and locals can be transcended by employers, there is a time here at perhaps discrimination against long-term unemployed. we have long-term unemployed get turned down because employers are they perhaps had out the recession. they chose not to find a job. it's very hard to say. they giving an incentive to hire a lower wage worker who has been unemployed for long period of time is one way to tackle the problem. 22% veterans.

does a stellar, stellar outcome for us. and texas are proud of veterans and we have many of them. 2011, texas honored our employer assisted employer of the year, northgate and struck trees. i rather bakes tori is the omni dallas convention center hotel. this is one of those we turned around. we took apart cannot entered into multimillion dollars economic boom. it's an awesome hotel, very nice. at the convention center hotel which previously we did not have a convention center hotel. a big struggle over to mayor turns. lots of things went on to see this happen. i may have to come with a lot of money. i made notes. they wanted to come to the work system and that i want to put this on the table and give me fits. employer direct date. that's what we're about. today they have hired 522 of our

workers with a projection for 750 by march of this year. i don't think we can ask for better in our results conversation. i needed a ready work force partnership. they didn't want to come and say who do you have? who can you train? they want faith based organizations. at the bottom chs bridge builders. people in the community, people in downtown community to go to training and become a hotel employee. hardest program i've ever dealt with. it's very, very difficult, but people who live near the hotel can work in the hotel and we are building johnson building families. people who have been unemployed far beyond unemployment benefits. the community partnership, riskier as their provider. workforce in iraq and from a for-profit is an amazing group to work with. we've also got the addition of work in texas, which is the state database.

700 full-time jobs. this is the story. it was a party not that it's adjacent to the u.s. department of labor not less. we didn't take webers parking lot. it was a six-acre park and not belonging to the city of dallas. it's now 500 another hotel. it is the silver certified. it's an amazing hotel and they've got great facilities for the downtown nightlife. i mentioned earlier one of the other things we are known for and we've done well with its affordable child care management to work for system. the work for system can and should manage shot care for working families. that is the predicate that you be working and keeping your job. it's a very good dovetail and it's all about the economy. if you have a good daycare and you're on top of the issue when people need it, men and women both go to work. you don't have the issue of the child is safe.

talk to employers. we have two object is en masse. employers depend on employees to get to work. and tomorrow's workforce begins in pre-k. we've got these kids in schools. if they're not learning to read, they have to be at sugar bowl, trainable people we can count on it 25 years. in 2011, we serve 24,000 children through the system, an average of 11,085 everyday. we do not run a daycare. we simply facilitate daycare for working families to daycare is licensed in existing in our community. workforce and business aligned to build a future workforce and provide child care for today's working families. a huge plus in our texas model in a strongly encourage other states to follow. what's that, mayor? alternate back to you.

>> thank you very much, laurie. [applause] next we have laurie moran who is president of danville pennsylvania's county chamber of commerce come a position she sold for 10 years. she's currently chair of the national association for first board and i served on their boards of directors for the past eight years, a leader in that organization. thank you for being with us today. tell us what's going on there. [applause] >> thank you. after listening to dallas, we should have renamed this presentation to something like a tale of two cities. my other observation is why am i from virginia and my accent is more southern than those from dallas? [laughter] so let me tell you a little bit about what we are doing because even though we are very different, you'll hear a lot of common teams throughout the

entire afternoon. so i want to share with you a little about what is happening and why that is so important as we talk about business engagement and the public work for sector. before i joined the chamber of commerce i worked for the danville community. danville, virginia sits on the border of north carolina, which may help to explain that. it is a small community. the city of danville today is about 42,000 people. we have an anesthetic of 110,000 people. at the time as a good year was is the second-largest employer of 2600 people who worked there. today is the largest employer in the region. while it was a good year we were dealing with a crisis in our workforce, which i became very much involved in. we were watching an aging workforce that was in the retirement age and yet we did not have the skilled craftsmen and workers who were going to be to be able to come in the workforce and replace people when they retired.

so our company became very involved in workforce. it was during that time i was appointed to my local workforce investment board. when i joined the chamber of commerce january of 2002, to tell you a little bit our community and what we were going through, double-digit unemployment -- unemployment was already in our community. we were a community that was built in textiles, tobacco and furniture. and if you want to talk about the perfect storm, talk about what happened in our community. so we weren't double-digit unemployment when the rest of the country was still doing fairly well. in about a 10 year period, we saw over 18,000 people lose jobs population 110,000.

18,000 jobs just in textiles and tobacco and the furniture market. so when i went to the chamber, workforce development, job creation peace was the number one issue in our region. it's the list today. you cannot have the conversation about job creation without having the workforce conversation. they are one in the same no matter what anyone else will say. they are one and the same. we worked closely as the chamber and continued to do so at our local work force investment board. we worked with our mandated partners. at that time we had a lot of silos in our region. the shaver took a key leadership role in trying to bring all partners to the table to have the community conversation about the importance of workforce development, importance of working with employers. we hoped to convene the workforce summit that brought 20 plus partners together as well as to employers to have these

conversations. as a result, built a relationship with public sector as well as private sector that was built on trust and open communication among all other agencies. our web continue to be a front runner and leader in all of these conversations than a few years ago came out and said the employer is our number one customer, that we can't serve jobseekers if we aren't also saving employers because we have to be training in working with our jobseekers for the jobs that are going to be here for them when they complete our program. about two and half years ago, the chamber entered into a partnership with community actions, our cat program. to tell you what small communities are like, the executive tour of our cats is the mayor of our city. and he is a former chairman, one

of the predecessors chambers that was formed back in the 80s. so it is a strong connection working relationship with everyone. two and a half years ago at the chamber partnered on this summary program. we worked with and provided preemployment training for, using employers and h.r. managers from across the region she talked about going in the work place. we also worked in identifying worksite said the youth had meaningful job it is to. others tussle partnership, and a year and a half ago, because of a lot of the work and relationship, the chamber entered into a formal memorandum of ending with their community action agency with a one-stop operator to find the business outrage for the one-stop center. i chamber has a full-time person on staff who markets the

one-stop program and services available, who is also extremely familiar with all of the programs and services offered at all of the partners and literally goes than to be the representative for the business to help them cut through potentially the red tape of the lack of understanding of what is available, to help them get beyond any preconceived and often wrong perceptions they may have about what the public work for system is like and what is available to them to help them identify what is best to grow their work force and get the best employees possible. so i have a staff person who's doing this daily, has been for the last year and a half working hand-in-hand with her one-stop center with case managers about what are the needs, what are the requirements of the jobs, what type of job applicants are they looking forward in finding the best people for those employers. this person is reporting back to workforce investment word to

become a cancer to have conversations around what are the policies needed our programs or strategies. where's the intense strong development of our sectors infectors strategies as a result of conversations. we are seeing employers have been up and coming to serve on our workforce board. i know that a lot of you come up with trouble getting private sector to come to the table a lot of times. they come because they see the value of serving in that role and are offering to do that. to give you a few stat of what we've done. and the first year of our program, our service manager and made 100 employer visits and those were one-on-one visit. that was 200 plus employers in smaller groups in different meetings. we had conducted job fairs as well as communitywide junkers on behalf of the employers. this past october we did a job they were 33 employers participate in about 500 job

openings in a direct result of the jobs they were able to place 300 clients into jobs as a result of that. that's 300 people are not sure would've gotten into those jobs and i'm not sure how easily the employers would kill them without additional connections. we are seeing great results, doing benefits surveys with our employers because we are also trying to help employers have a better understanding of what the marketplace is and understand how to be competitive in the marketplace. tremendous work we've seen a real benefit by having a partnership between the chamber in the workforce investment board and the one-stop operator and is seen not as a model that we believe has seen real good long-term benefits for the region as we thought to connect employers more to the system. let me say that as my world that continue to collide and run

parallel, eight years ago as this mention i joined the board of the national says he should have worked for sport. and went in as the chair almost a year ago. i am a firm believer in not just at the local level, but the national level we have to have more employer engagement and the public workforce system. i believe employers have the loudest and strongest and best voice in helping shape the policy and advocate for the work that everyone of us in this room is doing on a day in and day out basis. i will have to also shares some tremendous thank you sick people sitting in this room. time flies when you're having fun. we had an opportunity and i chamber partnered with the l.a. chamber of commerce which is a little bit of a twist, to tell it cities of the l.a. chamber. we partner chambers to cut right

in chambers for commerce to support the bipartisan legislation introduced in the senate for w. i reauthorization. and because that some support and people in this room, we have 106 chambers from across the country that we are estimating represented about 100,000 employers that signed onto to that letter. i will tell you the appreciation that we have received that because of that level of support. and i a tremendous thanks to the people in l.a. at the l.a. chamber of commerce and the people in this room because that's a look around and the people represented, i think just coming your chambers signed in. we did an initial push and if many of you are aware because of those, southside, we step back from the letter because it was

the signability look at some shared principles we all believe in to look at a different rate and go back out and get that support. i do believe not only a local level, but the national level, we have to engage employers because i will come back to what i started with. job creation and workforce development go hand in hand. you do not have one without the other. i thank you all for the tremendous hurt your continuing to do a nice certainly am open to any questions. [applause] >> thank you. so we've got two professionals that peter that are very experienced. anybody got anything clicks anything you guys want to ask the cheaper? >> i will add there is a card in your table that will get you two are on my website -- i'm sorry, our workforce center. ending to bring a dead because

it is an innovation i don't think we've seen before. as a full-service one-stop online, including voiceover training. so if you go to the home and hit training for this professionals in the audience, and linda davis comic thank you so much, some amazing that can be delivered. there's so many of us in the country. 3000 workforce centers. how much more of this do we need to bring to the internet then begin to share information so people can gain throughout the country and majesty one location. >> that is what i am hearing. kind of best practices throughout hair. the more we can simplify and make this consistent. obviously things have to be tailored for each market. but not reinventing the wheel is critical. employers and the labor doesn't have time. they need to make it happen now.

great comic thank you very much ladies. i appreciate it. [applause] the next piano can come out. we'll be talking about that or strategies. moving from business development first of all -- >> good to see you. [inaudible conversations] i'd like to introduce mayor marilyn strickland and denver mayor michael hancock. is michael year? on the way. there he is. who will focus on sector strategies model. again, we will go through the presentation and then take questions. mayor strickland was sworn in as mayor of tacoma, washington at january 2012.

see you are newer than i am. [laughter] so it's a typo, right? third-year. so they give me that information. sorry. so she's experienced. she has professional experience in the private and public sectors, holding the title of development for tacoma public library as well as management positions with starbucks mj ray communications. she is kind of vice chair of the tacoma pearce tony outboard and executive committee member of the economic development board. mayor strickland will be speaking the tacoma's career program, which provides on-site specialist services to help care employees, ensuring they receive the training required for admittance into high careers, he

said jack that is near and dear to all of this since the health care industry is growing rapidly. we welcome you and thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, mayor rawlings. i am going to do a case study. like the mayor of dallas, i brought a professional with me. i'd ursa gibson with multitier health system, which is one of our partners. whenever i'm asked to do a presentation i asked was the desired outcome? a few things want to accomplish. we want to make the case for workforce training. we went to dispel the myth that government and business can work together. government is not the enemy. we want to share best practices that does two things. it shows how you can move people up the wage protection under because as communities, we want to make our workers spend more money and provide essential

services. finally, an example of the program but also serves the most vulnerable citizens. as we talk about the economy, we are often focused on unemployment. as mentioned earlier, what we don't talk about is the fact that there's lots of jobs that go unfilled. it's a huge mismatch between people who say i can't find a job and need seven players. you think about the fact there is a retirement looms coming across every single site here. it really illustrates why training is important in education important. let me tell you about tacoma, for example. we are part of the bellevue market. in tacoma is different from seattle for a few reasons. seattle has a college degree acquisition night of 35, 37%. ours is about half that. we have been military base in amidst a mere city of 200,000

people. tacoma is a little different from seattle. we also have a public school system is targeted pakistan and 61% qualify for free reduced lunch. so give your profile vice city. it's a great city, a diversity, wonderful place to live. i chose to come back to the appearance that of seattle for very good reason. there's some challenges we have that are unique to her city. when i look at the force that turns that are important to her city, we look at four of them. aerospace. boeing is a giant in our backyard. we also provide a lot of suppliers for boeing. health care is very important. i.t. and clean water. but we are going to focus today on health care. next slide, please. right there. go forward right there. i'm controlling my own destiny.

so one of the things we did with our organization is that we renamed it. this workforce central is their workforce board at one time it was called the tacoma pearce county workforce employment training consortium. like seven words i can even remember. i remember walking on city hall scratching my head, seeing what is that in they do? basically we connect people looking for jobs that employers looking for employees. but we did in the year 2003 initiated health care sector partnership to address the shortage is in this key industry. we know that we are in the midst of a recession, but there are some industries at a recession proof and health care is one of them and that's been booming for a lot of us. but we did in 2001 was, but they grow your workforce strategy by industry partners. next slide please. that would be made.

and i listed partners, with multi-care which is the largest private employer. franciscan health care system is another health care system about a mile down the road. the va puget sound. you can see a lot of partners also in the education field. the university of puget sound, university of washington tacoma, pearce college. but we said if we have a center for this. we must partner with our educational institutions that this is going to work. so let's look at the workforce shortage issue is dealing with you and your 2000 if you go down the list, iran said 10%, laboratory technicians 9%, technicians 15.3, lpn's nearly 13%. pharmacists nearly 13%. 10 years later there's an economy -- economic part of this has gone down dramatically. what that tells us is through

this partnership, we've helped people move up the wage progression monitor and fill important positions, but also important is what we been doing this with a lot less. 10 years ago worked for central has 60 employees and the budget of $24 million. today we have 30 employees and $12 million. our organization is literally shock in half, but at the same time to demand remains very, very high. d'arcy will talk about the nuts and bolts of how this works. the bottom line here is there is a shortage in health care. we been able to deal with it directly by getting people employed in moving people up to progression monitor, but also technology and its members to the 10th column, but if the retirement boom takes place the way of anticipating the next years, those numbers will go right back out. i'm a tech about education, we tend to talk about stem, science technology, engineering and math.

those are the four disciplines that are related to the foresight as i explained in pearce county. so as we talk about stem education, it's important to have and are k-12 system, but also applicable to know he returned to build and what we offer at the college level. for example, we just found out bowling is going to make a lot of plans in washington state in the next five to 10 years. that will end up with 20,000 semi-jobs together. as the workforce ages, we have to make sure there's more funding. i was in college for six years. undergraduate degree. for some people they want to go to work right away in a two-year college in direct training is the best way to get there. we require the same model and the luncheon make sure community and technical college's history and a lot of people in health care have access to funding, partnerships with the private sector so we can put people in a

pipeline that goes directly from high school graduation, training and writing to hurt. so at this time i will turn it over to darcy who will view the nuts and bolts about this career. >> okay, thank you. multi-care health services is a four hospital system that also has over 90 outpatient clinics that include home health and hospice, specialty clinics, and we employ almost 2000 nurses. that is rns and lpn's. when you look at the vacancy rate number up there cometh 3.4 doesn't seem too bad. we actually had 81 openings for rns currently. we still have some work to do in the average age of our registered nurses 40s six. we have quite a few of retirement age that are ready to

retire, just waiting a little for the economy to turn around. we've done great work, but we need to continue addressing this issue. so the career coach program, some nuts and bolts about this. the career coaches are co-located on the health care employer site. they are available to meet with the hope coworkers to talk about health care occupations. help them decide what occupation they may want to advance to, what schools are in the area, how to get into the program. they are available to provide them with guidance. one of the key challenges for the health care employees if they are able to come up with tuition dollars up front. our organization is not unlike many organizations who offer a tuition reimbursement program. so that means the employee has

to front the money, take a course, passage and the employer will reimburse them. but the challenges they don't have the money up front too good to pay for this. career coaches can assist our employees with access to other financial aid, grants, scholarships, to help pay for tuition and books up front. that is a really big joke because this is a huge barrier for a lot of folks who don't have the money to front ahead of time. they also provide ongoing case management. so once they hope somebody get into a high demand occupation training program, any barriers that they may come across could prevent him from graduating, such as childcare, transportation. career coaches can assist them through that. one of the reasons this program

has been successful for 10 years is that through the public and private partnership. we realize we cannot do this alone, that it takes both to make this successful. from the employer site, we find half of the career coach valery and benefits. we do provide the office space for the career coach on site. and then the tuition reimbursement that we would have given that employee after they finished, we still actually paid out money, but we put it into her pool of dollars so that if we have an employee who comes forward and doesn't meet the financial aid assistance, then we can use it dollars to help them. that is how to sustainable moving forward. we also provide leadership on the health care sector partnership. the mayor mentioned that this is

a partnership that started in 2000. one of the challenges with this partnership is we really need to be allowed to get together in the same room with other employers, community colleges, university, union partners. one of the challenges we have is really being able to keep that going. and so, as part of the public partnership, the career coach and not just an obsessed coordinate the sector partnership. so they're helping schedule the meetings. they are helping get employers to the table and universities to the table, hoping what media minutes. makes it very easy to get together and work on these issues. so the other 50% of the wages and benefits comes from the dollars. the assistance that these career coaches can provide to the employers is something that we

don't have access to and we don't even know that it's available. they can tap into this resource is then really assessed our staff have been successful. some program highlights. the career coach program began in 2001 and we have served over 5170 incumbent. nearly 60% of those have been computed. they are training in nursing. that's registered nurses, which is one of our greatest areas of need. on average, over 500 incumbent or are served year. i like this site because it shows where somebody starts money into the program. we just take three categories. there's others. you can set the wage projection

after three years. very significant. opn starting around 1321. three years later making $22.50 for the rad tech radiology tech. $18.70 to $32.18 an hour. i'm going to turn this back over to mayor strickland. >> so this is really the opportunity and career boulevard. when we often talk about employing people who are vulnerable, we say let's just get you a jayapura poet ought to move them onto the career path because there is respect and dignity in a work and they should have the opportunity. there's an incredible stories and i'll share one with you and it shares a mother's. we are trying to bring people in

the labor markets you may not have been in for a long time. we have initiatives to the family homelessness in this fun way to make that happen because we know in people are employed are not so dependent on social services. also again it's better than in people through the system. i was invited to attend a graduation ceremony for certified nursing assistant and there were a dozen young women there who are all had transportation issues and mail it maul children. there is somewhere between the ages of 20 and 25 on average. everyone of them got to testify about their variants going through this type of program would work for centro. it was life-changing for a son. a young woman said to me, i never imagined i would work in the hunt at all in how people because i'm always on in the hospital needing help from someone. when we attacked again can we said what are you going to do if you're seeing a? she said i never thought about that, when they you can be an lp and a registered nurse. it's not a bad guess i'm in a job he was with them on a path

to dignity and help them have a career. i think that's incredibly important. what i want to do is talk about some zephyr graphics. the career are grim, 42% minority population, china 131.5%. countywide includes suburban and rose about 720,000 residents. military and veteran 6% during the career coach program and countywide we have nearly 20%. that tells us there's actually an opportunity to do better work and reach out. even though we talk about nursing, which has historically been female dominated cudahy seamer meant getting into nursing, which i hope will continue to drive wages up and have a diverse workforce there. [laughter] public assistance recipients. 17.5% of career coach recipients. pearce county is 45.1%. i saw that number and and

gasped. it says 54% of children washington state gets some public assistance. so the number includes children as well so i feel much better. limited english proficiency. 25.3%. tacoma is the very diversity. my husband is the principle of the school at the highest poverty and high seas and he says there so many language spoken it's unbelievable. want to ensure we are respectful of all cultures and give people a chance to become proficient. single parents 26% or career coach program 11.1%. i've explained earlier in the last example about the cna program can we do serve single parent and we understand helping people move up the progression latter is important again, helping people become employed, reaching dignity and become part of the permanent workforce is equally important. this time i'm going to turn it back over to jersey and she will

share with you some case studies of different students. >> okay, what other way to show how this career coach program has impacted the lives of our staff and to let you need a couple of them. to meet mr. mr. was a certified nursing assistant, making $15 an hour. she worked multitier good samaritan hospital. her dream was to become an rn. she just didn't think it was attainable. she did not finance is to be able to do that. she sought a career coach flyer at work, met with their career coach who helped her applied to nursing school. the coach was able to help her with the tuition upfront and also chat care services. three years later, she graduated in pasture nursing board. i am happy to say she's a

registered nurse on her cardiac unit and is now making $37.71 an hour and she is the first in her family to attend college. and here is what mr. had to say. i cannot thank you enough for providing the funds to pay for my education, books and supplies. without this, it would've been many more years before it would've been able able to fulfill my dreams and provide service to this community. this community is growing quickly and there is a dire need for more nurses. this program not only allows people like me to fulfill their chance, but also fills a need for providing more nurses to this community. one more? loop was one of her first participants in the career coach program. she was a support partner, which is equivalent to a unit secretary i whataburger nursing

units. she made $11 an hour. she wanted to become an lpn, so she also saw a flyer on the career coach program and was able to get assistance to get into lpn school. she also received her tuition upfront. she graduated from the program in 2004 and decided she didn't want to stop. she wanted to continue on to become a registered nurse. so she went back to school and became an rn in 2009. lupus is not a registered nurse in our icu making $32 an hour. another great success story. and our first year at the career coach program, we received the governor's promising practice and workforce development award for innovation approaches to the integration of workforce and economic development.

just a few other quotes from some of our participants and career coach program. the first one from andrea. if it weren't for the career coaching program, i would not have been able to see my dream of becoming an rn come true. thank you for the opportunity. little did i know that i would have the opportunity to do something i will enjoy and feel proud of, which is becoming a radiology technologist. the most important part about the whole experience is that i will have a career that will enable me to take my mother when she gets older. it has been very difficult working for going to school. my car broke down and without hesitation can you help me get through a very stressful time. thank you for your continued support. a nicely from the show, i want to express my thanks to you as an individual in the career coaching program. because of the program i'm able to continue working for multitier and be a full-time

student. there so i could get this far without your help. i feel fortunate to have you as my career coach because you've been so caring and concern with me. thoroughly soaked prompt and responsive when responding to my needs and i really appreciate your encouragement. sooner rather than later, i will receive my degree as a registered nurse and will be able to give back to the community through health care. i am so thankful for that. and lastly, from one of my coworkers, jodi smith who is currently the chair of the health care partnership page essential career work source program is a vital service that supports career development services. the program has supported and helped to empower employees as pursue their education and gain the skills needed for advancing in the health care field. facing the impact this program has made, not just on individual

employees, but also in addressing critical staffing shortages faced by us and other health care employers. this program has continued to demonstrate its unwavering family to multitier and employees for nearly 10 years. thank you for being there for employees. we look forward to a continued partnership. >> i'm going to wrap this up here because i know how we are. so the desire here at the end was to show that public and private partnerships can work. in order for a private partnership to work, there has to be some sort of a self-interest need a self-interest need be met and that's okay. businesses need employees come want to be profitable and well. the largest employer in pearce county. but also important to us the human services part of this. when i hear people talk about words like entitlement, i cringe because we don't want people to stay dependent on the system.

we want people to go to work and be empowered and that is exactly what this does pick the hope we provided you with the good best practice scenario. i'm happy to take any questions in mr., i'll move this along. >> were going to take questions at the end. stay right there. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is denver mayor, michael hancock. mayor hancock was sworn in as denver's 45th mayor and july 2011, previously served two terms as denver city council president and was the youngest ceo of the urban league chapter anywhere in the country. he's a leader on neighborhood issues, city finance this, economic development and children's issues. he is here to speak on denver's workforce strategy to support business growth through industry news. thank you for joining us today, mayor hancock. [applause]

>> thank you, mayor rawlings and mayor strickland. thank you as well for the thorough presentation. to all of you, thank you so much. it's a pleasure to be here. i went to letter direct or come forward. i'm going to let you run the sides so i asked her to. we all know a little something about that, don't we? is a pleasure to participate in this forum. on a topic that i think quite frankly is timely as the president and our secretary of labor, held as the lease has pointed out and as the president has talked about for the past two, it is about creating jobs. and you know, i am excited to be here to talk about ways we are using sick or strategies to stimulate the economy and growth and provide job opportunities for current and future workers. and denver, we consider workforce development to be an integral part of economic development, our overall strategy. we are very aware of the fact

that when choosing a site to relocate and expand the company, businesses first consider of course the quality of the skilled workforce there locally. workforce development in denver is housed under office of economic development and our workforce staff members work with the rest of the staff in areas of business recruitment, retention and expansion. we have been using sector strategies for workforce development to serve adults and youth in denver for a number of years. we use them for our workforce investment and we use them for our year-round youth programs as well as our tennis programs in denver. i can tell you having come from the urban league, it was this framework that was hugely helpful in helping the urban league establishes foothold into workforce development. we've helped a lot of businesses and our target type is expand

their workforce and improve their bottom lines while increasing the city's tax base. in fact, as part of our recruitment of companies in denver, we have used our workforce office to actually be that wants to do other recruitment and recommendation of future possible employees to new companies are we have simply been a partner to companies moving into denver, colorado. however, we've not done a good job in the lane sectors that the industry clusters that have been targeted by regional economic development or partners. we are working on denver to change all that. we simply can do a better job and get more traction if we align our efforts of course what the priorities that the regional partners and regional targeted clusters for the region. to be a fat dave, as we can help in the current future workforce up to the skills, they need to participate in the global competitive economy and made to understand what is happening not only within our county

boundaries, but also in the regional economy and prepare residents to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by the regional economic activities. this is important today, but will become even more important is the regional transportation district, our rtd buildout fast tracks. those of you who may not have heard about fast tracks, as the largest transportation project in the country right now as we attempt to build out our metropolitan transit system. ..

hospitality which we know currently has a lot of jobs available in the area but we are now paying attention to what we call our regional offering training opportunities which our community partners and a job seeker customers in these industries. another peak of power strategy relates to the airport. if you follow what's going on in denver you've heard me talk about our airport which i believe is the most powerful economic engine we have and our entire region right now is a $22 billion economic impact. the denver mint and shettle airport is the fifth busiest airport in this country, tenth busiest in the world and we have

a 21st century vision for the denver airport which includes an era troublous actual given opportunity to attract a lot of industries that thrive off the closeness to the global markets and ability to access them conveniently. for example most recently about three years ago we recruited a company called s m a it's a german company that produces solar inverters that move to denver and a couple of years ago it invested in a huge plant near the airport actually in the footprint of the air troublous and not far from the airport. since then no fewer than five new companies have moved to denver because they are a part of the supply chain system helping us close the energy but also attract new jobs to denver and recently we've discovered and we are thrilled to have manufacturing making a comeback

in denver and already a workforce folks are recruiting for a manufacturing partnership with the community college of denver to help put folks to work in manufacturing. this program is called skilled build colorado. in addition to clean energy our metro denver region house other important clusters such as aerospace, bioscience, medical devices, aerospace and aviation. we see the potential for those industries growing in and around the airport. as a part of our era jobless. and so we are developing the master plan as we speak so that we can be more aggressive in marketing that opportunity to these corporations. we know in order to grow these clusters we will need highly skilled work force is, and we know that in order to attract them as highly skilled work force must also be grown within. that's why we are partnering

with our community colleges and community based organizations and four year universities to help us develop this work force. now let me just say one thing we recognize in denver is that we have been endowed with a beautiful place to live. we have a great city. we have a great football team. [laughter] we won't talk with tebow now. [laughter] we have a great temperament climate and for many years we have been able to attract the best and brightest from around the country. denver is known as one of the most educated communities in the country. attracting the best and the brightest is always a great economic development strategy but it's also a double-edged sword. it means that our state can have a highly educated work force

without ensuring that our own homegrown workforce is equally equipped to compete for the jobs for the air in which we are driving toward. we call this the color of a paradox. the fact that our work force is one of the most educated in the country but our high school graduation rate is less than stellar. in fact, denver only graduates about 53% of its students. moreover, colorado is one of the worst in the states when it comes to the achievement gap. today in denver, only one-third of 33% of our african-american and latino children test proficient in math. while two-thirds come over two-thirds of the student test proficient or go on to college. that is why one of my actions as

the mayor is to create what we call the denver compact. many of their cities including louisville, cincinnati, seattle, boston, portland and los angeles have education compact. in the contact we created several goals. this was my effort to bring university colleges to private sector all the stakeholders who love to talk about education and how important this to come to the table and put their money as well as their resources where their mouth is. and we've established some goals around the compact. number one, every child in denver will enter kindergarten prepared. every child graduates from high school ready for college or a career. every student enrolls, persistent graduates from a post secondary institution. this and have to be a college, could be a vocational program, it can be along the partnership programs for the colleges in the

area. and number four, we've got to be with a sense of urgency working very hard to close the achievement gap in the city. this is important to us because with this we realize there is no work force development and without, there is no recruitment or expansion of job opportunities in companies in the city. cities are being called with a very clear and direct message today to prepare the work force for the 21st century because we are competing against cities like beijing and new delhi in shanghai. we know who our competitors are. as pointed out by the companies that have shipped their jobs outside of the united states this becomes a foundation for us to bring that back to our country need we're starting with

the basics of rebuilding this economy and making sure we build a work force in preparation for the competition with in the sectors on the global scale by preparing our young people within. thank you very much and i will be here for q&a as well. [applause] >> fabulous. but questions you have for these folks? >> would you explain again who pays for the education of these folks and how was that done? >> the tuition assistance could actually come from many different ways. it could be financial aid scholarships, it could be work force investment act dollars, the employer also funds the pool of dollars for the tuition reimbursement, so it is a shared pool of resources that fund the

tradition. >> i just want to follow-up. if somebody wants to go from one hospital to another how does that work? they are kind of competitors on the? >> we do have competitors. so it depends on whether or not the hospital is a part of the coach program. we have as i mentioned several different healthcare partners that are part of the program. so if they have a coach at that program they can certainly pick up the services. >> when i was talking earlier the director of the work force central there was a point you had people bouncing from a hospital in hospital in the same position and one of the things we said is instead of backing for between the jobs we want to move up the ladder and get a job like it and quit bouncing around. i think the was helpful to help solve the problem as well.

>> questions, thoughts, who has a compact? and education compact, does anybody have that out there like denver does? it's important. dallas has just done that. >> hours isn't called the compact, but we have that one. >> is that a question you might want -- >> the work force director thanks for the shout out. i wanted to ask a little about the sense of urgency that you are trying to bring. greg fisher will be on the podium and a few minutes to talk about our educational compact in louisville and we have the same dynamics that you described which is all of the educators love it the we are talking about education and has that feeling of kumbaya of this is clearly the right thing to do motherhood and apple pie. trying to convert that to action is the easiest things i wanted

to know what you are doing mabey in denver and there are other things that the mayors would like to talk about as well. >> great question. and i will tell you, that is the biggest hurdle that we will have to overcome. and i will tell you, i took office in july and campaigning on the development of this education compact. and as a mayor it was easy to recruit, you know, and the power brokers to the table. the biggest challenge of course is keeping them at the table and one of the first things i had to make very clear was first that would recruit the superintendent who was critical to this people needed to see the superintendent engaged in the second, to have a major star if you will from the private sector as a co-chair so we recorded the president of debrowski alton kaiser health care program as of the third

co-chair but one of the things we had to make clear this wasn't a forum for the debate. we aren't here to debate union, versus non-charter through. we have a problem and we need to get to work now to solve it. that brings a lot of people to the table and pure and focused on those goals and not about age versus bea or c or d and the platform wedding of the district from the mission of addressing these goals without line that thinkable help us a long way. these people will disengage very quickly if you feel like they're wasting their time are taking that for the san sitting in a room dupage and posturing so we have to keep it moving and we feel that sense of obligation to do that >> i would like to respond as well. we've been having the same conversation about education for about 25 years.

when making the mayor ran on the platform for the reasons the mayor described and the city doesn't control the school district but we've run the library system and have a task force on education. we formed a foundation for the schools to raise private support and we have to, 6360 wishes without all that money. in washington state is one of the few in the nation that doesn't allow charter schools said there is something brought forth to have a charter schools in washington state. i've come out in terms of charter schools. [applause] we don't have the debate today with this requires action now because five years from now i don't want you the same conversation about the achievement gap, the opportunity gap and these kids who are graduating from high school and they aren't prepared to go on to college or work. i fetus become urgent for most across the country. i tell people every mayor in every city should be the

strongest for education for those reasons. >> how was your board of trustees during this? >> they have come out against truckers schools -- >> and you're advocating for this. spend a couple years before people would tell me i'm -- economic development as a nexus between what i try to do and what they're doing so i have a better relationship with the board. they do not support a charter schools and a vocal supporter not because they're the answer to everything but parents and students need more choice. >> how was your school board dealing with your activity? >> who cares to read what turkoman and i mean that but not to be respected for to the burba education there is no word universal to all of us then will look kids and it's been that argument about your territory

versus my territory that's caught in this mess. we have -- the arn begrudge reading it to compete with fogle economy. this is an issue and if we don't get the right we might as well concede to every other country in this world that is already doing everything they can to prepare our kids so were not going to say this about you or me. i don't mean that in a flamboyant way. i mean it's time for america to work and realize what's important to us. steve -- [applause] >> tecum my interest now. okay. god bless you. let me tell you, this mayor is who operated this system, not

funded by tax all of the bonding of of weeded privately. the reason we did is the cone entrance from the school our unemployment. i'm sorry, great city. 16 years ago decided i said it's going to be about education. so we have the mayor's there and now we get together cordially and share resources, and you to every story from this going by that's what i do i have a similar thing but not quite as. it's all about children and education. i was the chair of the community college board for five years. there is a question some place.

[laughter] >> thank you. let's give our panel a nice round of applause. [applause] at this time i would like to acknowledge a thing she's joined us our sponsor the casey foundation that supports the work in the u.s. conference of mayors work and opportunity task force sponsored today lisa hamilton vice president for external affairs is here today. would you stand up? she's not here yet. we will give her applause leader. thank you very much. lipstickgate 15 minute break and get back here at 2:45.

>> we need to eliminate these needs test of the entitlement

programs, cap them, cut them, send them back to the states, remove the federal oversight and let the states have the flexibility to deliver these programs. >> we have brought to the forefront others have talked about it, they get an office and they do nothing about it. but right now is this liberty movement which is seen as a patriotic movement and individual liberty movement that is saying to the country and show the world we've had enough of sending our kids and the money around the world. it's time to bring them home. s make candidates get their message out. [inaudible conversations] the endorsement from texas. >> we feel very good about that. conservatives are coalescing

around our campaign and there will be difficult not to see south carolina. >> find out more from the campaign trail at. new jersey governor chris christi stated the state of the state address. the coverage of this event is courtesy of benge tv. [applause] [applause]

[applause] [applause] [applause]

>> thank you. thank you. thank you very much. thank you. thank you thank you. [applause] thank you very much. thank you. thank you very much.

lt. governor, madam speaker, mr. president, members of the 215th legislature, members of or congressional delegation and members of the supreme court, our former governors and the people with the state of new jersey. this has been a difficult week for all of us who work in the state house and are committed to public service. over one week ago we lost our friend. during this week we have celebrated his life in this chamber at its weekly as funeral mass and undoubtedly in the homes of the thousands of new jerseyan's whose lives he touched during his 23 years of service in the assembly. we count that we give recognition today by flying flags on government buildings across the state and half staff in his honor.

now if you will all join me in a moment of silence to honor his life and legacy. thank you. knowing alex as i did over the latest 19 years i know at this point he would tell me enough now, chris, let's get back to work so that is what i intend to do. it's a pleasure to return to the chamber to report to you on the state of our state. today i'm proud to report the new jersey come back has begun.

[applause] how do we know that it's become? just look around. the last few years we've come together to address the mess that was our state budget. the decline, deficits and departures that plagued the state two years ago have been reversed. the budget is balanced. our unemployment rate is no longer going up is coming down. job growth has been restored. in the private sector where we want it new jersey is back. we have restrained the growth of property taxes and put our pensions on a more sustainable footing and in doing this we have restored confidence and pride in new jersey. the comeback is taking place in large part because of what we have done in this chamber together. we have done something trenton

hasn't seen in a very long time. we work together, we achieve compromise and we put new jersey and its people first. [applause] for new jersey a corner has been turned. the debate isn't who to blame for our failure is how to build on our success. it's no longer how to deal with devastating decline is about how to push new jersey even further ahead to be better than we thought we could be. in the last two years new jersey set the standard for government in america. be honest, don't mix words, do the big and difficult things of only because it's right but because it lays the foundation for future greatness. now it is our job to finish the

task. job one is the economy. consider where we were just two years ago. when i raised my hand to take the oath of office i couldn't say with confidence the state would meet its payroll within two months. imagine that, new jersey unable to meet its payroll to read the was the gravity of the mess we were left with deutsch mismanagement that rains in this town before our rifle. our deficit for the fiscal year already more than half over was more than $2 billion. the budget problems for the next year fiscal year 2011 with a record deficit of $11 billion. the solution was not easy but it was also not complicated. we had spent too much as the state, we had lived beyond our means. by trying to tax the real effect previous government and

legislators left new jersey in 50th place dead last in the total tax burden of this on our citizens. we had the highest tax rates in the nation, the highest unemployment in a quarter-century and the largest budget deficit per person of any state in the nation. so step number one was to stop the pleading by stopping the spending. we could 375 programs in that year, saved 2 billion for the taxpayers and brought jongh pour sign's budget into balance. next with your help we enact a budget that imposed discipline in the form of another cut in spending for the second year in a row cutting spending for each and every department of state government. that was tough medicine but it was the beginning of better health. last year because we took that medicine we were strong enough to reduce business taxes and improve the climate for job

creation. i want to thank this legislature for joining me in recognizing that for new jersey to grow private sector jobs again we must reduce the tax burden on our citizens and businesses. [applause] step two was controlling property-tax says. as everyone already knows they've risen 70% in the ten years before i became governor. rising property taxes are driving people out of the state so we joined together again and i want to thank this legislature and in particular to our leaders come sweeny, oliver to cap the growth that number and 2% a year and we put the same to% cap on the arbitration awards giving rise to higher taxes.

we must never forget that the root cause of rising property taxes is always excessive government spending. as with all problems you must get to the cause and together we did it. here's the good news, it's working. two years ago the largest paper announced the result of its comprehensive study of property taxes in new jersey. the headline said it all. at last, tax relief. step three was to get a grip on our long term one of devotees. the pension system as 54 billion yen debt at the start of 2011 is scheduled to be under $180,000,000,000.3 short decades without a change of course. it was imperative that we save these for our middle class and at the same time lift the burden of the taxpayers created by the

unrealistic promises made by politicians so we can further the obvious, negotiate a solution and save taxpayers over $120 billion. the pensions of every state worker, of a free t-shirt and every retired municipal employees are more secure today by the tough choices we made together, we saved their pension. [applause] again, the solutions were not easy were always popular but there were also not complicated we had to raise the retirement age and get a grip on the fact. we have to make sure the contributions of employees were fair and the state kicked in also but by taking these steps

we made a big dent in the problem. at the same time we have a public employee health system the was $67 billion in deficit of january 2011. to make this right we relied on two separate principles. first, we should give employees more choice and second, everyone must pay their fair share. once again we compromised with each other to write a failing system and in the process may history in new jersey. we can together and took on the special-interest, we put our citizens first. at the time the near post said we pulled off something of a miracle in the pension reform but you know it wasn't magic. in a country dominated in so many places by partisan bickering we just have to be honest and realistic about the mass and a grown-up about the

answers and the good news is the people of new jersey can take the truth. we've shown the rest of the country that we are jersey strong. today the result of that attitude were beginning to show. since our administration can do office, new jersey has added over 60,000 new private sector jobs. remember, in 2001 in the year before we came into office new jersey lost 117,000 jobs. according to rutgers university economist, 2011 was the best private sector job growth here in new jersey since the year 2000. 60,000 new private sector jobs, the best job growth here in more than 11 years. here's my promise to the people of new jersey we will keep the momentum going. i will not permit anyone to reimpose the tax raising,

overspending and irresponsible ways of the past that led to the dark a decade of joblessness in new jersey. stand strong with me and i will stand up for you. we are going in the right direction. [applause] >> i will oppose any move to return us to the despair of those policies and the pain they brought to new jersey and its citizens. the direction is clear we have changed the business environment as a result we are changing the jobs environment. from a still losing their regional headquarters in bridgewater to oregon which picked new jersey for its

northeast research and development center. we've been able to attract new jobs around the country to new jersey. from lots of pharmaceuticals which moved to pinnacle foods which moved to terri hail. employers are beginning to understand that new jersey is once again a friendly state for business and jobs, a great place to work and a better place to raise your family. it's not just around the country. people are recognizing the new jersey come back all around the world. bayer put its north american headquarters in the county, and middlesex county. an elegy alexis cetron mix. we've begun this turnaround in the face of strong national head winds. across the country, griffes still of the neck. there's been no national solution to the debt and deficit problem, no catalyst for growth, no leadership on the economy. the politics of envy have

overtaken the and pared its of opportunity. our economy suffers while washington politicians in both parties feel. america's passion around the world deteriorates. while our leaders blame. over the last two years, new jersey did the exact opposite. we achieved results because we did together. over the last two years we said let's put our differences on some issues so we were able to work together on others. but doesn't mean we didn't shout at each other. remains we didn't -- you may recall even some of my friends have colorful nicknames for me.

now, now anchor is natural. that passion is good. what we have shown that only important this is. we could still come together to leave the people of new jersey to a better outcome. we've shown this possible to hold fast to. lashawn america of that the divided government can work, the democrats and republicans working together is possible and in fact it's necessary. two years ago i asked the senator this figure oliver to join me in a handshake to demonstrate our commitment to working together sticking to allow principles but finding common ground for the good of the people to read our handshakes that was a symbol because it could be nothing more. back then we had nothing to show the people what our good faith and promise for tomorrow.

today, no symbolic handshake is needed. thankfully, we have shown that we are willing to work together. substance over form. accomplishment over partisanship i want to say thank you to stevan and sheila for being partners in that progress. [applause] >> so in this year in 2012 let us continue to show the state and the nation what is possible and continue to have new jersey set the example. let new jersey continue to lead the way and let's do it together. over the last few years we've had to make tough choices. it was important to do what was

difficult and necessary to get new jersey of its whole but because of these decisions, the shared sacrifice, and because we stuck to our discipline we can now focus on our priorities. we will have to continue to line the hold on spending. i guarantee you this the budget i submit next month and in the budget i will sign into law in june will be truly honestly balanced. we've been working to get to this moment to finally have new jersey right side up so we can focus on the big things to challenge ourselves to be better, to strive for greatness to insure everyone is given the opportunity to have the life they want. i will fulfil the promise i made to all the people of new jersey in 2,009 real relief from the heavy personal income tax burden that has strangled our families

and force many to move away. in every tax brackets by 10% across-the-board. [applause] [applause] i also propose to fully restore the earned income tax credit for new jersey's working poor which we are forced to cut during the dark days of 2010 when growth was gone and we had no money. so understand what this means.

every new jerseyan will get a cut in taxes. the working poor, the struggling middle class, the new college graduates getting their first job, the senior citizens who've already retired, the single mom, the job creators, the parents trying to afford to send their son or daughter to college. everyone made the sacrifice, everyone will get that benefit. [applause] this would send a loud signal to new jersey to families now living here and families that have left to businesses and job creators coming here and those who have struggled to stay here new jersey is once again a place to play near future to raise your family, grow your business and somehow retire. the new jersey comeback has

begun. [applause] busbee under no illusion our job turning new jersey around as far from finished. we have increased our tax climate but there's much to be done. mcminn lissakers ury and the competition for jobs among countries, yes but also among states. in the last decade, two-thirds of all companies which move jobs to new locations did not move to other countries they moved from one state to another. here in the region if we are making to franchisees. in connecticut the governor's race income tax rates of top earners, small businesses and job creators and and you're connected legislation to do the very same thing. other big states are also raising taxes. california proposed to raise the

top rate over the highest in america by up to two percentage points. in illinois to raise all income taxes by 67%. now, in this environment the best way to compete is to show a completely different direction, let others choose tax increases we choose tax cuts to give or overburdened citizens relief but help new jersey grow. [applause] some will argue with a minute, governor, your friend andrew cuomo in new york only raised taxes on the rich to read why not adopt his package for new jersey and? here are the facts. if we enacted the exact same income tax rates put into new york last mount ebal every

person earning less than $100,000 in new jersey would face a tax increase of anywhere from 150 to 200% to read by the way, those earning a million dollars would get a tax cut. is that what we want? is that fairness? i don't think so. and across-the-board tax cut is fair. every new jersey tax payer will benefit, everyone's rates will go down, everyone will see relief even those who don't pay any income tax at all. that is what i was talking about when i took office. the tough choices would lead to the right ones today because we put our fiscal house in order. we can budget for our priorities and give tax relief to all of our people, tax relief that will lead to better lives for our citizens and jobs for our state. job number two is to reform the

education system and strength in the schools. over the course of the last year since outlining my proposals from this podium i've worked with the legislature on a bipartisan basis to put in front of you a package of bills that will address the biggest challenges facing public education in new jersey. we have had a year to debate, discuss and deliberate. now in 2012 it is time to act. in so many ways new jersey is less. the majority of school children continue to perform well. new jersey has so many great teachers producing so many great students. to many in the establishment however use that success as a camouflage for the abject failure elsewhere in new jersey. to use the success of others to block change is immoral.

to many schools are failing our children and have been far too long. we live in a time where educational attainment and economic success are correlated as never before and that's a good thing. it means that for this generation of americans we are driven by not who you know but what you know. we look at the recent columbia study of the two and a half million. its independent research from my heart and this party and one year ago. great teachers have a more significant impact on the student's future success. even have a greater affect on the students when they replace underperforming once. research confirms our own common sense tenure reform will even

have kristopher that achievement because we place a number raises baliles recorder of a million also act on the tenure reform. let's display the six of ropes. when the chance a life filled with opportunities buy not how hard you are willing to work but why were you happen to believe. let's face this fact more money does not necessarily lead to a better education we spent 12,000 will receive high school diplomas in four years. in the park was smaller, poorer people cost almost 40 lives or

nearly 75% of year, the state average but the dropout rate is almost times state average and math sats chorus. it is time to admit to that the supreme court's current experiment with her children about 63% of state aid over the years has gone to the average. the schools are predominantly failing. what we've been doing is working for children in these districts and is on share fundamentally unfair to the under school districts and taxpayers to spend more than almost every state in america. basic human decency. this simple common sense. it's time for a better approach. [applause]

we choose to give our children and parents this chance for a better outcome are before you. they are embodied in bills that are bipartisan in nature and consistent with the reform advocated not only by me but by president obama, education secretary duncan and most recently new york governor andrew cuomo. mine reflect the information received hundreds of meetings with educators, parents and professionals are around the state. the figures supported by in in search. they -- to put children first. the momentum can last week when you pass and i have children the first home and her to.

we've given some of our urban schools a signal that hope is on the way. i want to thank major new cross for the bipartisan support of the site yet. you and i both know that this is a good start but only a start. there is much more work to be do so here is what i propose. first, we form the tenure by measuring the teacher effectiveness with as observation and objective quantifiable measures the student achievement and by giving tenure to those with strong evaluations and bringing it from those whose ratings are unacceptably weak. we cannot ask parents to accept failures with your children's lives are in the balance. it is unacceptable for us to turn our backs on this issue.

we move the least effective teachers instead of just the most junior ones. it's time to end the system of the last in and first out which protect some of the worse and penalizes some of the best. sir, pay teachers more. there are signs of a failing school or to teach a difficult subject. compensation should be designed to attract and retain effective teachers where we need them the most. fourth, let's and the force placements. teachers shouldn't be assigned without the mutual consent of the teacher and the principle. an acceptable place that can't be found the school district should have the right to place the teacher on permanent unpaid leave. fifth, we should reform a process for authorizing the terse schools to the best to streamline the process for the best reformers, to focus on our failing school district and encourage innovation on your.

last and perhaps most importantly a stylish tax credits to provide scholarships for the low-income students and then this is just a state but did not want to. opportunity should not be offered to only those in an excellent school district court parents to have the money to release the original run from the prison that is a failing school. let's pass the opportunity scholarship act now. [applause] these are not radical reforms. they are common sense. they are not rash. they are long overdue. and they are not which can lead to another four months come six

months or a year. they are essential for the success. i have a message not for me but a single mom in newark, the struggling parents of camden as well as all of the state that education reform real, education reform has waited long enough. in new jersey is one of america's most diverse states. this means we have diverse problems but also delivers opportunities. a means we must build the skills and maintain opportunities for many types of people from all backgrounds and walks of life. and it means you must work in multiple ways to improve the quality-of-life for everyone. as we discussed created jobs and fixing the schools are properly the most important ways to do that but there are other steps we can take us all to improve the quality-of-life here in new jersey. this leads me to job number three. respond to of underserved regions and engage the most

vulnerable citizens. a few months ago i hosted a town hall meeting with senator bryan stock. a woman was there, a woman, a neighbor, concerned citizen. she asked me a very direct question and i actually i believe it was the question shows us. i just wondered, governor, if the amount of the violence, you know, shootings, the amount of murders that took place in the city of newark i just wonder sometimes if it bothers you like it bothers us particularly the mothers who've lost their children, and she and her question with a plea. help us, she said. help us. that woman was cassandra, and i met with her and her neighbors in this building. she's here in this chamber today. and i ask all of you to send a message that in new jersey we are creating a place where everyone is given the opportunity to live the life they want to be a i ask all of

you to join me in saying to cassandra, yes we will help you. [applause] [applause] here is one example. we can improve our quality-of-life by keeping the most violent criminals off the streets. so i ask you to approve my reform package which would mirror the federal system to read would keep offenders with a history of the violence who are a danger to our communities and jail plus the to the time of

trial instead of releasing them back into society to prey on the public this may require a constitutional amendment but there was reform that is long overdue. did you know that the person arrested with a long record of the violence we can't detain that person in jail tending the trial? we must replace that person regardless of danger they are to potential witnesses were innocent members of our society. let's amend our laws to allow judges to consider the factor of dangerousness to the communities before we release a violent person back on the street to the martelle while the every trial. [applause] this is simple common sense but at the same time let us recall in the lives of the drug

offenders who haven't committed violent crime by investing time and money in drug treatment and in house secure facility rather than putting them on prison. [applause] experience has shown us treating nonviolent drug offenders is two-thirds less expensive than warehousing them in prison and more important as long as they have not violently victimized society everyone deserves a second chance because no life is disposable. [applause] i am no longer a satisfied to have this as a pilot project so i'm calling for a transformation of the way we deal with drug abuse and incarceration in every corner of new jersey so today i

ask the legislature and chief justice to join with me in this commitment that no life is disposable. i proposed mandatory treatment for every non-violent offender with a drug abuse problem in new jersey not just a select few. will send a clear message to those who have fallen victim to the disease of drug abuse. we want to help you, not for you away. we will require you to get treatment because your life has value. every one of god's creatures can be redeemed. everyone deserves a second chance. [applause]

so, these are the big things i would like us to focus on in 2012, these are my priorities. we know in our hearts we represent some of the toughest, most direct and most honorable people in america, the people destined for great things if we just give them the opportunity. but we also know that for too many years the same people were depressed about new jersey had become read our leaders disappointed us in many different place. promises were made were not intended to become our economy suffocated under the wet blanket over taxation, overspending, over borrowing in overregulation. our education system failed of those who needed it the most and our leaders stood by and said be patient, we will