Attention: This is not a current document. It is an excerpt from the Web page of the former Colorado governor, Roy Romer. It is displayed by the Colorado State Archives for its historical value.
COLORADO GOVERNOR ROY ROMER
JANUARY 9, 1997
President Norton, Speaker Berry, Senator Feeley, Representative Snyder.
It's a privilege, it's truly a privilege to be here.
As you well know, this is the 11th time I have had the fortune of addressing you and it's interesting to begin by looking back over those 10 years. You remember in 1987 we were in an economic pothole. Our housing market was down, unemployment was up. More people were actually moving out of Colorado than were moving in.
But we -- you, the executive branch, the people of Colorado -- rolled up our sleeves.
We got to work and today, for the fifth straight year, Colorado's economy is the best in the nation.
In the last 5 years, we've created 250,000 jobs. Unemployment has fallen to about 4 percent. Our poverty rate is one of the lowest in the country. Our welfare rolls have dropped. We are ahead of the national average in category after category: personal income growth, retail sales, housing starts and the number of new businesses opened. International trade is growing dramatically.
In June, we will host the world's most important international economic event, the G-7 Summit of Industrial Nations, and once again Colorado will be showcased to the world.
We should feel very good about that record. However, I think we should feel about it like a young Olympic athlete who is just getting his stride. Yes, we have done well, but there is a much better race that we can run in Colorado.
We have been given some great gifts and our responsibility is to take those gifts and to build on them.
Whatever mark we've accomplished should be the threshold from where we go from here and it's in that spirit that I want to address you today.
I first want to talk about a short-term agenda and then about a set of issues that will affect the longer-term vision of Colorado that will determine the kind of community that we will become.
That short-term agenda concerns four issues: welfare reform, educational funding, transportation and crime.
First, welfare. We must continue the process we began more than three years ago to change welfare from a system that just provides checks to one that helps people find jobs.
We've already begun that but we need to continue.
We must make work pay. We cannot lose sight of the needs of children and their families. Adequate child care is essential to making these reforms work.
Our challenge is to fundamentally change the way we provide public assistance without being unfair.
On your desk you have a detailed outline of my legislative proposal. Let me highlight some key items.
Welfare recipients must move quickly into a job or into job training. Those not working or in training after 2 years will lose benefits unless they can show hardship.
But, if a parent is unable to find child care they should not be forced to work. We simply cannot have kids on the streets or at home alone.
Recipients will be able to keep a higher percentage of their income and will be allowed to keep more assets and still be eligible for some benefits.
Now, I believe these changes will help make work pay. We must maintain a strong state-county partnership giving more flexibility to counties to choose the kind of education, training and employment benefits that they will offer. They should also decide the kind of support services at the county level like housing, transportation, child care and others that are needed.
But some things need to be decided at the state level. We simply can't have 63 state welfare plans in Colorado. We need to set some rules that are the state's policy and we need to be clear about what those are.
Families, no matter where they live must be able to count on a minimum floor of cash benefits. Such a floor prevents one community from trying to cut their welfare load by simply transferring it somewhere else. Now I know this is a point of contention in this body.
As we think about it we have a lot of experience in partnerships with local governments. And in fact I vetoed some bills because you didn't allow enough flexibility for local governments. Welfare is an area in which we simply can't just give it away and have no uniform state policy. Why? Because there are some serious consequences. Let me continue.
Families need cash to take care of the everyday expenses like clothing, housing, car repairs, insurance and school costs.
Also it is inefficient and duplicative to have 63 separate county programs with differing eligibility and benefit levels. I simply do not want us to have a welfare system in Colorado where there is a motivation for a county to say (to a recipient) "here's a bus ticket." We need to have a definition that this is a statewide program and we're going to give maximum flexibility. And one of them is the cash benefit.
Now if we need to find some way in which a county needs flexibility to take that cash benefit and not deliver it in a check but wrap it up into an employment program -- right on. I'm for that. But let's work that out.
Now there's another issue that requires a statewide commitment.
Legal immigrants live in our communities legally. They pay taxes, they play by the rules. They should not be denied help when they face hard times.
Any time such major changes are made in a government program like welfare, there is bound to be some disagreement and controversy, but I know we can work it out. We just need to keep fundamental goals in mind.
The important thing is helping families gain their independence while ensuring the well-being of their children.
Let me share a story before I continue. The farmer, whose corn always took first prize at the state fair, always shared his best corn seeds with all his neighboring farmers. When asked why, he said, "When the wind picks up pollen it carries it from field to field. If my neighbors grow poor corn, the cross - pollination will bring down the quality of my corn. But, if they plant the very best seeds, then their corn and my corn will always be of excellent quality. What is good for my neighbor is good for me."
I add that story because these children who happen to be in welfare families are in our communities and in our schools. There is a cross-pollination in our culture. Let's remember that story as we work through welfare.
Second, education funding.
I'm going to talk about education policy at greater lengths later but I want to talk about funding now.
Over the last 5 years, we have found enough money to increase the prison budget year by year on an average of 16 percent. But we have failed to keep education funding up to the rate of inflation.
Now that is a fact that may surprise some in this body because at the state level we have increased school funds. But, when you put the state and the local shares together into the budget for education in the last 5 years, this state has not kept pace with inflation. It's been a negative 1.8 percent, below inflation, each year over that 5 years. If you want the facts to that just read the Augenblick study. It's a fact.
I just am not comfortable with a society that's spending 16 percent a year on building prisons and less than inflation in funding public schools. Therefore, I ask that you add 3 percent.
There I go, I'm not even pushing it to inflation yet. But there's some other aspects that I'll discuss later.
Third issue, transportation.
Our rapidly growing population is making demands that far exceed the capacity of our systems.
In the past 10 years, the population increased dramatically, the number of vehicle miles traveled increased 25 percent.
But over the same period, transportation funding dropped 12 percent. Now why is this? Federal funding has been cut, the gas tax revenues don't produce what they used to. As you well know it's not indexed to inflation, so we get behind each year.
In addition, we have more efficient engines and as they burn less gas, we pay less tax.
Last year I appointed a Blue Ribbon panel whose task was to examine the long-term transportation needs of Colorado. The panel identified $8 billion in state needs and an additional $5 billion in local needs over the next 20 years.
Members also advise that we re-define our priorities and make some fundamental changes in the way in which we approach transportation. That group did good work and I think we ought to follow their advice.
First, we must fix our roads. Many are in disrepair and cannot meet the demand of traffic. But our transportation problems go beyond fixing potholes and widening roads.
We need to develop a multi-modal system to move people, goods, information - not just cars.
This system must provide investments in light-rail, bus service, passenger rail and reliable air service in our smaller communities.
We should be flexible in allowing the states, the cities and the counties and regional organizations to choose the best options and the best revenue alternatives so that they can solve their particular construction, maintenance and congestion problems.
I agree with those who say that we must spend all we reasonably can from our current budget before going to the people to ask more.
I share a concern that looking at it over a 20-year time frame and a $13 billion lump sum is too much to comprehend. Therefore, I agree with the transportation commission's suggestion to identify on a 10-year basis the high priority projects that we need to complete. Now we have determined those projects and they amount to $4.86 billion.
So that's our target. How do we get, over 10 years, $4.86 billion? I suggest we do it as follows.
First, we take $1 billion, $100 million a year, over 10 years, from our existing highway users tax fund by accelerating investment in these critical projects.
Second, I believe we need to give to local jurisdictions, such as RTD, permission to raise revenues for major transportation projects like light rail and would ask you to authorize that -- for them to go to the people locally and say "do you want to do it or do you not?" If we do that I think we can raise $1 billion there.
So, $1 billion from existing funds, $1 billion from local sources such as RTD.
Third, what can we do from the general fund? We can and should spend $125 million a year for the next 5 years from our estimated existing state budget surplus. That will give us $625 million. And we can formalize that by statute if necessary for that 5-year period. Beyond 5 years, those reserves disappear. Economic conditions may well change which will not allow us to dedicate it beyond that period. We can't count on it beyond 5 years.
Now, I believe we need to make this level of commitment from existing revenues to solve this problem and I'm willing to do that. In fact, Senator Powers and I have been "milking cows" together all week and I'm sure that we'll find a way to do that, Senator.
Now, I want to be very clear. There will be some in this room who will say we ought to go beyond $125 million and you can do that. But you'll take it away from some other priorities that I don't think you should and I'll speak about that later.
There also may be some in the room who believe we can solve all the transportation problems of Colorado out of the general fund.
That I think would be a tragic policy.
We ought not mislead this state by saying that this general fund can support the highway transportation package that it needs over the next 10 to 20 years. I think we can do some, we can't do it all.
So there's the package.
$1 billion from the existing funds and highway department, $1 billion from the local effort, $625 million over 5 years. Then, to get the balance we ought to go to the people. They ought to say "yes, we will put together a revenue package either by your referring it to us or by initiative."
And I simply would request that you make that decision early in this session so that if you're not going to refer to those citizens, business persons who want to take that responsibility can have a clear shot at it and run with it.
Now, at some prior draft of this speech I wrote on the margin - "taxes."
Let me just speak about that real quickly here.
It's very tempting in our craft to give tax refunds because people like it and it's popular and could help you possibly win the next election.
Let me tell you, we have a higher obligation to the State of Colorado and that is to prepare for its future.
I would challenge anyone in this room -- if you've got this conviction, come down and spend time with me because I want to hear it personally. I'd challenge anyone in this room to tell me that we have the resources to make a tax refund and provide adequate transportation without further revenue.
I don't think it can be done. Any reasonable person in this state says it can't be done.
So we do have some surplus in our general fund and we out to be frugal in the way in which we handle that general fund. And any excess of that I'm willing to appropriate it, apply it to highways.
But I just would be misleading people if I signed any tax refund because I would be saying to them "look I'm going to make you pay double, triple or quadruple by standing in some future traffic line when you can't get to your work."
Next, crimes and prisons.
We have made substantial progress in our efforts to reduce crime in Colorado.
Tougher penalties, more prisons, 3-strikes-you're-out and a stronger death penalty have helped reduce violent crime among adults.
Juvenile crime also is down. The actions we have taken -- creating a juvenile boot camp, banning guns in the hands of kids, funding youth crime prevention initiatives and toughening the juvenile offender code -- they have made a difference.
But juvenile crime is still too high. We can do more this session to make our streets, our homes and our parks safer.
Like it or not, and I don't like it, we need to build some more prison beds. New projections show that we'll need prison space for approximately 4,000 more criminals by the year 2002. That's in addition to the 4,200 already approved in the last 3 years.
Therefore, I'm asking that the Department of Corrections be funded at a level of $395 million - that's an enormous expenditure - nearly 6.3 percent of our general fund budget, but it's a necessary one.
Next, we need to continue our commitment to giving kids options and opportunities before they break the law.
In 1993, when youth violence was so high, we created the youth crime prevention and intervention fund. It works and I ask you to fully fund this effort this year to help communities prevent crime.
We need to continue careful expansion of alternative sentencing, better community corrections and innovative ways to reduce our prisons' costs while making sure our communities are safe.
Finally, we need to add some Colorado State Patrol officers. While the number of vehicles on our highways has more than doubled in the last 20 years, the number of state troopers has stayed virtually the same. I ask that you fund an additional 100 troopers over the next 3 years.
Now the bottom line is this. We must deal firmly with those who break the law and work in our communities with our kids at the very youngest age to prevent crimes before they happen.
There are many other issues in that short-term agenda and you'll find them outlined in the budget and the legislative documents on your desks. All are important and I look forward to working with you in a bipartisan fashion on all of them.
I'd like to turn to three issues on a longer-term agenda that I think fundamentally will shape what we become as a state and as a people.
First, the economy and how we can have quality growth and retain our beauty.
Second, education and how we prepare ourselves for the future with skills and knowledge and ideas.
And third, and possibly most important, the lives of our youngest children and how we can make Colorado a family-friendly place to work and to live.
First, the economy and growth and the environment. The future economies of the world are going to be driven by skill levels, knowledge and ideas.
Colorado is in a remarkable position to be the leader in the next century.
We have a major advantage over virtually anybody in the world in terms of the quality of our environment and the beauty of this place.
Just ask Sun Microsystems or Merrill Lynch or any other company that has chosen to expand in Colorado lately. A large part of the answer, and I've talked with them personally, is this is a place of beauty. It's a place in which they want to live, and where their employees want to live.
That has caused us to grow. But our growth is a double-edged sword.
Our economic performance brings challenges. It brings traffic jams, school crowding, air pollution and less open space.
If we continue to grow at the rates we've seen in the last few years we'll double in less than 50 years. In fact the 2 percent growth of the last year would bring a doubling in 36 years.
Now, think about that. By the middle of the century there'll be 7 million people in Colorado. How are we going to respond?
First we've got to make this growth be quality growth.
Most growth decisions are local, but the state needs to provide communities with the tools they need to make decisions about growth.
Over the past 2 years, thousands of Coloradans have worked hard as a part of the Smart Growth and Development movement to create local visions for what they want their regions, their communities, their neighborhoods to look like 20 or 50 years from now.
We must continue this effort. We also must recognize that free market forces alone will not always operate to protect our valuable open-spaces. And there is a role for local and for statewide action.
Great Outdoors Colorado, which dedicates millions from the Colorado lottery to open-space, wildlife, parks and trails, is perhaps the most important legacy that we're going to leave to our children. We must keep faith with the commitment and with the people of Colorado who twice affirmed that policy.
The people have also spoken by Amendment 16, which helps ensure that the State Land Board will manage lands with a broader set of values that take into account the long-term sustainable beauty of this state. We need to keep faith with the voters on that and get on with implementing that reform. And we need to remember that we also keep faith with the children of Colorado when we keep Colorado beautiful.
Because I think all of you know most of the funds for children come not from leasing state lands, it comes from the sales and the income tax of this state. And you've got to believe if any of you have ever lived in a new development that the beauty of the place will help increase the rent.
The beauty of Colorado will help increase the revenue rent that we're going to fund public schools with.
So when we look at the issue -- this Amendment 16, which the people have said yes to -- we can go to Steamboat Springs and ask them how important Emerald Mountain is to the economy of that town.
We need to direct growth to those areas of the state that want and need more jobs.
The Front Range is healthy, growing too fast some would say, but the San Luis Valley, the Eastern Plains and other parts of rural Colorado need help to be able to share in our economic prosperity.
In addition, we need to find a way to share sales tax and other revenues so that so many growth decisions are not based on the "arms race" for sales taxes. This year we need to make some real progress on a long-term tax policy review.
One of the consequences of our economic growth is a greater demand for affordable housing. Rising costs make it difficult for many low and moderate income families to find safe and affordable housing. Some families face housing costs as high as 50, 60, even 70 percent of their income.
Now this is why I'm asking you to join me this year in providing a $10 million chunk for a housing trust fund to help working families with the high cost of housing. This investment, if it's prudently leveraged, can help off-set the costs of building housing several times its size, and could mean that hundreds of working families would be able to afford a home of their own. That's a very critical piece of economic development.
Our efforts to keep our air, water and land clean must continue.
In 1996 for the first time, the Denver area, despite our growth, did not violate federal air quality standards. But if we don't make smart transportation and smart growth decisions, the progress we've made will be lost.
Thanks to the leadership of Lt. Gov. Gail Schoettler, Rocky Flats and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal will be cleaned up faster and better.
It takes all of us working together. No single action will keep our air clean or protect our natural heritage. It takes each of us, doing our part by recycling, by conserving, by conserving energy and water, by making sure our cars don't pollute our air, to protect the uniqueness of Colorado.
Next, education and training.
How we educate, train and develop the potential of our people will do more to determine our future than anything else we do.
Every day, nearly 650,000 children go off to public schools in Colorado. That's a 15 percent increase in enrollment since 1990. We've worked together to see that those kids get the kind of education they need to succeed. We've built a good partnership on that and Colorado is doing well compared to other states. I want to compliment this body on its work in the area of standards and assessments.
We've improved in more categories of the nation's education goals than any other state.
Colorado's a national leader in the movement to set academic standards so that students, parents, and teachers have clear expectations about what kids should know and be able to do at different stages of their education.
We have instituted other reforms as well - charter schools, and choice within school districts that will continue to make public education better.
But there's more to be done.
Standards and assessments. On a bipartisan basis we developed far-sighted legislation requiring school districts to adopt tough academic standards. In most school districts they're in place and the preliminary results show that they work.
But setting standards is not enough. We need accurate measurement of achievement so that we know if kids are making progress, so parents can work with teachers to play a more active role in their child's education.
In the fiscal year 1998, I recommend that you appropriate $2.7 million to begin our assessments.
This is a critical investment for our children and we must not backtrack. Let me just say, this is one of the most conservative, I underline conservative, pieces of policy in this statement that I'm making today.
Let me tell you a story that illustrates this. As you well know I broke my leg. I would go to the doctor every two weeks and he would X-ray it. I was very interested in that process of healing because I wanted that leg to be good. It was going to be a very severe handicap in my life if I didn't have a good leg. So what did I do in those bi-weekly visits? I said "Doctor, tell me what a good leg is," and then second, I'd look at the X-ray and say "ah-ha and that's where I am." And then the third thing was - "what do I need to do to close that gap." If I had walked in there and found it wasn't healing, I would have changed my whole lifestyle. You know that. You would too.
Now that's what an exam and a standard is.
Now let me just take that then to a parent with a fourth grade child. If I were a parent of a fourth grader, I would want to have, on a periodic basis, something that comes in to my hands that says "Roy, do you have an educational broken leg?" Now to answer that question, I need to know what is the educational standard for fourth grade math?
Secondly, I need to see the exam. I've got to know where you are compared to a good "math leg."
And third, by golly, I've got to change our lifestyle in our home so that you close that gap, that you heal that.
Now that is the power of assessments and standards.
It's eventually going to work when we get it on the dinner table, into the discussion between parents and their child. That's what accountability is. It's one thing to hold a school district accountable or a state accountable, but that doesn't change behavior.
What changes behavior is when you see your kid not going to have a life because he's got an educational broken leg. You will fix it if you know it's broken. We don't know that now. And we're never going to know that until we start this assessment process that really tests what ought to be tested.
There's a lot of new science in terms of how well we're doing with the world. We're doing average. We should be at the top of that world competitive list.
I would like to spend time with any of you new legislators. Come on down, we'll have coffee together. I'd like to share with you 10 years of thinking I've had on this issue of standards and assessments. It's the most conservative principle. It's accountability. It's holding you accountable and it says there are consequences for failure.
That is the most conservative moral code I could lay out to you. Therefore, I reach out to the different political opinions in this body and say let's not start polarizing over this issue of going backwards on standards.
We're not trying to tell people what their values ought to be, we're trying to tell a fourth grader whether he is going to make it or not. The worst thing you can do to a youngster is to lie to them about where they are in the competitive forces of the world.
Now if you don't feel that I believe strongly in this subject, come talk to me!
But it's not enough just to have standards and assessments, we've got to get our curriculum materials aligned.
There was a study that recently came out called the TIMSS Study. It compared us worldwide.
The problem with our curriculum is we're too broad and too shallow. I see Rep. Anderson nodding her head -- she knows this -- she's worked in this area.
We need to shrink the breadth and increase the depth.
In math, it doesn't make any sense if you can do 186 different kinds of fractions if you don't understand the concept of what you're doing.
So we need to be sure that our curriculum is aligned to our standards.
Next we need to see that teachers know how to teach to those standards. My goodness it is wrong for us to say this is the goal, to expect those kids to get there if we haven't given those teachers the opportunity to upgrade their own skills.
Last year you passed a law saying that all students need to read by the third grade. That's a good law. I strongly support the idea that we have to ensure that schools and kids have the tools to make it.
Kids who are behind need help and I want to work with you so that we can measure our progress to this goal and give districts the incentives and the support that they need to get the job done.
You well know all kids are not the same and if we want them all to read by the third grade we've got to say to those in the first and second grades that aren't coming along, "whoops folks!" We've got to extend the day, we've got to extend the year, we've got to get some individual instruction.
I think you did the right thing. It would be cruel to lead those kids down that primrose path and let them fail. Let's pay attention to that.
Before I move on, I want to tell a story. Last year I had talked about judging everything by having an 8-year-old at my side. Thinking about how an 8-year-old would react to what I do. Now, last summer, I put a name and a face to that child. I was visiting Montview Elementary School in Aurora and I was leaning over one of the desks and it happened to be the desk where Tanikia sat. She was reading a book and I went up to her and I said "what do you like best about school?" She said, "reading." I said "what do you like least about school?" and she said "recess." I asked, "why do you not like recess?" She said, "it gets in the way of my reading." Then I said "why is reading so important?"
She looked up at me and said "I can't be governor if I can't read!"
Now I warn you that if Tanikia is watching this morning, she's trying to figure out how you get to this podium.
There may be others in this room who are thinking the same thing!
School-to-career.
We need to provide alternative ways to prepare our students for the job market.
The Colorado school-to-career partnership chaired by Lt. Gov. Gail Schoettler is helping elementary, middle, high school and college students reach high academic standards by linking the classroom with real life examples from business.
In just one year, partnerships representing hundreds of communities in over 70 percent of Colorado school districts are bringing thousands of employers, educators, parents and students together in a partnership to bring knowledge of the workplace into the classroom. We need to do that.
Work force development.
As you well know, in today's economy, education and training do not end with graduation. Upgrading and refining skills is a lifelong process. People can expect to change jobs very frequently.
Now to help make these transitions easier, we are creating a statewide network of high quality, One-Stop Career Centers which will offer Coloradans an integrated, flexible system to connect job seekers with jobs and training opportunities.
The most striking differences between One-Stop centers and the current system will be the emphasis upon local control, unified service to all who need help and the integration of services at the local level. Local employers and policymakers will largely determine how and where services will be delivered, what kind of training programs are needed and how resources can most effectively be used to meet local needs.
It is an interesting insight into my mind about the welfare issue.
Here's one that I pushed at the local level. I had the option of keeping it at the state, but I thought it needed to be local. I think you will agree that we've got to have a computerized job listing system statewide. You need to know if you're in Durango where there's a job in Sterling for a tool-and-die maker.
It's a partnership. We ought to make the same kind of partnership with welfare.
Higher Education.
Colleges and universities must strive to meet the needs and expectations of parents and students and taxpayers.
College must remain affordable for the average family. We've helped Colorado families by implementing a pre-paid tuition plan allowing parents to pay for tomorrow's tuition based on today's prices and I compliment you on that.
For this year, I propose that we increase financial aid to students by $4.5 million.
We also need to provide our colleges and universities with adequate funding.
That's why I've asked for $58.6 million in the budget for operations and $57.7 million for capital construction for our colleges and universities.
Before I leave education, I want to talk about the use of computers and technology. It is absolutely revolutionizing this world. I think you see it in the private sector. You can hardly keep pace with the technological change.
It's changing the way we learn also.
For example, Western Governors' University.
It's a virtual university. It will deliver educational courses through computer technology, distance learning and other means.
More than a dozen Western states, most of the governors being Republican, that's the way it is out here, have joined in this effort and it will radically help us in higher education.
It's not a substitute for the present system, it's an extension of the marketplace.
Western Governors' University certificates and degrees will be based on whether or not the student has actually learned the material.
Certification of competency, rather than how long they spend in the classroom. That's a very interesting innovation.
WGU - no football team folks - will benefit Colorado in many ways.
It will enhance our current efforts in distance learning. It will enable states to work together to tap the incredible promise of technology.
Finally and most importantly, the emphasis at WGU on competency will improve not only learning and its tangible demonstration, it will also make it easier for people to be hired for what they know and are able to do.
It's an exciting concept. I'd love to spend more time with you on it.
In Colorado, we're upgrading and expanding the use of technology in education. Last year the legislature appropriated $20 million for Technology Learning Grants designed to put more computers in classrooms and link more schools, libraries, colleges and universities to the information superhighway. The response to that program has been very strong.
I recommend that you continue funding it with $25 million this year.
Teachers also need access to technology and ongoing support while they learn. That's why I'm proposing an additional $20 million be dedicated to teacher training and staff development. Professional development is really the key to effectively using technology as we increase student learning.
Let me stop for a moment. I know there are some in this room who, when I threw out the figure for $125 million for transportation, said "we're going to up that. We're going to make it $150 million or more and we'll take other areas of the budget to do it." Probably the way you're going to aim for it is obviously this technology request.
But, look at this a moment. Look what's shaping this world. My mind is absolutely bombarded with change out there caused by technology in the private sector.
If we don't bring our students into that world, students who are computer literate with teachers who are computer literate ... we're going to fail.
Look at the amount of money that we spend for transportation systems as compared for technology in education.
If you make that contrast, you'll conclude, I believe, that you should not move that $25 million out of technology and over into highways.
Now I'm just anticipating something down the road. I've got to tell you we're not doing the job in giving our kids access to the new forms of technology.
It is amazing what you can do to help a child learn.
There's a new kind of arcade called "Dave and Buster's," have any of you been in one of those? You walk in, it's 50,000 square-feet in some shopping centers, and you walk into all kinds of virtual reality. I walked in one recently. The thing I was absolutely impressed with is how you learn in a virtual reality circumstance.
Well, we're not going that far but I've got to tell you, those computers - as I watched these kids over Christmas take a new program and begin to work with it - are an amazing way for us to help them know how to learn and be familiar with the world they are going to live in.
We need to make that kind of investment. Help me do it.
One final initiative in this area that I believe holds great promise for increasing student achievement through technology is Colorado NetDays.
NetDays is a high-tech barn raising. Volunteers, using kits purchased by business, the PTA and other groups get together and go wire the schools and the libraries to the Internet with their own sweat equity.
That's a great program. I really would hope that we will help on a volunteer basis.
Early childhood, child care and a family-friendly workplace.
Education and training are important but if we don't turn our attention to kids until they go to school, we'll always be playing catch-up.
All my life I have known how you raise a child is important and that intellect and emotion are determined very early in life. But in the last few years, I have been exposed to a whole new body of knowledge about the importance of building the right environment to give our kids a chance to thrive.
As many of you know I gave each member of the Joint Budget Committee a copy of "Inside the Brain," a new book that details some of the latest science about how we learn and grow.
I believe that this research is so compelling that in light of what we know now we should put it to use in our daily lives as parents, as teachers, as business people and as policy- makers.
Just for example, at birth a child has a thousand trillion -- a thousand trillion -- brain cells. And as that child grows these cells are available to all kinds of stimulus -- sight, sound, smell, touch, feeling, language.
All kinds of connections are being made by those cells but if you don't use them, you lose them.
A very interesting experiment was done with kittens. You put a patch over a kitten's eye at a certain age, leave it there for 15 days, take the patch off and the eye is perfectly, physically like the other eye. But the cat is blind in that eye. What happened was the brain cells that were genetically aimed for that eye have gone to other work within the brain. Some of them are helping the other eye be stronger, some of them have died away. You use it or you lose it.
This has brought a whole spotlight of focus down on me as a father and as a grandfather and as a public policymaker about how we are using this research in our public policy.
The way environment affects a young child is so much greater than we ever knew. IQ can be raised 25 points by the variance of environment that a child is raised in.
The kind of care a mother receives before birth, the kinds of experiences the child has in his or her first weeks or months or years of life are crucial to how that child will function from preschool years to adolescence and even into adulthood.
Yet while these research findings are extremely exciting and promising, this knowledge is not well used in public policy.
We spend so much time and energy trying to curtail the damage, to fix a problem, to make up for past failures. Just look at our juvenile detention budget and where it's going. Look at special education budgets, foster care or our prison budgets.
The truth is, the most effective and more humane way is to create the best possible environment and circumstances we can for our children as early as possible.
Let me be clear. Governments don't raise children, and they shouldn't.
I've read a lot of history in which governments did raise children and it was frightening. Governments don't raise children. That's the job of parents and families. But, government can create conditions in communities where parents will have a better chance and an easier time of raising healthy and happy and productive children.
We need to think about this statement a moment. If you don't think governments have something to do with creating the atmosphere and circumstances in a community that affect children, look what we're about to do with welfare reform.
By law, we are saying you should leave your child and go to work. Need I say it again?
Governments are in the business of creating conditions in which parenting occurs correctly or it doesn't. What we want to be sure we do is to be smart and wise about where government acts and where it doesn't.
Let me continue. We have achieved almost universal access to pre-school for our at-risk 4 year-olds. Our referral system helped 42,000 working parents find child care. We've increased the number of children who receive immunizations. Our Division of Child Care has developed one of the most streamlined child care subsidy systems in the country.
Bright Beginnings, which is a non-government, non-partisan effort focused on children, recently celebrated its first birthday. In its first year, more than 250 trained volunteers have assisted more than 1,000 families in 28 counties giving new babies a warm welcome and proving support and important information to their parents.
It's a bi-partisan effort. I want to pay tribute to Brad Butler who is a real leader in it and to Tom Norton and others in this room who have helped with that effort. Those children will have a better life because of what we've done with Bright Beginnings.
But we've got to do more.
We need family friendly workplaces.
We need to tackle the crisis that we face in child care head on.
Every day nearly 200,000 of our young children are dropped off at preschools and day care centers or at the home of a relative or friend while their moms and dads go off to work.
Over 100,000 children are in state licensed child care programs. The reality of the 1990s is that six out of 10 of our children, during the most important years of their lives, are spending 40 or 50 hours a week in the care of someone other than their parent. That is a fact.
As parents enter the work force and as we move people from welfare to work this challenge is only going to grow.
By 1999, at least 40,000 children of welfare recipients will need licensed child care.
Most of us agree that welfare reform won't work without a child care system that does work.
Think about a mother and a father dropping their child off at school or pre-school or day care. They are asking these questions as they are performing their work during the day. Is my child safe? Is he or she getting the attention they deserve? Is he or she in a day care center where the attendant is watching the TV and the child is just sitting there non-stimulated? Maybe they have read some of this brain research. They can see those brain cells just being lost because their is no conversation between that adult and that child.
That's the most important, precious possession any of us ever have. And yet we are off out there on the factory floor or the office. That is happening in an institutional setting.
Let me give you one other thing. The average cost of that is around $4,600 a year. Do you know the wages day care workers are paid? $6 to $6.50 an hour. They can't even afford to put their own children into day care. A minimum quality day care program costs about $7,200 a year.
We have a gap there that this society, nationwide, has not addressed. Yet these children are our most precious possession.
This is the key to our future. It's the key to our economic future.
We have to do something about this. I don't have all those answers but I want to lay out 12 points and I'm sure you'll find many of them can be improved, you can add to them.
But I want to start this conversation with you.
Let me lay out 12 specific things that we can do to help meet this challenge.
Local responsibility. We need to "devolve" as much as we can in this area. Block grants are one way to do this. All you Republicans hear this Democrat talking about block granting? All right!
The point being we have to get it to the local level so communities are responsible for what happens in their community. To do that they need the funds and need to be held accountable for those funds.
We have school boards to direct school policy but we are not organized to adequately coordinate policy for the very young. This is being done effectively in Denver and some communities, but we need to do it more.
Those boards ought to include the evangelical community, the ministers, the child advocates, the law enforcement officers, include a broad base of people in the local community.
Every once in a while I see a church basement that could be used for day care. I talk to the people in that church and they say "we can't run the risk of legal liability."
Why don't we find an answer to that problem Maybe we can assume some of that risk beyond a certain level as a state policy to encourage the creation of that space available for day care. There are some things we can do to help the locals do their job.
I ask you to look at how we can address that same need in the metro areas. I can't do that through the CDBG funds.
We have a real crisis here. A crisis of space, a crisis of quality of personnel, and a crisis of affordability.
Let me tell you - that's an investment in the future.
Let me move from child care to the health area. Despite our strong economy we have 150,000 children who do not have basic health insurance.
Most of them live in families in which one or both parents work.
We've developed a strong public-private partnership which is beginning to respond to this problem and I was pleased in December at the announcement that Kaiser Permanente is testing a plan to provide low-cost health insurance for eligible children in several Colorado counties.
We have school-based health clinics serving the needs of hundreds of children but we need to do more.
In my budget, I'm proposing eliminating the assets test for children applying for Medicaid. Today, a family that has purchased a car to provide reliable transportation to work every day is barred from the Medicaid program because of the assets test.
This change is good health policy and it's consistent with the efforts of our welfare reform.
I've called for an expansion of the Colorado Child Health Plan so that more children can have access to health care.
I know that some of you are working on broader proposals related to the consolidation of child health programs in this area. I encourage you in your work. I support you.
I've talked about a short-term agenda: welfare, transportation, school funding and crime.
I've also talked about a longer-term vision: our economy and environment, education and our young children.
I think we need to set our sights high and be challenged to use the gifts we have.
These are my priorities and everything I have proposed is fully paid for in the balanced budget I have submitted to you.
Let me say that again. Every proposal I have made is fully paid for in that balanced budget plan.
This is not a tax and spend program, it's an invest program
It's designed to save expense in the future by making the right investments now.
We've talked about what we need to do, let's spend a moment on how we do it.
During my 10 years as governor, we in this building have generally worked in the spirit of cooperation and bi-partisanship and with a commitment to make Colorado's future strong and bright. For the most part we've tried to focus on what is truly important and what the people of Colorado sent us here to do.
The voters sent us here to solve problems. Not to use our offices as platforms for ideological combat.
Many bills, which seek to make an ideological point will be introduced. We can not let them bog down this legislative session.
Like most Coloradans, I'm counting on the wisdom of the majority to take care of those bills, to make sure that they don't harm Colorado and don't detract us from our real work.
If that doesn't happen I will not hesitate to act, taking into account the best interest of all Coloradans.
This is an agenda I've laid out and it's not just for government alone. It's for all of the people of Colorado.
When you look at some of the most important efforts we've made in the last few years-- Smart Growth, Bright Beginnings and now how we deal with the crisis in child care -- our greatest success has been when we have encouraged and motivated people to act in their own community, to act from the bottom up. That's what we've been all about here in Colorado. It's really a new way of governing.
This is not a government that takes responsibilities away from people but a government that works alongside people so that they can take responsibility for themselves.
We understand that we must work together. That we must pull our own weight, take care of our neighbor in tough times and pitch in when we need to.
It's in this spirit that we really need to make Colorado the best place to grow up, to work, to raise a family.
I'd like to close with a story. It's attributed to former Senator Sam Nunn.
"I recently heard a story on radio. A reporter was covering the tragic conflict in the middle of Serajevo and he saw a little girl shot by a sniper. The reporter threw down his pad and his pencil and stopped being a reporter for a few minutes. He rushed to the man who was holding the child and helped them both into his car. As the reporter stepped on the accelerator, and was racing to the hospital the man holding the bleeding child said 'hurry, my friend my child is still alive.' A moment or two later, the man said to the reporter 'hurry, my friend my child is still warm.' Finally he said 'hurry, oh my god, my child is getting cold.' When they got to the hospital, the little girl died. As the two men were in the lavatory washing the blood off their hands and their clothes, the man turned to the reporter and said, 'this is a terrible task for me, I must go and tell her father that his child is dead. He will be heartbroken.' The reporter was amazed. He looked at the grieving man and said, 'I thought she was your child.'
The man looked back and said 'no, but aren't they all our children?' "
Thank you.
Last modified June 18, 2003