North Carolina People; Gov. Mike Easley, Governor of North Carolina

Good evening ladies and gentlemen for all of us North Carolina people we hope you're having a very happy holiday season and part of that Christmas tradition is the knock on the door the governor of the state of North Carolina for a little year in review of his work. He's live graciously invited us in. So we talked with him just a few seconds funding for North Carolina people is provided by walk over you helping North Carolina people realize their financial goals since 1879 and by U.N. members. They season going well for you so far so good I can't wait to get in a little duck and always look forward to the end of the year because I get to interview with you

and pick up with an old friend weather certainly nice to be with you again sir. And first I know everybody if they were sitting here would ask you this question What's the state of the economy. How are we doing that. You know we're doing a lot better than we were when I first took over and I'm real pleased at the first year of my second term versus the first year of my first term. That was challenging times. Our combi is moving right along. Revenues are above projection right now. We're able to make the investments we need to make to keep moving forward. We're seeing North Carolina recognized nationally and internationally. We've moved up a notch now to number three in biotechnology. Certainly we'll go house and there will the new biotech training network. All this moving across the study site selection magazine who writes studies just rated North Carolina number one in business climate again for the fourth time in five years. And for small businesses the National Federation of Independent Businesses rated us number one here in North Carolina.

We're creating jobs even though we're in this transition of foreign trade. That show of so many jobs out the back door. We're continuing to bring in new jobs in the front door which is a real tribute I think to the diversity of our economy. On one hand and the quality of the workforce that we're turning out through our education system and the research institutions in the university system community college system because we're able to retrain those textile furniture agricultural workers that are losing their jobs. We're reaching I'm getting ready to go to move into this global economy. It is uphill battle but North Carolina has withstood it well. And I'm pleased with where we are. We were visiting the biotech center not so long ago North Carolina people was so pleased to learn that you had the point of creating regional centers across the state where you can be hands on more or less this kind of development. As a matter of fact I saw that interview with Stephen Burke and no we are but when this

up. The institute network as we call it biotechnology and bio manufacturing it also be useful. Pharma working in conjunction with I keep seeing Dean opening up but it's not a chancellor of a willing. He really was the mastermind of this. Funded by the golden leaf we give the network in place it'll be funneled out pipeline through every community college system in the state and nobody's more than 25 minutes away from community college so they can go in. People in every county every corner of every county can go in and within six months be trained for bio manufacturing which will be their new and better job a better paying job as we go forward. North Carolina that's really going to be I believe our new economy as we transition so we're oh we're still fighting the federal trade policies that we're fighting back and we're doing we're holding our own. You had a strong year to an industry recruitment Have you not.

We've been fortunate with industry recruitment not just in the numbers but the direction that we're setting for the state. What our strategy has been is pretty simple I want to be so simple that everybody understands and everybody can be on the same page. And that is to get education up and keep business costs down because that's where the problem is with Business right now we have to compete with the cost of globally and competing with China and India and Vietnam Malaysia Philippines is much more difficult than it was we were competing with South Carolina Virginia Tennessee. But we have our costs down we just saw Ernst Young study that showed North Carolina was for as a tax burden on business goes its top or did last with Delaware. So you hear a lot of talk about all the taxes on business the two how we did last in the country. At the same time our education system is turning out a more knowledge

worker with more talent and more skill. Those who invest I believe strongly those states who invest in skill and knowledge and talent will be the winners in the future. Those who don't will languish. And that's why our supplies that even in tough times we're able to continue to make those investments in education fully funding our robot increases in our colleges and universities K through 12 reducing class sizes pre-K all of those things that invest in people that let's us then target the industries we want. And that sets the course long term 20 years down the line or more more maybe for North Carolina. I certainly applaud your emphasis as you've just outlined to you about the critical necessity of the strong educational base. What does all this say then to us. Is there a need now to have a serious study of tax reform. Well I think if you look back we have quietly done a lot of reforming. I certainly want to thank Governor wholesales Governor Scott and all of voles came together my first

year you know we were kind of jumped in the dip net and had this tremendous budget shortfall. We closed about 500 billion dollars of loopholes and thanks to their bipartisan leadership. Able to identify some of those things we we also gave some relief to the middle class in the poor North Carolinians doing away with a marriage penalty tax and creating a childcare tax credit I think is so important here that we think about the children and make sure that our families and working families have a chance to succeed. Those two things by the way if you a family of four those two items reduce your taxes if you 35000 or below you're paying less now than you were back in 2000. And one of the other things we've done is streamlined our sales tax consistent with what we're trying to do nationally. And that minute someone up

some went down for instance cable TV. We did tax satellite TV we didn't tax so we give somebody unfair advantage we tried to bring some consistency to all of that. But by and large there is there's some debate but not a lot of movement that you can make without going to tax services or reducing income tax. If you reduce the income tax and go to taxing more services the problem that a lot of people have with that is a tax on services a little more regressive and the income tax is a little more progressive. So right now I think whether there's any more tax reform is going to be determined by and large on whether. Well the number one the public wants to go in that direction which I don't like they do. They don't they don't want a haircut tax and and I can tell you my barber makes it very clear he don't pay one and he does have a razor in his hand which tell me that you know what I have with this.

We continue to look and find things that we can change that make the system fairer more progressive as we move forward but still keep ourselves competitive with other states. Every thoughtful North Carolinian applauded. But you about teachers. Ours was a very very splendid movie recently earned and learned all these programs you've been fostering. Where do you see public education teachers school programs. It's a good question because sometimes the long term vision gets lost in the in the crisis of the moment you know. But first let me say this this is really important that I get this out on the teacher salaries. That was a real strong legislative desire in the middle of the budget negotiations and I remember Steele we were sitting around the big dining table at the mansion with the leadership in the Senate leadership in the house talking about we got a little additional money that we

didn't expect because we had a good year. And what do we do now. And they all came to the same conclusion that the elephant in the room was teacher salaries. You know we've never gotten to the national average. We've got very close go with 4 percent. And then we fell to about 10 percent below. Now when you put the cost of living adjustment and we still doing all right but what we want to do is take it beyond the national average and the legislature and I went back and present protium bassline speak black got together and came back to me and said Are we want to do it. And we're going to put in the budget that you must develop a plan and then you can implement it. So they put it back on me but they provided the resources and I will make sure that the the General Assembly gets credit for that because they really do want to make sure our teachers have every opportunity to study and make it work. It's not just getting but keeping good teachers in North Carolina all the broader picture of

Education when I first came into office. I wanted to do a couple things on the front end of education or want to get smart start fully funded that my predecessor worked so hard on and we've done that. And I want to get a pre-K program in place and we recognize as one of the top four in the country now for which is pre-K for at risk four year olds now has about 15000 enrollees we need to cover about 40 thousand students. And we're moving at a pace that the work place where we don't waste any money we use every tax dollar wisely. If you take pre-K for average four year olds and you reduce class size can you go in first second third grade to a level of 1 to 18. We know it's not a question about it. We know that will help us reduce and eventually eliminate the achievement gap. And so that was my first concern because the workforce for the more starts very young.

And when you're trying to attract business and here they don't only want to know what you have right now but if I put 500 million dollars in a plan what's my workforce going to look like 10 15 20 years from now. So we got that done. Then this year I think was the best education budget that I've seen since I've been following the budgets. And we fully funded the low will formula in those counties for the first time ever 270 million dollars a lot of accountability that hadn't been there the past. We fully funded the disadvantaged students four on one that we started about two years ago started by executive order legislature picked it up ran with it and we were in partnership on that as well. We also took some steps to try and do something about the dropout rate dropout rate in the country is something that is we ought to be ashamed of and it is here serious in North Carolina. The most recent number I saw was 70 percent of those who enter ninth

grade eventually graduate. About as high as you'll ever see you know when the country's about 83 percent. None of those are good. And it was one of the things we found is that students don't always see the benefit of finishing high school textile mills if you know back up where you grew up in Gaston County. If you go to go to work at a textile mill you might want to get there early or start working bring hope paycheck Why should I hang around and take algebra that type of thing. Now we story three different types of hospitals. You hit on one of them. The first one is the new schools project where we take these overly large schools and we break them down to schools within a school. No more than 400 students. So the students know the faculty faculty knows the student population and they have a way to talk to each of them bonded and encouraged the kids along. The kids that have somebody they don't want to disappoint. And then we do a economically themed high schools out of those. And what happens in is a student will pick up on a particular

thing which Health Sciences life sciences whatever it might be and we lock them up as part of the curriculum they work with the business in the area and they get a paycheck and they see the connection there between the job they really want and the courses that they're taking. So it's an incentive for to go on to graduate knowing their jobs late when they get out there and then go further if they want to do that to learn an earn. It is one of those unique programs is being done in 15 locations now in North Carolina. We'll have it available in oh wait for all 100 counties. And what it is simply is you start the ninth grade you study for years you get a high school education right now with learning earn if you stay an extra year. We're partnering with all of our community colleges and our university systems both public and private. And you go that extra year we compact the study and you graduate with an associate's college degree. And so the students are able to see that a

farmer willing to put in the time I can come out here with something to really get me a good job. And the truth of the matter is as you well know and I've been preaching now you gotta have you got to have more education more knowledge today than you had to have the past. And that's how America keeps its competitive. So we continuing to make those kinds of changes and look at sort of the back end of education this past year where we're looking at the front end in the early years and listening to you talk and even from the child entering school all the way through the sophistication of technology here I get the reading that you've really got an integrated effort here. And globalizing the conversation as you go along and you feel our business community and our leaders and really aware of the place of North Carolina in this global combat zone. Oh I think business leaders understand it better than than anybody. And I think they understand and have worked with the state better than

any other state in the country. Our partnership with the business community has been fantastic and we've started a 21st century skill center now. And what we do is we bring businesses in. They all have designees to meet Trish will be heads up for us and we're asking business. What do you need. We want to make sure that those that we graduate from high school community college or universities have the tools that you want them to have in order to be productive. And we want to give you the best workforce. But what do you need. And this dialogue is taking place now. And it's important much more important used to be used to you could go out and you could talk to somebody in business community and you could set a curriculum for a couple of years and you'd be pretty safe. Things are changing so rapidly now. We have monthly discussions and then we go back and we assess our current curricula determine whether that's working whether it meets the needs and if it doesn't

then we move forward with with the changes that are necessary to meet the demands of business because that's what is really going to especially small business. Go make or break a state as we go forward. Course a big part of this and it's the environment in which all of this happens the air the water traffic all these things what you're But your grasp of how we're dealing with these issues now have the quality of life around us that all this growth is stimulated and it's a natural spend all that's got to be dealt with. What are we doing that. Where are you exactly right you can do just one without doing this. This job and civic responsibility requires that you be able to do several things at once. We try to think long term plan long term and we have groups like the progress board that you're aware of that are out there thinking. And what we're doing with the mayor for example our clean smokestacks initiative two

thousand and two we're cleaning up 14 coal flowered coal powered plants and they are the admissions of damn we were. We put more strictures on automobiles emissions of down this past year we don't have 2005 yet for the past year we had the fewest how zoned days that we've had since the early 80s. That's because of making some progress there. But what we're trying to determine now is what type of fuel and energy we want to have in the state in 2025 we're going back to nuclear we're looking at that we're going to try to use in fuels will that work here or is it too much transportation cost prohibitive. So we we have a group looking at that as well as we cleaning up the plants as far as the water goes I think we learned a valuable lesson in 2002. As for just as droughts are concerned and you know we're right back in here when the zoo began but we're better able to handle it because we

learned in 2002 that we have to have. Two or three things in place all the time. One is a local network of people in every city every county that turn their information into the state on a daily basis so we don't let this slip up on us. When we get into a water shortage and then ultimately into severe drought status. Secondly we've changed our infrastructure. In 0 2 we started doing little makeshift put this town up with that town's system. And what was a very temporary way and we stopped backed up really invested some money into it so that we don't have problems like Shelby had. In 2002 we can now we got several spur lines that they can can use we know to do the mandatory action earlier rather than later.

People won't like any of my ad but if they get mad or want to give out a water you know in your first inaugural you had a lot to say about one North Carolina as I'm hearing you say with all that you've been doing here this is the thing you really are following. We talk about education in its old state. We talk about these problems of environment everybody's of disunity but really working for you. Yeah I think it is an and it's one of the reasons why. I like to see things a little bit more top down the state involved then just on the local level in North Carolina has always done that it started as you will know when Max Garnett was governor. We were the only state to keep the school house open during the Great Depression because the state took it over. I am what I like to see is programs like more for pre-K for all children in North Carolina funded at state level reducing class size not just third grade in Raleigh or Charlotte or chapel. Third grade in every

school in every county in the state and trying to see that the the learning earned in the new schools project and all of those items go to every county in the state. Because you found if you don't if you don't reach out to the rule areas then you miss a lot of poverty that you could have a positive impact on and education is key to bringing people out of poverty. We know there's a lot that we must do in the meantime through Medicaid and a lot of other programs out there. We have to give people to to help them along. An exodus of North Carolina unit and certainly an obligation that we all take very seriously in this state. But give them a good education is what's going to fix the problem long term. It makes their area of the state all of our counties attractive to business or tourism or something that will be sustaining the economy there only into the next century. It's encouraging to hear you say what you say about children because that recent child advocacy report

showed more abuse. Now of course as population has grown but they trace the root cause of the poverty in the state and I'm so pleased to hear you say you're attacking it that way it will. We are and we we thank you. I think we have to still work in partnership with the federal government and that I just honestly believe some bad decisions are being made right now that really don't take into account the reality of the people and we have people on welfare who are trying to get off welfare get a GED. Currently they have to spend 20 hours outside the home working on their GED you doing some public service. Congress wants to shift it to 40 hours. Well they got children trying to take care of those children. When you when you put people in that kind of a bond they can't work themselves out of it. And that's when the children you see abuse go up. You see children get neglected because of trying to do more than they really can do. And I've

asked our delegation to you know to look at some of these Medicaid cuts they're talking about making and I know that National Governors Association signed off on some of those but I departed with with some of my colleagues there because I just know that. It's inconsistent with a lot of our American values not to provide at least minimum health care for the poor the time when they can't provide for themselves. And so I hope that in the end of the day Congress will remember that we all have a responsibility to provide for the least of our people as we've all learned growing up in this and this great stuff but it's certainly one where that concern is made to state what it is. Do you feel pretty good about the state of things right now. Well I do I think we're moving in the right direction but I'm always up I'm always one of those who feels if you quit pushing that train down the track it's going to start backing up. There's no standing still especially in this economy either you going forward as rapidly as things are changing and you're making changes to get ahead or stay up with or you going

backwards. And so I think we're going to continue to be aggressive as we go forward. We've got to have a long term vision long term planning use our research institutions our research facilities use our universities. We've got a great university system tremendous leadership now and coming in the future with with Molly broad and Erskine Bowles excited Well that and I think we can that we needed to mention that the progress board for example. We need to tap more into the university as the days are gone where you can get 15 20 people in a room and figure out where we need to go. We need a lot of data that exists out there for us now. This program's airing on the last day of the whole year and the first day of the new year that weekend got about 60 seconds left. What's your message to the people of the state. Oh I love it when you put me on the spot. I want everybody to know we have a lot of progress in this state and it's not because of me. It's not the governors not the legislatures not those elected leaders just because of

the people. Your hopes your dreams ambitions aspirations and the determination and the commitment of the people of North Carolina have demanded progress and will continue to. And for that outlawed people of the state. And I wish each and every one of you great holidays and a Happy and blessed New Year. Thank you Governor for letting us come and visit again. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for letting us into your homes. Holiday season good New Year to you also from all of us in North Carolina people until next week then get funding for North Carolina people is provided by walk over you helping North Carolina people realize their financial goals since 1879 and by UN CTV members are.