Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20240622

That joined by governor herbert and myself and others, we learned, i could not pronounce the limber cannot not but name, but we learned that many governors are adopting these practices to deliver better results to the people. For example, governors are looking for on boarding processes for Industry Leaders creating streamline regulations using performance data and evidence from research to inform budgets. Improving efforts statewide and using geographic data to understand and prioritize methods. We also learned that many governors are taking a copperheads of approach to deliver results in their states. They are putting pieces together and creating the systems throughout their states. Certainly many different options for delivering results to residents, but regardless whether the governor focuses on one strategy, or implements a statewide approach, we identified three rules that create a state oriented government. These are principles that already governors focus on. They give them high priority. First, make sure we set a vision and focus on outcomes and maintain that focus. Sometimes we take it for granted that this vision for our campaign is the state off the state division. That is not only that is not always the case. We must establish goals outcomes for the state and bring together stakeholders that play a role in achieving those. Second, we try to foster a culture of continuous improvement, to make sure all of our cabinet and all their staff recognize continuous approach es for improvement. This can affect the culture. Third, make sure we communicate results. We must make sure results are shared with the public. Governors talk about results but they should consider making them personal and human. Make sure that you are telling stories, sharing narratives. Using visuals. I am pleased to share results with the to be today, they should be in front of each of you. This is a toolkit and that includes documents and resources that will be maybe governor herbert will be my van away. Vanna white. [laughter] a pocket card with the main takeaways. In issue brief. The three additional briefs that address the Main Elements of delivering results. These are best practices as how the state are doing these practices. And how to deliver better results to the people of our states. I am more than grateful. Before i conclude, i would be remiss if i did not think the companies that support this effort. I want to thank the Arnold Foundation in texas. I also want to thank as re. They have done a great job ezry. Give them a hand. [applause] this is an opportunity for us to help each other. The delivering results look at will provide you with tools and information to achieve these goals and we appreciate the support and the advice and involvement of many of you here today. It is interesting, when i first worked on this and we look back at what had been done, it had been done with Great Success and looking at what the initiative does, it is great to have it done, but it is also important to have it done in a way that is usable going forward. I can say that governor markells initiative was good. We are still using some of these takeaways. How do you take or work with companies to make sure that we have more jobs for those individuals who have forms of disabilities. The work First Development work that governor fallin did emily cain back a year later and it has expanded in value. We came back a year later and it has expanded in value. Now i have the privilege of introducing our keynote speaker. Peter hutchison. He has worked throughout north america. Over the course of his career, he was commissioner of the department of finance, superintendent of goals in many annapolis in minneapolis. And most recently, the president of the bush foundation. Peter has been involved throughout the entire results initiative and has been instrumental in the final package. He is one of the first people i spoke with when putting together this framework and what it might look like. He was fully engaged throughout the initiative. He attended all three of the roundtables last fall as well as the summit in denver this past april. He is as passionate about Good Government as anyone i know. He cares deeply about leadership. He cares about Regulatory Reform and process improvement and he makes it a priority to help states used data to inform their decisions. Their ideas and insights, they are in the dna in that toolkit in front of you. I cannot express anymore strongly how much we of him. This past year, he has shared so many ways to do business, showing how to do business for our residences. He has so many complex issues and ideas, turning them into sisi ideas that delivered sisi sisi succint ideas. He is here to share lessons that he has learned from his time in the public and have it sectors. He will help us harness ideas and innovations from agencies, public and private. [applause] Peter Hutchison good afternoon. I used to be a school superintendent. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Peter hutchison i am so excited to be here. Of all the things that we nga could have spent the last year doing, you picked the right one. Not because it is pedestrian, or not sexy, to me it is the opposite. I have been lucky in my career, i have had ingested jobs interesting jobs. I have been able to travel and talk to people in your organization. People ask me, what has made you the most proud . Everybody has an answer to this question. Over and over, and example has come up many times. Im sure it happens in other states. You may recall, tragically, many years ago, we saw a bridge that expanded the Mississippi River collapse suddenly. Thankfully not more people were injured or killed as a consequence, but if you asked our Highway Department today about their greatest achievement, it is that that bridge was opened 13 months later. That is extraordinary. I think that delivering results is about that. It is about that result, making the ordinary, making extraordinary the ordinary. It is about making those sorts of things, the way that we did things in the Public Sector, and we cant if we dont pay attention. But all of us can get to where those Extraordinary Events become common, the way that people think about this government. You know that that is a central challenge. Confidence of our people in the work that we do, it is lacking. By making the extraordinary ordinary, we win the competition for public support. It is not easy. I recall a story about a famous man running for mayor. He is charging around visiting the neighborhoods and shaking hands. He comes into a neighborhood and all they want is to get their part park six. He gets elected, goes to city council and get 10 million, he goes out and fixes this park. It is improved and he did everything a human being could think of. He shows up for the grand opening, he has done this amazing thing for the people of this city, you want a pack p at on the back. He walks in and they are all over him again. They asked, why did you do this why did you do that . He said, you want me to do stuff for this part. And they said, all we want to was toilet paper in the bathrooms. This lesson is about him missing the point. He had a target, but he missed the point. The point is, they just want this. We need to know what results we are heading toward. What results people really want. What are the expectations we are trying to achieve. If you do not know what they expect, you cannot exceed those expectations. If you do not exceed expectations, you do not win public support. Another example, as the governor said i was a school superintendent. I was probably not actually eligible to be a superintendent, but i had the job. I showed up for work and i said i do not know anything about this job. If you bring me the Mission Statement, that could help me. Someone runs off to find it and brings it back two weeks later. In the Mission Statement, it is 750 words long, in their words buses, books, athletics, everything under the sun. Nowhere in that Mission Statement were the words student achievement. You would be shocked. If you are doing everything but not the main thing, you cannot get it done. We sat back my job was to make sure that every person in the School District and every parent and student understood, that is the only reason we are here. The lunch ladies were focused on all kids learned the custodians, everybody, they focused on this one thing. And the students did learn. People started to reenroll in our schools. I will never forget when a union leader in observing this he gave me something to remember, peter he said, remember the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. That is critical if we will deliver results, because the truth is, as governors you can do anything. The problem is you cannot do everything. You have to pick, you have to decide, you have to go with a focus will be. Because when you focus on what you care about, you can get results. You can hit the target and get beyond what people imagine is possible and actually achieve the extraordinary. You cannot deliver results if you do not focus on them. Another quick story. This have to do with culture. When i spoke with teachers, i made it my business to speak with every teacher. Of the 6000, they all told me how much they hated , not many liked it. I figured, i better understand what is going on. It is my job as problem. So i go to the warehouse where the Central Stores are and i get everyone together and i asked them how they like working there. They say they hate it. They say, the people in the schools treat us so badly. I asked, why is that . It takes us six weeks to get them the things they want. That seems like a long time, but we are doing the best we can. One teacher told me that she filled out a slip, she was requesting a world map, and six weeks later she gets the map but the names of the countries are wrong. What is that about . They say, it is just them. They are whining. She could have put the right names on that map. [laughter] im sitting in my office trying to sort this out. Thinking, you are the chief executive. Your job is to solve problems. That you know nothing about distribution, inventory control systems, you are the least informed person who should be working on this. Im telling you, i am struggling. My friend comes up and says, what are you doing . You need to get the people who have the problem to own the problem, so they can improve the solution. I asked, how can you do that . You have to change the rules of the game. They are saying, you treat me bad, if you treat me better it will never turn out. You need to change the rules the structure. So i held my breath and i went back to the warehouse. I said, here is what we will do. A year from now i will take all the money that is appropriated for the warehouse the schools and i will tell them that they can either supplies anywhere they want, home depot, staples, i dont care. In that year you have a chance to figure out how to win their business, but you have to when it. Therell be no appropriations after a year. I will be back to find out how it turns out. I went back to my office to hold my breath and i have no idea what is going on and the next year comes along and we get six months into it and i asked how the warehouse operation is going to the teachers, and they say oh my goodness. We are getting our stuff overnight, 24 hour delivery. We are getting what we ask for the first time. They smiled when they delivered it. Im thinking wow, something wild happened there. I walk in and it is a flurry of activity. I asked, what happened . They say, once we figured out it was up to us, we took control. We looked around and found out that we have 3 Million Dollars of inventory we do not need and we sold it. We reorganized the warehouse. We put stuff people want in the front, other stuff in the back. We changed our system. I asked, how do you like working here . We never worked harder in our lives, and we love it. This is the essence of delivering results come putting people in the position of experiencing the consequences of their own decisions, knowing that if they are giving given control, they will find ways to work together. For those wondering, these are union employees. Two different unions. They figured it out. He did not mean that they did not need my help. Performance, when it matters, it gets better. It is at the heart of everything. The governor talked about communication. This is another thing that is a huge issue in the work that we do. Some years ago, we installed a 311 system in the city where i live. I didnt know what that was. I knew it was on the phone and i could call it, but why would i . It did not appeal to me. One day, he came up to a parking meter and it did not work. I didnt have time to find another parking place, so i realized, i could call 311. A nice person answers and says, give me the number on the meter. I give her the code and she says, thank you for reporting that and you can stay there and dont worry about it. You cannot get a ticket. I said, that is great. I go home later, everything is fine. The next morning, my cell phone rings. They say hello, this is mike you reported a meter down yesterday. I want you to know that i fixed it. That is a result delivery. That is a result delivery. It is not enough to do it, you need to deliver it. People have to experience it. Nobody experiences it, it never happened. We have responsibilities to change fundamentally how we connect with the people we serve. Think about this. Business happened this just happened, i filed my taxes. I filed them electronically. Weeks later, i get my electronic refund into my account from the state. Three weeks later, i dont know if that is good or bad. It is all right. This weeks six weeks later i get the federal refund. Now three weeks looks good from the state. Now the feds look terrible. But here is the opportunity we missed, when my electronic return. Filed, what if they had sent me a note that said, you got it in ahead of time, that is terrific. It makes us how that you can share resources with us. They could have sent me a note that said, hey your return is processed. You should look for that return in three days. Then they could have sent another note, thanks again, we look for joel we look forward to working with you next year. There are so many opportunities to connect with the as a citizen connect with me as asis citizen. About the opportunities we have to touch the people we serve. Technology makes it easier. We can transform our relationship with our citizens using computers, mobile technology literally they carry their government in their pocket. They can look at things agendas, get a license renewed all of these things and he can thank them along the way. You can think ahead and say, if you have a drivers license, did you remember to renew your trailer license . And there are all kinds of ways we can connect with them and make their experience with government extraordinary. Parking meter is an example. There is another problem when it comes to communicating, that is about us. It is certainly about me. I am a geek in government. I love data. I am a nut for evidence. It is fabulous and interesting but it is boring to everyone else. We Start Talking about percentages, we all have math math anxiety. I keep talking about a problem you are familiar with, it is true in every state. So many people with a diploma when they go to enroll in college, they are told they have to take remedial courses. 38 area and yes what 38 . Guess what, nobody knows what 30 38 is. It doesnt mean anything. I am despaired at getting people to care about the statistics. Then i met this woman, i want to tell you this carefully, because my wife is here. I met her in a bar. It was 2006, i was running for governor. I leave that out of my resume pretty regularly. I dont know why i was in a bar why i thought people in bars would come to me. It turned out they wouldnt. But i am walking and introducing myself to these people and i get to the end of the bar and there is this young woman sitting there. She can see me coming. Just as i get to her, she spins around and she looks me in the eye and says, you lied to me. I said, wait a minute. Give me a chance to lie to me to lie to you. She says no, you adults live. Lied. She says, i never missed one day of school. I took all college courses, like you to me. I did my homework every night. He told me that i should graduate with a diploma from a five star high school. That is the highest possible rating. I got that diploma at home. You told me i should go to college. I went to college and when i enrolled they told me i had to take math and english over again. You told me that i was a high school graduate, you lied to me. Wow, that is 38 it conveys the issue like statistics can never do. I think the challenge for us is to get focused on the story, not the stats. I think all of us, and i know that it is true for me, we get sucked into data because we handle data all the time. We need to challenge organizations and everybody to help tell the story of results. Not just the statistics. The governor rightly says there are three elements to the driven results approach. One of them have to do with i will ask you all to engage in an experiment. I need to see her willingness to comply with regulations. How many of you regularly and with thoughts, fill out tax returns and comply with tax instructions . I would say 95 they comply with the tax laws, why is that . About half of the room usually says, it is my duty as a citizen. That sounds great. And the other half tells the truth, im scared about being caught. I do not want to be audited. If you get audited, something bad happened. So we have a system when it comes to taxes when we are focused on coursing coercing compliance. How many of you regularly, when youre driving on the freeway goes posted speed limit . [laughter] you didnt hear the question . This is sad. Nobody . Well maybe one. Think about that. Why do we not obey the speed limit . Dont you know that the odds of being caught speeding is four times higher than being caught not paying taxes . And it is a lot more public. We watch you get the ticket. But nobody obeys this the limit. It is posted right there. How fast do you drive question mark drive . You drive as fast as everybody else. It is as if we all got together and agreed on a be limit. Right . It is the truth. Think about it. If someone goes to slow, we honk warns. We try to speed them up. If you see that Robert Mandel by rocket man go by, you wish that they would slow down. This is what you are pressure can do. Here is a case where we are being compliant at a level that is incredibly high with almost no coercion. How many of you unfailingly on a riegler basis recycle trash on a regular basis, recycle trash . It is phenomenal and how many people separate garbage into piles. And then take it out to the end of the driveway. It used to be a simple act. We used to just put stuff in the trash and take it to the end of the driveway. Now we take a sorted garbage bottles, paper, and then there is bins. It is not against the law to do nothing, but then we have massive compliance for something that you are not required to do. In most places, not where i live. But why do we do that . Think about how recycling was brought to our attention. In place where i live, they ran tv ads. When i woke up, those ads were still on. One day, im at home, i have two daughters and my oldest daughter was in second grade at the time and im throwing trash in the trash, she looks up at me and says, daddy, you are killing mother earth. Oh, i dont want to be that bad. How do you know that . She says, i learned it in school. That is an interesting strategy. We are teaching young people to teach old people to do the right thing. And then they came around with these bins. They say it is convenient. There are different colors they will make it easy for us. The truth is, they are just like the highway. I live in minnesota and on genuine 26, it is recycling january 26, it is recycling day. I have to drag this recycling out in a blizzard. When i slam that sucker into the ice, what do i do . I look around. I am taking attendance. I want to know who else is doing this. I know that the kids on the bus will do the same thing, because they learned it in school. What we have done with recycling is created pressure to do something we would never order them to do. We have created a compliant design that is different than course coerced compliance. It is an alternative, not to displace what we have been doing , but replace what we have been doing. Think about how much cheaper it would be to make people do the right thing without forcing them to do it. You do not have to audit them, they just do it. The data you have seen is that people want to do the right thing, we have to make it easier for them to do the right thing. And harder to do the wrong thing. We can do that. That is within our power. Back when i was a school guy one of the big issues was who was the best school . And who was the worst . We had lots of data and i remember walking into a meeting and i could not resist. I asked, what is the best school in the School District everybody knew. I asked, have you know they said scores. All the kids they said, they are all upper middleclass kids. They get the highest test scores. Oh, we had a list of 100 schools. Those schools at the top had always been at the top. Those were the best schools, and here are the worst schools. That was the evidence. We were letting parents make decisions on the basis of that evidence. I said while wow, it must think being at the bottom and taking that you can never change your position at the bottom. And they said yeah, that is the worst job. You tell me to make things better, but the way that you collect data, i can never get there. So maybe we are asking the wrong questions. Maybe instead of asking who has the highest test scores, we should ask which school moves their kids the furthest . So that is what we did. This is before big data was big. It comes back with a list and i ask, what is the best school in minneapolis . I say that is not true. I asked for the worst, same answers. It turns out that the school that has been on the top was in the middle. It cannot move their kids the furthest, it was not moving them anywhere. They came in with highest test scores and moved out with the highest test scores. And at the school at the bottom was right next to them. All of a sudden, with that said to families and the School District was that if you got into a school that had new kids, you could make a difference. You could alter the place on the list by changing the effectiveness of how far you move people. That is about using data and evidence to deliver results. I use this image because it builds on a fundamental belief that i have, that in the dark things look better than how they really are. I dont know what is out there, but im pretty sure it is not benign. We do not know what is behind data we are using it is like fumbling in the dark. The worse we can do is call that darkness light. To claim that that evidence was appropriate, that is a mistake. It is still lasting. One of our jobs is to pursue data and evidence that answers fundamental question, are we making a difference in the lives of people that we serve . Leadership. I will into with this. I have passion for the role that we play and the difference we make for people we serve. That passion comes from a little girl who i will introduce you to. She was a second grader. I wandered into her classroom and the teacher said, boys and girls, stop what you are doing we have a visitor. This is the superintendent of schools. Does anybody know the superintendent does . I mentioned earlier, i was not trained, so i had an interest in this question. What does the superintendent do . This was second grade. They will answer anything. Every hand in the room went up. Write down in front was this little guy named michael. He was trying to follow the rules. He is just trying to get called on. He jumps up and says, i know. The teacher says, all right what does the superintendent do . That is the guy in charge of super nintendo. [laughter] it sounded like a better job. This brilliant teacher says, that was a creative interpretation of the language, but actually the superintendent is the leader of the schools. Does anybody know a leader does what a leader does . There was a little girl sitting in the back. As far back as he possibly could. She had her hand raised so high. The teacher called on her. The teacher says, ok what does a leader do . She looks at me and says, a leader is someone who goes out and changes being to make things better changes things to make things better. I have read probably almost every leadership book there is and that is the single best definition ive ever heard. I got all the principles together and i said i got good news and bad news. The good news is, we have a new job section, make things better. The bad news is the second graders already know. Where we live, out with the people we serve, they already know. They do not elect you to maintain the status quo, they elected you to change things and make them better. Delivering results is how we do that. The better we are looking for is what we make the extraordinary ordinary. They do not expect us to do it all tomorrow, or all at once. They expect us to show up and make one thing better in the direction of making the extraordinary, ordinary. When we do that we win the fundamental competition for public support. And then we strengthen the institutions that are the essence of our culture. And that is worth getting excited about. Thank you very much. [applause] [applause] thank you peter for you limit eating and eliminating an illuminating presentation. We can now have questions. When you look back over your work, where do you think relative to State Government where is the greatest opportunity . Where do you get the biggest thing bang for your buck . Peter hutchison in State Government, what we do is educate, medicaid, we incarcerate and we obligate. If you think about your budget, that is probably 90 . K12 and higher, your Public Safety systems, pensions, and other obligations. We need to target those cards of the territory. That is where the action is. That part is easy. I think the two things that are hard are actually the governor of iowa told me this story, he said the thing you need to remember to do in these jobs you need to touch people where they touch government. We dont have the luxury of doing that everywhere. Much money passes through to someone else. So the second part of the answer, we should touch of them brilliantly where we do touch them. Those things where we actually touched human beings, tuition payments, all of those things. We should make those experiences as easy and simple. I believe that the goal for the Public Sector is no touch service. Getting to the point where we can literally pull out the phone and do what we need to do. We are close to that today. I will say and 10 years we could do that everywhere. But there is a fundamental challenge i think us in government. The government we have today was invented 100 years ago. Our government is a reaction to the corruption and the trust and terrible things that happened at the turn of two centuries ago. We elected people like Teddy Roosevelt to kick up dust and fix things. We went from a government of chaos and corruption to a government of control. If you think about if you think about the dna of government, that is fundamentally about control. All kinds of control, control procedures, we are focused on controlling things and we needed that. We call it bureaucracy. The color red tape. It worked. We dont have that kind of corruption today. We do not have arbitrary things going on like it was. But the world changed. This is not the same world. We are trying to run current governments with early 20th century systems. The hardest challenge, while we win the right to do this in the way that we touched citizens behind that we have to get out the dna of bureaucracy and replace it with the dna of results. We are doing it. All of you are doing pieces of this. All of you know what has to happen. But we are not systemic about it. It will happen. This took time to come into being. It will come into being, because citizens will demand it and we will have the capability to do it. Governor herbert and Governor Nixon. Thank you for sharing your expertise. When you talk about leadership, making things better, i think that all of us have been involved in efforts of campaigning saying, elect me. I will make things better. And then there are debates on those issues with whoever. Whoever is involved in the campaign. How much of it being a leader is based on personality . You hear about the charismatic leader, the natural born leader how much of that is an eight part of your personality and how much is learned . Can leadership be learned . We talk about a lack of leadership in politics and certain areas of politics, mainly washington, d. C. Can we improve leadership capabilities and how . Peter hutchison that is a profound issue. I think that the answer is yes and yes. I believe the qualities that we have, they are what we are born with or what we grew up with depending on family circumstances. And we learn along the way. I dont think of myself as a great leader, but i do think that i chose a lot. When i was younger, i thought that i knew the answers. Now i know that i dont. And i believe my ignorance is my greatest weapon, that i learned from my warehouse example, i didnt need to know the answer. I needed to make it possible for people who knew the answer to go to work. I think that is the secret to success. It is not about serving were being smarter, im not smarter than anybody, but if we can organize the way that things happen in our organizations so that those who are smarter can do what they know how to do and feel like they have the authority and power to do that, then my experience is, you can count on people too. Off. That seems counter intuitive based on usual definitions of leadership, that it is a person riding in on a white horse to save us. I actually think that it is a person writing in on a mule, that is tearing down the things in the way of our organizations letting people do what they want and what they are capable of. A friend of mine said that a leader is someone who makes fires and that makes it possible for people to do the right thing. That is learned. I think that you learn to do that. You learn how to not not do what everything in you tells you to do. I cannot tell you how much i wanted to get in there in that warehouse and organize the thing. But it never would have happened. They had to do it. I had to get out of the way. To make it possible. I was a just not use the fire analogy in the summer meeting. [laughter] but an alternative definition of leadership that i got a couple of months ago is, a leader is someone that persuades someone to think and do something that they otherwise did not believe. It takes it back down to the granular level and talks about does everybody have an opportunity to lead in some way . If you convince people that everyone is a leader, you open up the field. Some Major Industries have gone through a transition over the last few years. We have had to downsize. Governor nixon what insider advice do you have motivate folks to motivate folks during that had the process and it is difficult during that time , what advice do you have when it is clear at the end of the process that the same or even more work will be done with your people getting paychecks . Peter hutchison two things Governor Nixon how to motivate them. Peter hutchison 10 years from now the government will be smaller than they are today. It is inevitable. We will not have the resources to afford the scale of government we have today, but more importantly technology will drive work away from human beings and into the hands of technology. Over time, we will not have people doing those things. We will get smaller. I have been through this personally, the key is to keep people connected to those they are serving. What allows people to move forward is their passion and commitment to purpose, their belief in what they are trying to achieve. Part of our job is to help people disconnect themselves from the process we are using today, because those processes will not be the ones we use 510 years from now. Technology will replace things. We will use evidence to make it target new resources and so on. What i hear when i work with organizations downsizing, people are worried about their jobs, but they are mostly worried about that the rivers will be dirty, the air will be foul people do terrible things if we dont keep doing things the way we have done for the last years. We need to help people realize that in the course of getting smaller, we are not giving up on big ideas. We have new capabilities that will allow us to deliver Better Outcomes than today, but differently. Different approaches. Back to my warehouse if you are tight and fixed on outcomes and loose on means, people will figure it out. This is human nature. They want to push back and say, you figure it out. But we have to resist temptation. And say, we have an obligation to the people we serve, here are the resources we got, figure it out. It is a design problem. Most people will do that. They will rise to the occasion. They want to know if at the end if you have these people getting laid off, they want to know yes or no, but i know that the answer needs to be no. This guy gave me advice, he said cut once, dont cut again and again, you will lose people. Peter, please tell me that when i got call you to say he had fixed that meter, you hired him. I had a golf that i had a guy in my State Government coming you was hired because he did Something Like that. Peter hutchison to make sure this is clear how systemic this is, in my family we call 311. They called me three times. I called them 10 00 at night when night, in the morning they were there replacing a lightbulb. And we found a dead animal, my family was concerned, my wife called 311, this guy could not have been, there is no way that this guy was reading from a script. Whoever hired this person hired someone who was naturally sympathetic. In that moment, that is what we needed. 343. Whoever is organizing this ring they get it. It is about those people. It is about their experience. We can do this. I would love to have them in virginia. I would argue if you can call at 10 00 at night and its 00 in the morning, they are 6 00 in the morning, they are doing the job, you might be overstaffed. I would also say that my First Response might have been, dont call citizens before 7 00. [laughter] they are more laidback in colorado. We will leave it at that. Other questions . Yes . Peter, you were the financial officer, to ask you what you think the longterm outlook is for state budgets . Do you think there is an inherent desire for more services and at the same time, lower taxes inevitably it drifts in the unending deficits and more of a federal government type of problem longterm . Peter hutchison three things, the first is no question on average state are not going to be in a fiscal bind. The underlying costs are rising faster than the underlying revenues. That is a condition. I dont see any reason why that would change. There are so many other things going on in the economy that will suppress the growth rate. And there are so many things going on in society that are pushing up the costs. That is the condition we face. We cant print money, so we have to deal with it. I think the central challenge this is what will probably happen over time, in most states when we begin the budget process , we say, how much did we spend last year . And him we look at how much it will cost to do the exact same thing next year, and the answer is more. It is a was more the and we have. And then you as a chief executive, your job is to figure out of that more keep doing what we need to do, how much more can people not have . When you start announcing those things he arent things you are not going to do, those are cuts. It is the system we are mostly operating in. I think for our own selfpreservation you should end that system, stop asking people how much would it cost next year to do exactly what we did last year. Instead, you should say to people, heres how much money we have. Heres how much money you have. What i need from you is the same quality of service that we delivered last year, if not better, with the money we have. People should be coming to you not with proposals to spend more, but with ideas about how to redesign their services so they can deliver more with the money they have. The shorthand is right now we have budgets that are paying for costs and we convert to budgets that purchase results. Were just not doing it. And states that have tried this, and counties and cities, you get amazing results, but it is like the example of the warehouse. You got to change the rules of the game. The rules are stacked against governors. They put you into the position of having only to say no to people. When i got to be finance director in or minnesota, we had a time which is one of the craziest experiences. We had about 500 million available. We had 4 billion in requests. Basically 3 4 of the requests will get turned down. We have people thinking they are going to get something they will never get, and our job is to say you will not get it, and they will say this is not we have got to change the rules. Who pays the debt service on these bonds . We do, so the people who are asking for this money have no obligation to pay it back . I want that deal. We have changed one rule. The next day 2 billion was the request that disappeared. Disappeared. If it was not free, and i had to think about if i wanted to spend the money. It is about changing the incentives inherent in budgeting systems. I believe we are ultimately going to alter how you do budgeting and move away and the reason for this system is that bureaucratic thing about controlling costs. We need to focus on buying results, making sure we are getting our moneys worth. We have to make it the essence of how we spend. We have to say theres no other way unless it results we expect a quality product. Right now they are not set up to do that. You have a chart of accounts . You have no chart of accounts. You have no chart about results. Our system is not designed to focus on results. Until they are, we will probably not get them. One thing we all have, a retirement rate over the next 10 years that will allow us to use technology to do things, not all things, and that is more of an optimistic side. Governor hutchinson . Governor hutchinson great presentation, very thoughtprovoking. When you talk about government getting smaller reduced money, technology assisting, i thought of two challenges. When you are looking at Transactional Services like collecting taxes, license fees delivering licenses and so on, it is all transactional technology. The answer, i can see that. When you are talking about child protective services, human touch is required to go in a home and see if a child is well taken care of. Processes in court, human delivery, i see greater challenges. The other challenge is Higher Education because many of us do not have a level of control over that. What is it going to take to get this message of efficiency of technology, of changing to a resultsoriented environment in Higher Education is there any hope in that environment . Mr. Hutchinson yes, but i want to talk about child protective services. One of the challenges even in those parts of what we do is the amount of administrative stuff that our caseworkers are going to do. We have caseworkers who are spending 50 of their time doing administrative work instead of taking care of kids. That is where we can offload a fair amount of time and repurpose those resources back to kids. Higher ed and education, this is my passion. It makes me nuts. On the one hand, our k12 system is not producing the results we need. They are being lied about what is happening in the k12 system. We have a different problem what happens after that. What governor fallon asked us to focus on, a major disconnect between the requirements of the work system and what is coming out of our higher ed system. We are graduating people with all kinds of degrees with jobs that do not exist. That is much more evident today than in the history of the country. It is not anybodys fault. It is in the design of the system. We have tools that can assess what the Labor Force Needs to look like, the ability to help employers what are the skills and competencies i am looking for . We now have the capabilities to tell young people what skills, competencies do you have, not what degree do you hold, not what your major was, but what can you do . We have to change the conversation from degrees and Graduation Rates to the acquisition of competencies required in the workforce. If we can arm both sides of that transaction to talk turkey about what it is i need to be able to do and what i need you to be able to do and change the way those two things are connected with one another, what will happen is students will push the higher ed system to change. They will drive the outcome. They have been doing that in a sense because there was a time when everybody thought being a lawyer was a guaranteed road to success, and now they found thats not true, and legal enrollments are in decline because there are no law jobs. And the ones that are there are terrible. The word got out. That is the power of not the market, but of the young people to drive the way our systems change. I think our job is to get the transparency out there so people can see what is labor force is going to need to be able to do and what are our systems to producing, and who does it best . If you need a numeric control operator, who is the best person in the state to get that done . If you need higher order data skills, that is the best place in my state to get that done . Young people will drive this then, because they know about the system. I am sensitive to this legal thing because it costs so much to become a lawyer, and i cannot get paid. The system is wrenching itself without anybody passing a law to make that happen, because the transparency caught up with the reality. There are new tools available to look at higher ed curriculum and connect it to competencies, to look at skills and capabilities of people in the workforce, the capabilities coming to the job systems. We can make this connection. We can make this powerful. I think the Initiative Last year was a great start doing this. Because we do not have other controls, we need to change the things we can control and surround the system if we to allow it to change, we will never make it do it. Allow it to feel the consequences of not changing. Governor hickenlooper governor fallon . Governor fallon how do we deliver results in Higher Education, how do we deliver results when you look at the increasing costs of medicare. There is an article in a paper this week when they are going to run out, and i hope i will still be alive. Back to delivering results, one of the things we moved to realign our educational force, to keep our economy strong, we moved on to the challenge, and you will have at times strong economies at times and other times you have dips. Right now my state has a dip in the economy because the Energy Sector is beyond my control. You have a budget shortfall and you have to cut back on spending or deprioritize your spending. We have to do that periodically. Getting back to the initiative how do we make sure were not spending money on things we hope might work in reducing children in state custody or improving our education how do we produce things that we know do work . We have moved into a system to devise a system called performance informed today. Budgeting. We outlined five areas of improvement that we thought were important. There are five things to improve upon in our state that we think are important. We asked all state agencies to develop metrics and data and goals with specific data points, and i will give you examples. We want to have a Higher High School Graduation rate. We want to reduce recidivism in people coming out of facilities and going back in. Or we want to reduce childhood deaths. We gave these agencies the authority to talk about if you have a clean slate, what would you do it education, transportation, whatever the issue might be, and develop goals, but set the year you want to hit that marker. Then we base our budgeting on how do we find programs that can have measurable metric data to prove it does work, and then we publish it on the internet so that taxpayers and say you failed in this area or did well in this area, so you need to put your funding up on this area. That is how we have been doing what governor hickenlooper has been stressing, producing results and being accountable for that as a state. I could not be more enthusiastic. We did a couple projects like this. I have been involved in probably 10 budgeting project like this. One of the things that was most interesting to me was when a state said their goals were educating kids successfully, preserving the health of the population, transportation, they took everything in the budget. There were 1400 programs and said every program needed to be attached to one of these goals. Every one. They needed to figure out, what is this programs purpose . We think of education as k12 and higher ed. One of the largest educational organizations was in prisons. We never thought of it in the education system. When you start thinking of them in the education system, that is a Different Group of people who have terrific challenges and impose massive costs on societies. What if that system worked, then what can help us think about what our targets are . Is there some way we could do that better than what we are doing separately . We think of budgets in terms of agencies, but we need to think of them in terms of results. The other thing i saw was at the question of balancing budgets, especially in bad times. I saw a governor do this, and i had never seen it done before. He asked for volunteers, and if you volunteer, he made a deal, and it was the following you give me 10 of your budget, that is your cut, i give you greater felxibility. I think a lot of the administrative away. I eliminate rules and regulations. I let you run your organization. He had a whole bunch of agencies that took it, then the budget got worse, and the question was, would he go back and cut the agencies that made the deal, and he did not. That was important because it sent messages. He got his 10 , and 10 was a lot in the context of the budget they faced, so a double degree unfair, but it encouraged other agencies to take that deal when he offered it next. It changed their culture. It change the character of the way people thought about their relationship with the executive branch. I thought it was an interesting experiment in that worked. It got agencies to think differently about what it would take to deliver. They were signing up for the same results they had signed up for the year before, with 10 fewer resources. All they wanted in return was flexibility, being able to change the organization, and they did it. Governor hickenlooper anything else . I am happy to ask a question. Peter, good to see you. I know that some states have taken the path toward budgeting for results, and my regulation is a governor make great strides. Im curious whether state were local governments have been able to get on this path and sustain that path . Mr. Hutchinson what the governor is talking about is altering the way we think about spending money, purchasing results instead of paying for costs, so that South Carolina did this at one time, michigan Washington State did it, illinois has a version of it still in place today. This gets at the systemic challenges that we face. It is not easy, but possible to do this one. You disrupt what is going on juryrig the system, and budget for results. The problem is it is not baked into the system. You are fighting against the system because that machinery is churning out all this cost information in standard forms, and all the stuff that we have no state to my knowledge, has gone in and altered the system. I cannot tell you, but we are on the verge of this conversation in one state. It is another one of these revelations i had when i do not understand how things work, you if you do not change things like having a chart of outcomes in the budget system, the budget will not be about outcomes. Youll just have costs. You have to get into the nittygritty of how the machinery works if you want people to change, because they are willing to change. They find this interesting, come up with solutions, but the machinery gets in the way. I feel the real challenges is to figure out how to change the machinery. The second thing which is difficult is none of the legislative process is set up to do this. It is all agency budgeting and costbased budgets, and we successfully did this with the legislature in michigan and learned that the legislators can do this. It is warping the system they have to make it possible. They did it, and did it very well, but they were term limited, everybody left. When you come back, the old system is still in place. Those systems are 50, 60 years old. Yes, you can do it, but to sustain it, weve got to change the system, actually manipulate what the reports look like and what the hearings look like, and we know how to do it, we know what it would take, but it would take a state with a courageous executive and matched up with a courageous leadership in the legislature to get it done. We have seen this in cities and counties that have sustained this over time. Governor hickenlooper courageous is the right word. It reminds me back when i was trying to start a restaurant that was brewing its own beer it is hard to get people themselves to invest in something. This is an investment of time and credibility and future. When people have not seen something we were trying to get people to invest in a concept my mother would not invest. She said, who wants to eat dinner in a brewery . Unless people have seen something, it is hard to persuade them to try something that new. That is the challenge, to use words and diagrams in a way where you can persuade people to take the leap of faith. That is what changes, when people take that leap of faith. Anybody want to ask questions before we adjourn . I forgot to gavel in. This is not the end of this session, but now we are officially gaveled in. I am not sure about parliamentary procedure, but i want to make sure we are not engaged in some level of misconduct. We are done with this session. Thank you all for being here. Peter, thank you very much. We appreciate your taking your time. [applause] more now from the National Governors association with efforts to boost state spending on tourism and other recreational activities. Speakers include david allen with the Rocky Mountain health foundation. This is one hour and 20 minutes. Calling the meeting to order, officially gathered. I am the West Virginia governor. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the session on Economic Development. It is a great opportunity to highlight some exciting initiatives. And youre about the work from shining stars in the private sector. Joining me are the alabama governor and wyoming governor. I would like to introduce my guests who will provide a report on state activities. Under the Economic Committee and Natural Resources committee. I would like to express my thanks. Each committee has a summary it is in your binder. I want to take a few minutes and highlight two issues. For the Natural Resources committee, i want to speak about the fund. It provides matching funds to your state. The funds current authorization expires september 30 of this year. Since last year, this committee and Natural Resources committee has been working with key congressional stakeholders and interested parties to help maintain the lwcf. If the program were the stateside assistance grants would revert back to read it is interesting to note with some the last 24 hours, Senate Energy and Natural Resources chair include a bipartisan language in the comprehensive energy bill that was recently introduced that would permanently reauthorize the lwcf. It is a great signal of where congress is right now on this issue. We look forward to seeing that move forward. We think this issue will Carry Forward into the incoming Natural Resource committees agenda and we look forward to that committee taking the baton and running this issue. On the second issue for the Economic Development and commerce committee, it is all about transportation. This issue is very fluid right now. Governors will continue to discuss this tomorrow in more detail but i wanted to give you the highlights of where we stand as of friday afternoon. They continue to change. Where we stand now is that this morning, the senate agreed to move forward with hr 22 or was cloture was filed on three amendments. There is an amendment on the reauthorization of the export import bank. There is an amendment offer to repeal aca. The third is important from the procedural standpoint. A seconddegree amendment that would provide for a 60 day extension of current transit programs. What does this mean . This means the senate is working through procedural timelines right now, we are in a state of hold. The senate will reconvene sunday afternoon to begin their votes on these amendments depending upon how those in amendments end , we see what other activities will pop. At present, all amendments have been filled. There may be an opportunity for debate on other amendments but as of right now, there are only these three amendments that are currently pending for the senate. I would like to turn over to my colleague, the Division Director for the center for best practices for a short report on what the center is doing on issues under the committees jurisdiction. Sue. Ms. Sevier we are here to help you do your jobs better and help you hear about what is going on at the state level. Any way we can share with your staff what is going on, that means we are doing our job. Last year for the division that focuses on energy and infrastructure, we engaged in 40 states and projects. We are excited to be able to work with that many states and the able to engage all of you. That means working across a variety of topics. Everything from alternative fuel vehicles to shale energy development. Im going to highlight briefly three new opportunities that are coming your way so you can keep your eyes out. One is we are going to be hosting our third annual shell ale energy forum. States are really grappling with how we take advantage of the development in the area in a way that is responsible. We have had convenience where folks have come together with states across the country to share ideas and walk away with things they can take back and implement in their states. Keep an eye out for that. We think it is an exciting project. We will be doing a secondround of Energy Efficiency retreats, going into the states and helping you put together teams from your state. You choose who was around the table to help you work on an issue of your tailoring, something you defined as a struggle in that area. Then we are also doing a secondround of retreat on publicprivate partnerships. David mention the transportation challenges. This is one way states are trying to look at how they can move projects forward in their state. We did select four of the states we will be working with and im happy to say connecticut and arkansas are two of the ones here we are looking forward to working with along with washington and utah. That is a chance to help states look in detail at what some of the options are they can explore and put together a strategy they can move forward on. We are excited about those projects and hope all of you will look to us for answers to some of your questions. On behalf of Jennifer Brooks here with the Economic Development division, we engage with your advisors on that topic last year, we had an Advisors Institute that included representatives from 32 states , a large number of states, so they are coming to our meetings and getting ideas on things they can do. We will continue that engagement and have a focus on workforce and the role that Workforce Development plays. Were looking forward to working with all of you. Govenor tomblin thank you. Now we will turn to our committee discussion. Tourism is a big business in West Virginia as i know it is in many of your states. We are very proud of the work were we are doing to increase the number of visitors and Business Investments in our state. While youre here, hopefully you will have a chance to experience what we are calling real West Virginia, which is the theme of our new tourism campaign. West virginia is home to real farm to table dining, real outdoor adventure, real history, and a number of other authentic experiences. Tourism brings in more than 5. 1 billion and supports more than 46,000 good paying jobs in West Virginia. Research shows that for every dollar we spend to promote tourism, we see a seven dollar return. With this in mind, we are committed to dramatically increasing the amount we spend on tourism promotion. Weve also worked with have it investors and others to have exciting attractions people want to experience in the mountain state. I am sure a number of you saw coverage on the pga tours greenbrier classic that took place two weeks ago. It showcased out only the amazing resort but also our beautiful state. Next week, governor jindals new Orleans Saints will arrive at the greenbrier for the initial half of their training camp. West virginia is a proud partner of the greenbrier classic and we use it as a tool to recruit as businesses. We are taken efforts to support Small Businesses across the state as well. One of the most talked about deals we passed last year played a great part in that was a lot aw made it easier for our growing Craft Beer Industry to thrive. We will have our first craft beer week with events scheduled at several pubs across the state. This legislation not only encourages tourism but supports entrepreneurs. We are also proud of several public and private partnerships that have helped to encourage Economic Development and private investments to enhance both our local communities and tourism industry. These partnerships can take several forms, including significant Infrastructure Improvements that make it easier for people to access businesses and attractions. For example, the West Virginia division of highways worked with our county commission and a local developer to fund a new interstate exchange providing direct access that only to resell stores but new, stateoftheart stadiums. Thanks to our program, the developers were able to issue nearly 45 million to support construction of the highway and the roadway to the site as well as other infrastructure. The athletic facility itself, which is being used by West Virginia university, a minorleague Pittsburgh Pirates affiliate, and Community Teams was built with financing bonds. You will hear more about this exciting project from bob nettie in a few minutes. I assure you, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Bob has been the chairman on the board of the Pittsburgh Pirates since 2003 and is the driving force behind a number of programs that made pnc park americas best ballpark of 2014. He brings a long history of building a Successful Organization and a longterm commitment to Economic Growth in West Virginia. Before we hear from all of our panelists, i would like to turn it over the governors to give them an opportunity to introduce their guests. Governor mead we have had a wonderful time here. I do wonder about having a beer festival a week from now, it seems like it would have had Good Business with this group had it occurred now. Governor hickenlooper is an expert. I want to thank you for your leadership on the Economic Development in the commerce committee. I think this may be one of the first times that we combined this committee with the committee i am vice chair with along with Governor Brown of california. It is an appropriate fit because we recognize that the two go together handinhand. Wyoming, we are probably the state with the First National park, forest, monument. We are proud of that because we recognize what it means in terms of the opportunities our citizens have in terms of enjoyment and quality of life. We are also proud because it is such an economic driver to have that. We also have about 2. 9 million acres of wilderness, which is roughly the size of connecticut. On top of that, the state itself has been working to have an endowed fund of 200 million to work on conservation efforts within the state. We do this for a couple of reasons. One is we recognize the economic benefit. We recognize the quality of life it brings to our citizens. We do it because it is the right thing to do and we recognize we cannot take for granted what our states have. I am more familiar with the west but i know in the west, one of the treasures we all appreciate is the opportunity to not only have the recreation the Great Outdoors provides, but the hunting and fishing opportunities and what a great way to show off our state. I would say it is the states that have provided tremendous leadership in this area. In the 20th century, states developed a north american system of Wildlife Conservation and it is the most successful in the world. At the turnofthecentury there were 500,000 deer in the country. Now, there are 20 million. 100,000 elk has become one million. There were 300 bison, now 530,000. These Success Stories occurred before the endangered species act. I think that shows the states collectively our commitment to wildlife, recreation, open space means to our citizens and the Economic Opportunity it provides to all of us. The states have an Important Role in continuing this because the opportunities and for quality of life. David allen. A little about you. David became ceo of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in 2007. Since 2007, the foundation has opened and improved secure Public Access 20 cabot 10. To elk habitat. Just on a personal note, when i go to some of your banquets in wyoming, they are some of the largest i have the occasion to attend and always a great time. Although my wife questions the number of lottery tickets i buy that i never win. We want to turn it over to governor bentley. Thank you. It is always good to be with both of you. In alabama, we are continuing to develop Innovative Strategies with a focus on preserving our states Natural Resources. We are also preserving our recreational opportunities and the historic landmarks we have in our state. We are attracting new residents and businesses and strengthening alabamas economy. Tourism is a key component of alabamas overall economy. In 2014, over 24 Million People visited the state of alabama and they spent 11. 7 billion will hile visiting our state. The beautiful beaches of the alabama gulf coast account for about 40 of the tourism that occurs in our great state. The reason is it is so important that we preserve and restore and expand our goal state gulf state park, which was damaged by hurricane ivan in 2004 and the deep Horizon Oil Spill in 2010. We want to present two years ago to expand and renovate the gulf state park. You will hear more of that in a few minutes. Speaking of the state parks, alabama has 22 of the most diverse state parks. From the goal state park to a part in the foothills of the appellation mountains. Our state parks feature fishing and hiking and mountain climbing and so much more that visitors can enjoy. Alabama has a significant historical presence that many visitors come to experience. We hosted more than 150,000 visitors to selma this year for the 50th anniversary of the selma to montgomery Voting Rights march. Just two weeks ago, a small town in southwest alabama drew thousands of people for one particular person who wrote go set a watchman. harper lee is the most famous person who lives in monroviaill e, alabama and people consistently come because she wrote a bestseller to kill a mockingbird. alabama draws thousands of visitors annually to that small town. My special guest today is cooper, the executive director of alabamas gulf state project. He is also my former chief legal advisor. Today, cooper will address how alabamas Natural Resources recovered following the 2010 d eep Horizon Oil Spill and the future of the gulf state park. This project will be a critical step to continue to draw visitors to the alabama gulf coast. Before i conclude, let me say thank you to governor tomblin and governor mead. Ive enjoyed serving with you and i hope you and all of the governors enjoy these goodie bags i have let for you which talks about sweet home alabama. Thank you. Govenor tomblin thank you. We will turn it over to our panelist, bob. Mr. Nutting thank you for the introduction. Let me add my West Virginia welcome. West virginia is a special place. We hope you all enjoy it. Welcome. I am a member of the fourth generation of a family run Newspaper Publishing company. We are headquartered here in West Virginia with newspapers, magazines, in 13 states. I have an appreciation for what so many of you do as leaders and ceos of your states. It was fascinating to hear the earlier session talking about delivering results because i live in a world where we have to build a culture around Customer Service every day. Nobody has to go to a baseball game. No one has to buy a newspaper and putting the Customer First is a pretty revolutionary idea for State Government and i think West Virginia certainly has taken that seriously. What a great message for all of us. It is an honor to be here with really smart presenters and im not sure exactly how you got me on the list but i sheeted. I appreciate it. One of the things i will but to talk about is my role at the newspaper. I Service Chairman of the board for the Pittsburgh Pirates, a very important asset for our family to take care of and steward. I want to talk a little bit about the partnership that was forged with the city of pittsburgh and state of pennsylvania as we rebuild a Community Around a ballpark. Even 30 years ago, pittsburgh s north shore had three rivers stadium. A lot of these were built in the 70s, surrounded by parking lots. There was a dilapidated warehouse, a bar, some old road houses. Really not a lot of activity. We have beautiful, iconic views and bridges in pittsburgh but looking across from downtown there was not much reason to go across the river other than to attend a game and certainly was not the Community Asset or longterm Funding Source the community needed. Today, it is a completely different environment. It has become a real entertainment destination not only for pittsburghers for people throughout the region and now in addition to the park, we have six new office buildings, 750,000 square feet of new construction in the last year. We have four new hotels with about 700 rooms. An 8000 seat amphitheater with 200 events a year. We have three more restaurants scheduled to open this fall. We have an improved and expanded science center. I am currently cochairing the 45 Million Capital Campaign for the renovation and i will bring pledge cards of any of you will ould like to participate because we are only about halfway there and looking for support. Significant green space built into the environment to make sure we are celebrating the region as well. A river walk that brings thousands of people every day. Really that is just the beginning of the story. You all see developments all over but this is one that really has worked to drive energy and life into the north shore and drive revenue streams. Baseball teams fundamentally our businesses so we are focused on the revenue. In the final year of the stadium, that facility generated about 9. 8 million of tax revenue. Last year, that number tripled and in the last three years, the park in heinz field combined had a direct impact of over 100 million in taxes and fees, surcharges. That really provide an economic driver that impacts our community incredibly effectively. Pittsburgh is not unique in that at all. If you go to baltimore, a third of all the fans that go to camden yards come from outside maryland. It is about not just a ballpark but renovating a downtown. In denver, coors field became an anchor, along with the pubs. Which i am sure drove most of the Economic Development but im sure the rockies helped. It really transformed that section of the city. The housing base has tripled in the past eight or 10 years since that field has been built. San diego, a more remarkable story because the petco park project really went into a slum and blight and now it is home to high rise condos, trendy restaurants, luxury hotels. A fun destination to visit. I am a big fan of baseball and i think none of those projects could have happened or what have the impact without the catalyst and volume driven through baseball. Just at pnc park, we put 2. 4 Million People through the turnstiles and twice that many people touching the north shore. Just on the baseball site. The impact is not limited to major cities. There is a limited number of major league franchises but there are 173 minor league franchises that hit smaller communities throughout the region. One of our important minorleague affiliates is in charleston, West Virginia, the charleston power. We are thrilled to be there and came in just after that field was renovated six years ago. It has been a home run for us, literally. This spring, we opened up in morgantown a really dynamic and Creative Partnership with the state, the ballclub to build a worldclass facility for the university so they now for the first time really have a tremendous recruiting tool and baseball facility. They play through the spring and we have a short season team. Relocated in morgantown and we are becoming an anchor of a pretty remarkable retail development. The interesting thing is it is not just about the baseball but what has happened because of the interchange, the broad support. You have a development anchored with a Minor League Team that has five new hotels, 500 hotel rooms. 300,000 square feet every tell of retail development. A hundred thousand square feet distribution center. New office space. In an area that just four years ago was a hilltop. A really remarkable success story. Governor, thank you again because that could not have happened without your support and impact but i believe from my perspective, these are important and Good Investments to make because they pay back over and over for those communities. Frankly, unlike any other sport, i think baseball really takes its role as a social institution to heart. We play a lot of games so we have a big impact on the community. 162 games, 81 home games. It gives us a chance to connect to the community. We have been very active with our charities outreach program. We donate 2. 5 million a year. Field for handicap accessible play, one in florida, four in the pittsburgh region. We can really have an impact and lastly, it is a family game. One of the last where is still affordable enough, particularly in a ballpark like we build in morgantown where people can come out and enjoy time together. I wanted to touch on one other area. That is the Public Access and green space and land driving the tourism in our state. The beautiful settings, the iconic views, and the clean water, clean air, and forests are a reason people come to West Virginia and a reason people want to live and work and play here in West Virginia and these partnerships, which are funded by things like the Water Conservation fund critical in West Virginia. We have an Outdoor Heritage conservation fund. Critical internal funding inside of the state. It is a huge impact. To recognize i believe in conservation, green space, the importance of preserving those views. As a businessperson, i also respect and appreciate and understand how much of an economic driver these conservation easements can be if we provide Public Access once those lands are preserved. Whether it is for hunting, i am a fly fisherman, those are so important and to recognize these projects are incredibly difficult. The canyon took eight years. Two governors. It took a consistent pressure of time and patience and work from the nature conservatives, the Outdoor Heritage conservation fund, dcnr. Your leadership driving those kinds of programs to completion and the patience to be able to work beyond the administration and preserve a space that will be an asset for our state for future generations really is important. While the payback may be less obvious than 2. 4 million tickets sold at a ballpark, i really believe it is no less important and i want you to know it certainly is no less appreciated by someone like me. My family has been here in West Virginia since the 1840s. Our Publishing Company since september 1890. We are committed to making this a better state and doing that for all of the people and so, if there is a common theme, it is again to be grateful for your leadership as you are driving forward and improving the quality of life and our communities and providing those recreational opportunities which makes an enormous impact and i really appreciate you having me here to share my perspective and it certainly reaffirms to me what you all as the leaders in your states are doing to advance and make it a great place for us all to live. Thank you. Govenor tomblin thank you, bob. We appreciate what you and your family have done for the state. Next, we will go to david allen. He has formed a connection with West Virginia, also. Mr. Allen thank you. I appreciate the opportunity and i especially thank governor mead for the invitation. Quickly around the table, we have relationships here. Wyoming is historically our number one fundraising state every year. Your wife has called us a couple of times. Governor tomlin is about to become our newest elk state. He has been supportive in ohrid inductions4 elk reintroductions. Kentucky is the ninth elk state in the country. It is on reclaimed coal mine property. We appreciate your support. Arkansas has a very special elk herd and we appreciate that. Colorado is home to the largest elk herd in the world and we certainly appreciate that. Probably the most progressive department of wildlife as well in terms of promotion so we appreciate working with them. Missouri, our newest elk herd. It was about three years ago and they are doing very well and the numbers are growing so we appreciate that. Oregon is home to our largest membership. We do appreciate that. Oregon is tremendous country the largest land project we completed was in the Central Oregon area. Spectacular piece of ground. Montana is our home, the number two elk state in the country and number two in membership but certainly number one and our heart because that is where we are from. We are based in missoula montana. Based. I grew up in the dakotas. I have covered both of your bases. Thank you for that. Yes. The subject before us today is what outdoor facilities provide to our states. I will primarily address the world of the american sportsmen contrasting with professional sports our facilities or venues, if you wil