With you and we appreciate so much what youre doing the sacrifices youre making. Also you staying so close to your this guy is amazing. His exactly what the state needs right now. Hes been a key part. We go name is a team effort. There are three branches of government government. Were well represented. We have four of the five Supreme Court justices that serve our state here today including the chief justice a longestserving justice. Lets on our judicial court. [applause] [applause] we have a fabulous turnout of state legislators hear from across the state. These people served all of you not just when theyre in session but all year round. We could have all of them here today please stand. [applause] [applause] were also very fortunate to be able serve with a number of other very dedicated statewide elected officials. Theres a number of them here today. If we could have the auditor in the tax yes can stand and do that. [applause] and sa were fortunate to have within our borders five tribal nations that touch our state. Thinks that were working in a number of them have come from a number estates. We like to recognize them. Please stand. [applause] for me, i want to acknowledge the first lady of north dakota, catherine and joke jesse and tom were not here today but watching on some webcast somewhere. The first family, thank you for your support, its been amazing. [applause] i think youve learned in the last year where like to start is with gratitude it is such an honor for Brenton Catherine and i and our entire team in the Governors Office to serve all of you. It is an incredible honor to do that. What it all starts with 670 people in the state like something about north dakota and where you just cant help but love north dakota for its uniqueness and difference and everything it throws at us. Its a place we can love and we love the people in it. We love the roles that were in. We have a chance to make it difference every day. We have a chance to meet so many people in the past year. It doesnt matter if you agree or disagree, whether its from grand forks to golden valley, across the state meeting people who care deeply and are passionate about north dakota is what makes this place great. When youre in the positions here and the thing ive learned is that people want to share with their leaders. Asked the first lady, people will share with us their most tragic losses. Loss of Family Members due to overdose. People share their stories and struggles. But, the also share their successes and enthusiasm about what we can do and what our potential is. Everyone of these interactions gives us a chance to learn from the wisdom of the people in north dakota. Thats a great part of their job. Peel actually get stuff done when you learn things from what is happening. We have an opportunity to go to work and to do things and make things move forward. His have to be grateful because of the context of north dakota doesnt exist without the context of the United States. Twin the ticket as part of the United States where we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion and the right to bear arms in the right to assemble the freedoms that are not exist everywhere the world but they exist here and we should remain grateful for that opportunity. Also your free markets and the ability to take risk the resilience that we have is really about entrepreneurs and innovators. Striven our state since the beginning. As part of this idea that we get to make a difference in peoples lives every day. That everyone we work with. We want to bring that forward. Our administration is adopting a purpose statement. That simple. Power people, improve lives and inspire success. This is what anybody who works in State Government just to every day. Thats a fantastic way to spend your day. So if were just gonna wrap it up, if we would wrap it up the state of the state is one of the unlimited promise and potential provided that we embrace change. We need to diversify our economy. The first half of that sentence is absolutely true for our state. Unlimited promise and potential. The second half represents challenges that we have to Work Together collectively to overcome. If we do that the top half will be ours. Lets take a look at that. A year ago at the state of the state are honored to step in and serve in this role. To begin a journey that journey if you want to go back and watch it some people might like it better than this one. Thats the beauty of online recordings. We laid out important themes. We talked about the budget and property taxes. We talked about transforming education and the impact of addiction on individuals. We talked about improve travel relations in building stronger communities. Im grateful for the team effort that weve been able to tackle a number those initiatives. Those things that we talked about became the Strategic Initiatives were working on. Well grateful for everyone. Before we look ahead at the Strategic Initiatives lets take a quick look back at 2017. This was a year that brought challenges. Some for seen and someone for same. Consumed a lot of leadership time cross government to deal with the crisis that came out. The first one year ago not just on the front pages here but around the world was the protests around the Dakota Access pipeline project. This started peaceful and prayerful, they began with a powerful spiritual intent. There are incredible historical moments that occurred. But by the time we took office in december it evolved into something much different. Its important that we respect the right for people to assemble, respect the right of free speech. We also have to understand the people of north dakota. One of the first things we did in office was spent time listening on Standing Rock. Spent time in cannonball and met with ranchers only listen. Sometimes we listen for hours. Theres a great lesson that in the middle of conflict the power being able to be present and listen to truly understand some of the energy and passion. From that we learned and understood that Standing Rock wanted to have the protests camps closed. We worked in partnership with Standing Rock and across the whole of government approach. By the time the last protester left the camp 76 days after we took office engaged with 11 different federal agencies and had help from 22 states and 31 emergency jurisdictions. In total we are coordinating 175 partnerships to deal with something unprecedented in our history. One key thing that we have was to resolve it peacefully clean it up. Part of the original intention was about protecting the water where the camp was situated. This is before the historic snowfall started coming in on the righthand side you can see last july. We get this cleanup achieved before the spring melt and run off. We are able to keep over 10 Million Pounds of debris left behind in the camp from polluting and that would not have happened without a Great Team Effort from our union affair groups. The tribal groups that helped with this cleanup was a huge team effort. Theres more dialogue to be had about the future of infrastructure in our state in the impact of industries on the environment, we can have those dialogues in a peaceful way that this is a celebration where we came together and protected the environment. We are all on the clean water team. [applause] we knew when we took office the protests were occurring. What we didnt know the middle of the record snow where having was less than five minutes later we would be in the middle of the historic drought. This is the drought map from july 25 the darkest areas are exceptional drought, the red is extreme. You can see virtually the entire western half of the state was in severe, extreme, or exceptional drought. This led to economic challenges for farmers and ranchers. It required a response. Our approach was to get out and listen. Farm programs are complex this federal and state in different agencies involved, bureaucratic programs meant to help but might not be helping. We did that as a whole government. We had great partnerships, the north Dakota State Emergency Services and fire marshals delegates from the congressional offices were at these to represent the federal standpoint. We held these round Western North dakota and listened. Trouts dont make great frontpage pictures. Floods make Great Television because of all the water. The judge is something that eats away economically so there is serious stress i just economically but im families only went to these things like take care of yourself because the drought like this can terror communities and families apart. We came up with a number of ideas. We should ten executive orders which helped us in declaring the drought and fire emergencies we waived hours of service and established a livestock water supply program. If those of you who are not farmers and ranchers need to understand when we met people people normally wouldve had 1400 bales to feed their cattle during the drought were sometimes pulling less than 40 bales. Two or 3 to their normal crap they were getting. So people that were desperately in need we there had to get the cattle the feeder the fee to the cattle. One thing we partnered with was a hay lottery. Therefore 92 applicants were ranchers applied to do that. That program moved over 289,000 round bales to help save and serve over 126,000 livestock. We are able to provide almost 4. 1 million in assistance. That reimbursed about 36 of peoples cost. Everything helps when youre in the midst of a crisis. The state Water Commission worked on coming up with 1. 3 million each green dot represents rancher applied for project these are for new projects. Every green dot represents is building resiliency. These are permanent. The help provide permanent Water Supplies to pastors Going Forward. When you have that much drought yet up with fires. Theres over 430 wildfires the Western North dakota. Near record. The largest was the magpie flyer. 5400 acres burned. Many more fires that werent because sometimes the local Fire Department or the ranch gets it put out before they ask for help. Want to shout out the north state forster, larry who is the longestserving state forster in the country and also we need to share gratitude with the firefighters, nearly all of volunteers who are fighting the fires there often Farmers Ranchers and were five other hats. But they did a great fabulous job this year. Lets give them hand. [applause] the drought impacts not only affected livestock and people and communities, it affected wildlife which is part of the hunting and fishing culture. Economically there communities that depend on hunting revenue. License purchases were down there were way down, deer hunting also some stress there but we did have over 54000 deer permits issued. Its fabulous to live in a state that has the kind of Natural Resources we do if youre not taking advantage of it its another reason to live here. Challenges remain. We might think about drought but we still might have areas considered severe in the western half of the state is still considered moderate. Fear driver a school bus are going to your kids is game youre probably happy theres not snoring the roads but we are short of moisture and could find yourselves with challenges were state of extremes. Just seven years ago the incredible historic floods we have not forgotten about the 700 million in damage the 4700 structures that were there. Legislature has stood behind they committed over 178 billion through the Water Commission know to say congratulations to everyone there for achieving the record of decision for the army corps of engineers. Flight control continues to be a Major Initiative were continuing to charge ahead on that. On the other end of the state it has had significant flooding multiple times. Theres great progress being made there, fargo also received its federal authorization to pass the sales tax and to protect which would be the largest flood protection in the state. Its also protecting the sales and 30 of the open jobs and over 14 billion of Property Value would be protected, so record on many measures in terms of scope and scale of the project. That came to a halt with litigation to the state of minnesota. The entire project was stopped we agreed to get together form a task force. The head of the dnr ktel six meetings there held in fargo or morehead i get a chance to spend five full days with a neighboring governor. We should a final report we think we have a possibility to solve the issues in terms of maintaining federal authorization. Getting more the water off of minnesota theres about five problems are trying to solve. Was like riding horseback with the bow and arrow. Through all of that we believe we have a plan that should solve the problems. Will protect one of the most significant things in our region. Budget challenges rather everybody knew this coming in, legislature understood it, the prior appropriations have been 6 billion we did that with you spending down to a historic shift and we havent really had to drive through dollar amount is the hardest piece of work thats been done since the Great Depression we are also able to shrink government to maintain services that doesnt count Higher Education and budget employees going into this but were trying to work smarter we funded virtually all including funding could k12. If we dont diversify we end up being very dependent on things we can control. Egg and energy be in our biggest energies if we take a look at what we been through take a look at the price of corn. You can see theres a time when corn prices were high and you think theyre going to say hi forever but you can see the drop they went through and then they stayed though. The stayed though and it puts pressure on the state. From an energy standpoint the same thing. Energy prices are volatile. We havent approached our state that is all of the above. Were supporting wind. Oil and gas most of that is going towards transportation fuels. With the wind. Thats a power the grid. We didnt have the Coal Industries have some of the most reliable in the country. As renewable continues to goal the dynamics put pressure on the economics between the two. We have to sort that out as we go forward. From revenue standpoint to the state were dependent on revenue that comes from oil and gas. We had a huge drop from june of 14 we had a 70 drop in the price of oil and when you have this much volatility to figure out how to do your spending. While production is back up production is starting to climb up. Its very likely we could break our high that is absolutely positively due to the fact that this industry has figured out through technology and entrepreneurship to get the breakeven cost down. We have people investing in making money, for five years ago they needed prices at 80 or 90 to make money. When were doing things like truly more walls and has better economics some challenges we have related to workforce theres more activity going on in the state as we produce more oil we produce more gas. If we do that the we have to do more gas capture. That means gas lines and working at the state and federal level because the travel answer states will need to make sure were doing it to make sure capturing all the gas we want to capture revenue be invariable thats a challenge the legislators facing. Was 6 billion in oil revenue. That is trapped in half. Were projected to be about the same in this. We need to do about half the revenue that came in for this important source. The are the thing that made forecasting trick is that we had a huge runoff and sales tax. If you look from 2,922,013 it doubled. Oil activity dropped and prices dropped the sales tax revenue followed to a lower level. Created great challenges from the forecasting standpoint. Through great teamwork through the legislature able to release appropriations from 6 billion down to 4. 3. And to keep driving ahead on the important initiatives. The good news and bad news is that prior legislators have built up significant reserves across different funds which goes to schools and Budget Stabilization which is met for improvement funds in the general Fund Ending Balance likely the money in your checking account. So many tech to way. When the revenue strapped we had a time when revenues were less than what were spending and were able to keep the Government Services rolling with her savings account or reserve fund balances. The gray is where were projected. The balances will be lower in some cases. They were run almost to zero on the back up again. Were working our way back out of the situation. We are not riskfree. More work ahead for the legislature from appropriating standpoint to make sure matching expenses with revenue. Another great thing that all of you if you are of a voting age is that the creation of the legacy fund. It takes 30 of the total revenue drive from oil and gas puts it away into a fund for the future. Was 2016 the money grew and it was created by a vote of the people on the ballot by the legislature. And it just grew and met which piece on their worth 200 million they came from the funding of 4. 3 million. It will continue to grow through 2018. I would say that the stake out my position as i dont think we should be tapping the principle. When he spend the interest in earnings i like to think creatively about how to use the dollars to transform what were doing not just from the basic services and operations. We may have to use it again but certainly in all the people in your lifetime therell be an opportunity to use the legacy fund part of the challenge we have is to keep the ideas coming about what be impactful. And to have this as a potential tool. Despite cutting down from the six to the 4. 3 the legislature is very supportive and strategic on spending money on infrastructure. Its worth noting that the State Government still continues to be a huge economic stimulus in itself in terms of building new roads and water projects and if airports in particular building the new Regional Airport if you added up its over 1. 3 or 1. 4 billion on infrastructure. We continue to invest ourselves in the future. Anna spent a few minutes on property taxes. Its an important story. Its not well understood. Its important to understand the work that the state legislator has been doing on this. Prior to 2009 there is an equal split between what the state provided i what local property taxes paid for for that. Amends some small money for the feds. When the oil boom happened one thing the state decided to do was want to take on a bigger share of pay for local k12 funding. You see the orange lines going skyward. The dollar amount in 2017 the local School Districts are contributing hundred Million Dollars less than what they were in 2010. This is by the state permanently taking on a higher portion of cases through state Revenue Sources to lower the burden on local taxpayers. So to put that in a percentage basis 45 now the locals pay half of that with k12 on a per student basis. What does this mean . There has been a lot of discussion of one element ending at a 12 right down but very little discussion of those blue bars towed to make sure all the students are here but the additional k12 is coming. With 154 million coming from the state. Also also the transfer of the paper of county social services and then to pay for that. The state did have the buydown. And that was unsustainable they need to have an offramp for property taxes they are driven by local decisions. It was unsustainable going into the future with a percentage that somebody else decided to subsidize local spending that may not have been affordable by local jurisdictions. So the legislature to get out of that. So if you are from my not with property taxes going up i would say individual results may vary because. [laughter] if your valuation has gone up the county or the Park District to offer any of those services that could have an impact on your taxes but that varies by individual properties and individual cities but to understand from the state standpoint more than ever through that k12 and as a simple device talk to the county commission and city elected officials that is the group making decisions. But the federal partnerships it has been an incredible year. To have so much access it with federal decisionmakers to make decisions and in many cases a president ial visit to north dakota will occur in the last month of the last day of the second term here we have a new sitting president not only ate months into his term but to do a major policy of the tax reform that was one of many partnerships. But at the cabinet level secretary chow was in town or secretary perdue working with us on the job release the epa director pruitt taking a lead that is detrimental. So a lot of things that are happening pro business pro north dakota and a chance they have never had more access the last eight months than the previous eight years. Cabinet leaders make it happen so i would say focus that signal. Other noise in d. C. But we have cabinet leaders. But up north we have a border with canada we dont even talk about the 310 miles long with border crossings the number one trading partner both agriculture and energy it has been quite a year where we had a chance this last summer to meet the Prime Minister of canada and today is my daughters 22nd birthday b17. [applause] with the canadian ambassador outgoing premier of saskatchewan and the premier from manitoba you can tell from that picture they were both collegiate basketball players. [laughter] also a fast pitch softball player going to 20 tournaments i was joking with him but 675,000 people with only 750,000 in the whole state of north dakota. We have 13000 jobs where can i get 13000 people to move south from winnipeg . Left back we had some great partners. We touch not only trade but water. To understand how important those relationships are working with the red river basin there is a lot of things we can build partnerships of course those lead to the military after one month after the president ial visit. It isnt on the critical to the economy with global tensions and Nuclear Tensions that are unthinkable that i thought i could quit thinking about from the 60s and 70s doing the drills thinking that maybe we could get past abbott in the meantime it is important for our country and freedom loving people everywhere to have a strong deterrent with those rogue nations that are threatening Nuclear Activity and here we have the only base in the nation with a dual Nuclear Mission that is the reason why the air force and president was here. Also security provided by the north Dakota National guard. We do have a number of people representing what is going on and i would like to make introductions also the Vice Commander who was joined by colonel Benjamin Spencer but if i could ask those officers to stand and have all active duty servicemen and women here, give the military leaders i hand. [applause] stay standing for all the veterans in the room please stand. [applause] i want to give a special shout out to the tribal leaders because what everybody should know is the group that volunteers with higher percentage than any other group in the country is american indians. [applause] it is also an incredibly special honor today with private first class here with us. This gentleman served in world war ii with distinction with medals for bravery, bronze star, purple heart and last year the country of france for a long him the highest military honor that they have the legion of honor. He is right here from my not. Ninetysix years old. World war ii veteran. [applause] thanks for being here great to see our generation. One of the other important parties the opportunity to interact with the third branch of government, we have a system across the state represented by the colors of the district courts, those are elected by the peoples positions if they become vacant the governor has the honor and duty to make those appointments that i was pleased to have an opportunity to appoint six new judges from a pool of highly qualified candidates. One of the things that you learn. Interviewing it isnt easy. We cannot do this job in north dakota in the shoe are faced with addictions with 75 of the people so trying to solve problems that is a part of that so that is the extreme honor with a vacancy that occurs to have the opportunity to appoint one of the judges. Also the mindset of reinventing government. And also with that process that we built and he stood up earlier today it is great to be apart and thank you for serving the state. [applause] 2017 was an incredible first year i had a chance to share gratitude with a lot of you it was a huge team effort but in addition to the work and foundation to to drive forward with the unlimited promise and to harness those Unstoppable Forces and while i am on this slide to look ahead when they see this also more championships in the future. [laughter] what are those Unstoppable Forces of technology. This is an hourlong keynote in 30 seconds. Ubiquitous censored or pervasive mobility with a supercomputer in your pocket. And throw in Machine Learning with Artificial Intelligence and say dont need people to make the Software Better so the machines can make it better and it changes every job in every company and every industry and without those changes in technology we would not have the oil industry in north dakota today and people would not be drilling. And with the free Market Forces to continue to forward. And then also working with agriculture and it is a fraction of that but we produce more and better food than ever before because of productivity. North Dakota Farmers and ranchers are some of the best they are adopting technology at a rapid rate. And healthcare and education but 70 of what we spend across the budgets goes to health and Human Services so if you are in this job like the ceo job or ceo of education because those healthcare education is not immune from those forces. They have more insulation with that digital disruption comes in waves then sooner than we think. And for us to be successful we have to figure out a way to embrace that Digital Transformation. And with that purpose that we talked about earlier to empower lives as a state employees there are over 16000. And to be openminded. And then to drive out of our administration. To behavioral addiction. And to say crosscutting to have one dozen agencies so starting with reinventing government with the state of the state. If you want to talk about reinventing your institution. We meet until midnight we have a lot of fantastic north dakota that want to do their best and reinvent how they do stuff we had a lot of meetings to midnight. And to challenge the cabinet. So with a new cabinet members and it is a balance with a fresh perspective with initiatives we have a great Leadership Team driving the core government agencies. And then to understand the people on the front lines with the snowplow drivers are the schoolteachers or the people doing counseling we put the survey with nearly 4000 state employees respond coming back with their feedback but this is one of the tools to make sure we understand and listen also pulling together the cabinet leaders that run the agencies but then they run reports of for the First Time Ever the extended cabinet Leadership Meeting to pull everybody together to drive these costcutting initiatives so this is a new way of thinking how do we do a better job . The one of the ways we interact and as we have approached technology in the past so what we end up with is 160 websites from the state of north dakota and none of them interconnect with each other. That you will try to buy a park pass or a Fishing License and go to different times when you come back it doesnt know who you are. If you have ever done any shopping online that percentage is pretty high and they remember you. All the things that you looked at so welcome back. So who are you you talk like the state of north dakota. [laughter] and paying a lot of taxes. So we have a lot of work to do. Driving that citizen focus Going Forward we need to do that deep dive across information technology. All the people that work in it and to identify those that work with all the other cabinet agencies. I you working on running existing systems for transforming government . It turns out 91 of those of those resources keep the lights on, running the systems with over 800 Business Applications that were disconnected with mainframes we try to run to figure out Harvest Resources and we have to do this across State Government and in the private sector and then we are running at zero and how we keep the cost down . And that is about all i have to say it is a huge risk for us in the big priority we have to keep working on this. Averaging 7. 3 million per month. Statesponsored Foreign Terrorist Organization some of that could harness a bunch of computers to mine bitcoin. But we have an important duty to protect citizen information and make sure we do that. A couple of fun things happening with the Digital Transformation coming from the dot on the righthand side testing a kiosk both on the campus 18000 Motor Vehicles have been redone versus waiting in line there are 2000 people that that have renew their drivers license online. So we can keep doing things to improve Customer Service for citizens. Last year there was a lot of aches where we parked the snowplows. We want to shift that to where they are actually plowing. And then to attract the snowplow and see what they are coming. If the pilot works but as part of this innovation and also Highway Patrol with collaboration and with vision zero. With zero excuses and zero fatalities. So is that darts will doable . Probably not in my lifetime. So what is the right number for your family . How many people should die from the auto accident . Is there any number other than zero for a Family Member or friend . That has to be zero. We could be one or two weeks we will celebrate that maybe a couple of counties that go one full year. We will build those Building Blocks we will get to this number and i think before any other state. But it takes government pus technology. And then we will have Autonomous Vehicles that will drive that number down and to be aspirational of a multiyear ongoing and also just wear your seatbelt. Dont let them drive impaired. Impersonal responsibilities where we get zero. That is the new sign vision zero so get on board figure out how your community can get on board. And addiction can happen to anyone anywhere and anytime it is tearing apart the social community fabric. And to do everything we can to reverse that trend. It is staggering the numbers nationally you have more death than auto and gun death combined. We have a war on drugs starting in the 80s it is the worst ever in terms of overdose. With a more powerful and more fatal drugs north dakota is not immune, the the numbers are not in 2017 but probably over 70 Overdose Deaths last year. And to start with the understanding it is a disease and you cannot treat a chronic lifetime disease but 28 days of treatment more than treating diabetes with 28 days of insulin. We have to change the cultural view that will change our approach. You cannot incarcerate people with a health issue and expect them to get better without treatment while incarcerated. So as leon birch says 98 of the people in north dakota get out of incarceration we need to make better neighbors not better prisoners. So we are making some progress also reducing 11000 prescriptions with a statewide task force looking at that changes in the software but there are things we will keep chipping away it is staggeringly high almost 60 doses every man woman and child prescribed in 2016. I dont think we need that much pain medication as a state so how do we use that appropriately and make sure we manage the supply and the challenges . One of the things we did to bring attention to the approach the first lady help to drive this event with a fabulous turnout and speakers all over the country and at the end of the day the speakers were amazing five of those that spoke were felons. Los angeles, the lawyer from hollywood, felon. We have to understand we have to get rid of that stigma associated with it looking at the root problem. The first lady has been doing amazing work prior to this it came from her five visits on her own time from vermont and massachusetts arizona new jersey with chris christie. And with great teamwork. One of the things that happened at that event is with a nasal spray that can reduce an overdose. We dont have a problem here and why are we giving out something that will support addicts . That is a language and thinking we have to get rid of. It is a lifesaving tool for people who have a disease. 326 kits were distributed after trading five days later parents came and listened and left with their kids and they were there because they had an adult son early 20s and concerned about his addiction. Five days later he is unresponsive on the floor the dad applies the kit and saves his life. Saves his life. [applause] and the legislature the legislature is on this and making great purse on guest progress when the most significant pieces of legislation this move 7 million out of corrections upstream and to get them into treatment the brandname is free through recovery and to support up to 600 People Services previously not available in north dakota. And to provide 600 people it will cost all of you taxpayers 41000 a year to incarcerate someone it is a fraction to give treatment then they can be with family and kids the war on drugs is tough on taxpayers. We need to come up with solutions to solve the problem. We need more investment in this Going Forward the first training yesterday morning with about 25 more people showing up and that is fantastic also the first lady has been very busy getting the shout out from President Trump meeting with the white house drugs are and continues to build the relationship at the National Level and that courage to put yourself out there. [applause] recovery is another element to focus on with Early Intervention with those elements to approach holistic leave. With a day of prevention and a challenge people to get there. If you are clean and sober was School Friends or classmates think about getting out of school to come to this so ask your principal or superintendent why are we going to this . This is and everybody issue. This is a top priority with a tribal luncheon to meet with the tribal leaders. We have had meetings where are we . We have a long way to go. Trust was very low last year and probably for good reason that we are digging in on this because it is so important to the future of our state we have a history that goes back long before north dakota was here starting in 1899 with a complex mix of tragic history with broken promises and those treaty debates and one of those challenges we have is not enough people understand that history and the challenge to put out to all of you is to better understand the issue people that work to understand what is the aspirational resolve of the nations to work behalf of the people to create better situations that federal system is dysfunctional with multi generational poverty and whether addiction or k12 with those other initiatives also apply here but in this case working on nation to nation relationship so we have to approach it differently so we have to figure out a way to Work Together to resolve that im grateful for those partnerships and incredible host. And we want to keep those dialogues going so some of those areas relate to taxes with tribal taxation the Committee Formed by the legislature with the leaders from both parties Lieutenant Governor and myself, a Historic Group of leaders to put that leadership on tribal relations and then working together hoping that can lead to legislation to solve those challenges we are facing. We need to listen more and understand and understand we are all north dakota we are all parents and have kids we all want a bright Children Future we all want the same thing lets go figure out how to get it done. We have a chance to meet jamie. Congratulations on your new responsibilities. Thanks for inviting us up to the addiction summit and a shout out to the other leaders and working with catherine on the number of things to receive recognition. Thank you chairman fox we have a great crew of folks here and thank you for being here we look forward to continuing to work with you. Education. This is a biggie. 40 of the state budget k1 k12, we are teaching kids in many cases like we taught them 120 years ago we dont realize it because we are insular that the monopoly is a State Government there is 109,000 students that are homeschooled and 3000 homeschooled and 9000 in parochial schools. But we have state delivered education as the market share and we have to figure out a way throughout the own efforts to adopt the technology to transform. This picture was taken with all elementary kids out there with private partnerships for age ambassadors and incredible day with Incredible Energy with kids learning all kinds of things. With the legislature this is bottoms up legislation each individual School District can decide locally the best way to drive education in their areas to get out and understand how we can make that happen we operated a k12 task force we have been holding our meetings with the troopers interacting with students that we will continue to get out into the schools to understand people are doing to drive these initiatives forward last year we had a great governors conference on education 600 people attended the issue we are just now announcing the Education Summit will be two days long with a Consolidated School and arthur if you have heard of that town. [laughter] you know the history the knights merged with and then became the warriors and then they merged with a gophers and now they are the jaguars. [laughter] everybody i played now goes to the same school all the archrivals that this will be great my challenge to all of you is to get out there and do that wave your hand thank you we have a governance system that we may or may not have legislation to be introduced one year from now but the task force of 230 applicants that was really difficult but we have a fantastic task force but we had the first meeting and we have some traction going in terms of taking a look at this. The goal of course is to make sure we do lots of listening and part of that the Governors Office doing education d5 starting with minot. [laughter] we went to listen to the needs of the staff and communities and to make sure we have an understanding of where we are in the system to allow the Higher Education to be able and dynamic with Knowledge Transfer in creation is at a different and faster rate. Empowering local leaders and communities with the 21st century workforce that is what it is about. There are three pillars the workforce component to have a healthy and vibrant community and infrastructure to support the other two. Most 13000 jobs in north dakota that is fantastic but the problem is we have that many jobs open if those were filled it would be like adding jamestown. Talking to people around the state with 13 visits workforce workforce workforce that is the highest one within that and then the other piece is engagement we have communities that all kinds of kids but the population is flat. Do the math that means for every person that comes somebody elses leaving. So we need to engage our youth to understand what they want. We need to build the communities that they want. So we have a set of fantastic National Speakers it is inspirational and right now and fork has more people register than anyone. [laughter] [applause] with that Strategic Initiative there they are making progress. For you to participate. And to look forward to your participation this is a road of the valley. So to grow up in this part of the country it is fine if it hasnt rained for a week or two if it has rained you will not get down that road you will be stuck so fast. So the road ahead is not a paved super freeway it requires judgment and effort and thought and requires us to think about it. So to think about how to persevere so to add to that also estate who knows how to innovate we know how to lead so it is built into our character but we have to expand that also the bobcat it is leadership they were created by people have their feet on the swale tied to the land that also help them to become innovators you have to have a growth mindset. The fifth mindset is i know what i need to know you cannot tell me anything i dont need to know because i know what i know. And i am fixed in my thinking. And we have to learn. I learned something very powerful in december 2015 when i met a homeless addict in downtown fargo. I learned something from the individual and i have been learning every day this last year for people who have shared stories with me. We need these people to say what will i wear today . To be a continuous learner you have to understand what you hold true may not be true. Be willing to like our perception and to keep driving forward with a set of questions and gratitude there is a bucket sitting next to you call the gratitude bucket you can share every day with everybody writing to when you get up the next morning it is filled up again. But some people dont even know it is sitting next to them. It is too easy where everything is a complaint with so much to be grateful for as a country and the resources, we have a lot to be grateful for. With 750,000 in the state of north dakota that is a force multiplier. 750,000 people. I understand between the age of one and three may not apply take them out of the population. [laughter] 750,000 people to write a note of gratitude to somebody who made a difference in my life a friend or a coach or a teacher you all know who they are if you took the time to send them a note that is a force multiplier. If we did that once it is a difference but every week . Its free does not require legislative or Judicial Branch it is personal responsibility with the power of the peoples right i noted gratitude and make them feel amazing to see how you feel. After you have done that for them. Just try it. That is my closing challenge estate of unlimited potential foreign away the best price is the chance to work hard and Teddy Roosevelt said that we won the prize we have the opportunity to improve lives every single day we get up that is why we love this job and serving all of you. Lets go make it happen. Thank you. [applause] [applause]