First, we appointed former United States ascender to lead to the effort and he has incredible skill and produced phenomenal results. [applause]. Think about this. Tax appeals were weighing down the city. 303 million is owed just to the casinos in tax rebates. Set the senator using the authority we gave him, negotiated that number down by more than 50 , just over 138 million and in 2017 we announced glad you are all seated for this one 1140 11. 4 decrease in property taxes in Atlantic City which means average property tax reduction of 621. This was the result of budgetcutting measures that reduced city spending by 66 million over the 2015 budget and with a jeff in charge the budget will stay level in 2018 as well. He also reached a settlement with the police union, a settlement leading to now there will be 12 hour shifts in Atlantic City, reduced salaries, reduced term lease payments and reduced workforce of 252 officers, all agreements that would not have occurred without the senators
Baker talked about opioid abuse, renewable energy, transportation infrastructure and Affordable Housing. From the massachusetts statehouse in boston, this is 40 minutes. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] it is my pleasure to be able to introduce to you his excellency the governor of the commonwealth charles baker. [applause] thank you. [applause] thank you very much, thank you. Thank you for all being with us tonight. Thank you. Tom, its nice to have you with us. Thanks for being here. Mr. Speaker, madam president members of the house and senate, congressman neal thank you for joining us, fellow constitutional officers, members of the governors counsel mr. Chief justice, welcome. Members of the judiciary, members of the cabinet, my administration, sheriff, district attorney, mayors, local officials reverend and clergy, distinguished guests, members of my family that are here this evening.
So wherefore the rulemaking process, but i want to reck recognize the point that youve made of small employers and small institutions. We consider prior toy. No priority. No matter where you are we can work on implementation. Its exceptionally challenging for Small Businesses that are try to go plan for the future. Open new stores, hire more workers, when do you anticipate the rulemaking . Its one of the complex issues that we received a number of comments on and trying today to do that as quickly as possible. Thank you i yield back chairman. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you burwell on so many issues Mental Health services, childhood Education Community support programs. I want to spend my short time and i want to thank committee thank you to dr. Fox for calling the issue of elder abuse. I want to emphasize it. I have three questions. Ill tell you what the three are to save time. First the population of Older Americans are changing rapidly what steps youre take to go modernize the adm
Possibility of if its approved for one doing it for all, but then having i would add to that, and i think that was part of the discussion, that there be a governor opt out of that particular thing, but i would add to that, and i know that there is a difference between when the governors they are around all the time and the legislators who are around some of the time. So ive always suggested that there be an opt out or an opt in by the governor, provided when the legislature meets they agree. I dont know what happens if there isnt agreement, but im certain that there would be some good suggestions that would come out of that. Yesterday we talked with the Insurance Commissioners and they talked about the need for reinsurance and high risk pools and maine has an invisible high risk pool that i think could be useful, again, provided there was an opt out by the governors with the approval of legislature. We also had a good explanation yesterday of Small Business health plans or Association
Commissions will please come to order. We are holding our second hearings on stabilizing premiums and ensuring access to the individual Health Insurance market for the year 2018. Thats our focus. We are delighted and honored to have the governors of five states here today. Thank you, gentlemen. You have come long distances to be here. We look forward to learning from you. We will each have an Opening Statement and introduce the five governors after almost sounds like a singing group, doesnt it . Senators will have an opportunity to ask the witnesses five minutes of questions. We just left a meeting. We had 30 senators there, similar to yesterday when we had the state Insurance Commissioners here. We had 31 senators, most of them not on the Committee Meet for an hour and at the hearing we had 22 of our 23 Committee Members. So for two consecutive days we have had them focus on a single narrow objective. What can we do in the next couple of weeks . Thats a tall order. The next couple of