Gov. Gregoire addresses the Association of Washington State Hispanic Chambers

March 12, 2008

*As Written*

Buenos Dias! (BWANE-Ohs DEE-Azz)

Thank you Mike for the kind introduction.

I�m happy to be here this morning. The Legislature adjourns tomorrow -- God willing -- and as you can imagine, sometimes I feel like I�m being pulled North, South, East, and West all at the same time!

I�m glad to escape, if ever so briefly, for the refreshing chance to sneak up here and speak to real folks like you about the issues you care about.

I want to congratulate all of you at this very first meeting of the growing Association of Washington State Hispanic Chambers of Commerce!

As we all know, Washington�s Hispanic population is the fastest growing minority population in the state. Our own Office of Financial Management says that by 2015, one in every ten Washingtonians will be Hispanic.

By 2030 -- 13 of every 100 Washingtonians will be of Hispanic origin.
That�s one heck of a lot of buying power, and you are doing the up-front work of making sure Hispanic businesses are well-positioned to reap the benefits.

Indeed, some of you in this room took an amazing step in this regard when you started the very successful Plaza Bank in 2006 -- the first bank in Washington whose mission includes serving the Hispanic Community right down to making sure bank employees speak Spanish.

Our Latino community in Washington is growing and thriving, and I�m incredibly excited.

When I took office in 2005, I made sure my top leaders included accomplished folks who could be a voice for our Hispanic Community.

I�m talking about Eva Santos, my director of Personnel, who has been a huge help to me in so many ways, and Linda Villegas (Vee-EGG-Ahs) Bremer, my director of General Administration, who as the state�s biggest purchasing manager, fully understands the business needs of our Latino community.

I�d like to talk a little bit today about issues that are of concern to any business in our state. As we all know, the national economy is not doing well, and some economists think the country is already in recession.

But in Washington, our economy remains strong. Our real-estate market is weaker, but our unemployment rate remains near historic lows at 4.5 percent. Boeing has a three-year backlog of airplanes to fill; our agricultural exports are at record levels; and our technology sector is thriving.

For me, the most important thing this year is for state government to leave a very healthy reserve. (That�s quite a contrast to when I took office in 2005. We had a $2.2 billion budget shortfall!)

While saving money for the future, we still made careful, smart investments. This year, our focus was public safety, an issue I�ll get to in a minute.

In the past three years, we have made real progress to serve Washingtonians in many important ways, and it begins with education.

The fact is, we can�t expect to maintain our innovative, powerful, economy if our kids can�t speak, write, do math, master a trade, or above all � think.

Like any business, yours depends first on educated, skilled employees, and my number one priority is making sure Washington�s education system provides them.

We�re creating a world-class, learner-focused, seamless education system that gives our kids a chance to get a good job.

Three years ago, voter-approved initiatives to cut class sizes and increase teacher pay were shelved. But I took them off the shelf, and we�re investing in smaller classes, paying more to keep and attract our great teachers, and setting high standards for our schools.

We are investing to greatly improve programs to teach math and science, which as you know, is critical if we are to keep our innovative edge in a world economy.

We are building a system of early learning to get our little kids ready for school on day one. Our goal is to offer all-day kindergarten to everybody. Right now we�re focusing on low-income communities.

We know all-day kindergarten works. But to serve our kids even better, we have early-learning demonstration projects in White Center, Yakima, and Spokane. We have designed our teaching methods to address particular challenges � from pre-school through third grade.

I know all of you are concerned about the high-school dropout rate.

We have taken several big steps to reduce the dropout rate, including investment in programs to help students figure out what they might want to do when they graduate -- and then help them prepare for that.

Not everyone wants to go to college, and we are providing the opportunity for these students to flourish.

Our Running Start for the Trades Program is working,

By connecting motivated high-school kids to the trades, we are increasing graduation rates, preparing kids for a good career, and meeting the need for these high-demand, good-paying jobs.

Kids like Ricardo Rodriguez. During high school he started attending the New Market Skills Center in Tumwater with an eye toward an apprenticeship in the building trades.
Ricardo says he hated high school, but all he knew how to do was flip burgers. Now he�s learning to be a builder to earn a family wage!

We are helping thousands more kids succeed and making our workforce strong. In the last three years we have nearly doubled the number of apprenticeships to 14,500.

For college-bound kids, we�re opening the doors wider. We�re making room. And we are making college more affordable by increasing the number of scholarships, and offering financial aid to more students.

By the way, our financial-aid includes a letter from the state to low-income kids in the 7th grade that if they work hard and avoid serious trouble with the law, we will pay their way through college.

My number one job is to make sure every young person in Washington knows that if they work hard, they will have the chance to compete with anyone, anywhere in the world, for jobs in the new global economy found right here in Washington.

I know another concern of business people is government red tape.

We are working very hard to reduce red tape and make sure businesses can prosper without unnecessary obstacles.

You know, sometimes that means something as simple as talking to people in every day language. Let me give you an example.

Imagine you�re sitting at your kitchen table reading the following letter from the Department of Labor and Industries.

"We have been notified that you did not receive the State of Washington warrant listed on the attached Affidavit of Lost or Destroyed Warrant Request for Replacement form F242."

Does anyone know what that means? Today that letter has been rewritten, and here�s what it says: "Have you cashed your L&I check yet?�

That�s an example of our Plain Talk program where we are making government communicate in a way you and I can understand. What a concept!

This is just one of the many reasons Forbes Magazine rates Washington the 5th best state in the nation to do business, and Fortune Magazine rates us the 4th best for small business.

You may have seen in the newspapers last week that the non-partisan Pew Research Center in the other Washington ranks us among the top three best managed states in the nation. The average grade for all the state�s was a B-minus, and we got an A-minus!

The Pew Center found us to be the most open, well-managed state in the nation � along with Virginia and Utah. My goal is to get us an A the next time around.

I know another concern of this group is public safety.

In late November we launched Operation Crackdown, a partnership between local law enforcement, the department of corrections, and federal law enforcement to track down and arrest sex offenders who are not following the terms of their release.

So far, 270 sex offenders in 18 counties have been arrested. This is only the beginning. My budget provided additional funding to ensure this program continues and the Legislature has included my recommendation in its budget.

Last summer, following the tragic murder of young Zina Linnik in Tacoma, I asked Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge to chair a task force of people from across the criminal justice spectrum who deal with sex offender issues every day to review the case and make recommendations about what could be done to advance our states management of sex offenders.

The task force suggested several new tools to strengthen our grip on sex offenders. I sent them to the Legislature in December, and the Legislature has approved them.

We have added 4,000 new prison beds --the largest expansion in state history -- to ensure that dangerous criminals are off the streets.

However, while we remain tough on crime we are also going to be smart on crime and how we spend tax payer dollars.

While we are tough on crime, we also need to be smarter about crime.

That�s why we have invested in education, drug and alcohol treatment, and occupational training for offenders in our prisons through our reentry initiative.

We are preparing offenders to reintegrate into the community, and we know for a fact it keeps a lot of them from going back to prison.

That means we reduce the number of victims, and we can use more of our dollars to build schools rather than prisons.

We also know that health care is a huge worry and concern for businesses.

The wealthiest nation in the world must relieve some of this fear and suffering. But since we aren�t getting the help we need from Washington, D.C., we are doing what we can ourselves � the Washington Way.

Like providing health insurance to kids.

Three years ago we were cutting health insurance for kids. We now cover 84,000 more kids and are on our way to covering all children by 2010.

Why is this so important? Because as any mom or dad knows, healthy kids do better in school and in life. And health insurance helps keep kids out of emergency rooms where costs are much higher to taxpayers.

Fundamentally, it�s our moral obligation to provide health care to the children of our state when their families can�t provide it!
Another major issue where we�re making progress is transportation. Now, we know our highways have big challenges.

But let me tell you that at the end of 2004, just 12 highway construction projects were completed.

Three years later, we have completed 128 highway construction projects � from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to the widening project on I-405, and from a new State Route 17 Interchange in Moses Lake to new lanes to speed up traffic on State Route 543 at the Canadian Border in Bellingham.

Ninety one percent of them were on time and nearly as many on budget.

It might not get the ink, but that�s real progress!

The tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a wake-up call to this nation. Prime exhibits in Washington are the viaduct in Seattle and the 520 bridge.

We need to take them down, not leave it to Mother Nature!

We have begun construction on the most vulnerable portion of the viaduct and we expect removal of the south structure within three years.

We are well on the way to building a new State Route 520 Bridge. It�s time. There is nothing to it but to do it. And do it we will.

Last week, I announced that we�re reducing the time it will take to build the bridge by four years, and we will have a new bridge by 2014, and new bridge corridors by 2016.

And we are on our way to building six new ferries to ensure the safety of our ferry passengers. This is an historic step in the way we run our ferry system.

With our robust growth and employment, we won�t solve our transportation problems overnight. Sometimes we forget that in the old days the federal government paid for 90 percent of our roads and bridges. Those days are gone.

But we�re making progress to address congestion, to maintain the roads we have, and to do it all with safety utmost in mind.

In closing, let me note that we have a representative here today from our Office of Minority and Women�s Business Enterprises.

And I want you to know that we are working very hard to build relationships in the small business community to better serve minority and women�s businesses.

The office has recently been re-organized to improve service to our customers.

I am working closely with the office to put in place big improvements in how we certify businesses to qualify for assistance from this office.

The important thing is we in state government are here to serve you.

Thank You.