Governor Voinovich's Selected Speeches   

1993 State of the State Address (26th January)
State Capitol, Columbus, Ohio

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Mr. Speaker -- Mr. President -- Lt. Governor DeWine -- distinguished members of Ohio's 120th General Assembly -- justices of the Supreme Court -- elected state office holders -- members of the Cabinet -- friends -- and fellow Ohioans.

It's a pleasure to welcome to this chamber, the 23 new members of the 120th General Assembly.

I'm confident that, under the leadership of Vern Riffe and Stan Aronoff, the 120th General Assembly will be one of the most productive in Ohio history.

Vern and Stan, I want to say a special word of thanks to you.

I'm not sure there's another state in our nation where the leadership forged the kind of bipartisan effort to navigate the choppy economic waters that we did last year -- and I thank each of you for your time, wisdom, patience, and guidance.

Janet and I also thank the people of Ohio for your continued prayers and support.

I suspect that most of you look back on 1992 in the same that way I do: It was a year of both accomplishment and frustration. The economic recovery finally got under way -- but at the slowest pace of any similar period since World War II.

Strategic investment of state dollars enabled us to protect and expand programs for Ohio children and families -- but our revenues were not enough to address all of our state's pressing needs, and they probably never will be.

And the most comprehensive, private-sector management audits of state operations in Ohio history produced some outstanding recommendations -- but they also reminded us of the huge challenges still ahead.

Through all of the ups and downs, one realization became very clear to me, and it is the central message of my remarks today:

The global marketplace has become so competitive, that we absolutely must maintain the new spirit of bipartisan cooperation that we forged in 1992 to keep Ohio's ship of state sailing as we head into the 21st century.

We must have the courage to find break-the-mold solutions to our long-standing problems and recognize that the paradigms of the past just don't work.

We must have the self-discipline to understand that there are limits to what government can and should do.

And we must forge the commitment to retain, expand, and create jobs for the people of Ohio -- to establish a world-class education system for all Ohioans -- and to provide an environment where our fellow citizens can enjoy a decent quality of life.

It is within this context that we must view our actions, now and in the future.

We accomplished much in 1992.

More important, we set the stage for some great things in 1993 -- reform of primary, secondary, and higher education, along with our Medicaid, welfare, and workers' compensation systems.

Our administration has focused on the three areas that I first outlined in my Inaugural Address two years ago: Management, education, and jobs.

Regarding management, I want to repeat one more time why I've preached for the last two years that we've got to work harder and smarter and do more with less.

We simply cannot expect Ohio to remain competitive and productive if our state government is not -- state government must work if Ohioans are to work.

From the outset, I've understood that it begins with me.

I don't mind being called a tightwad, because I've been taught that, if you save your pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves.

When you combine my state travel, security, and Residence costs for 1992, you'll find they are $500,000 less than what was spent in 1990.

I'm also personally committed to Total Quality Management.

All of our directors and more than 300 managers have been through the three days of required training.

Our goal is to change the culture of Ohio's workforce, to get every state employee excited about their jobs, and bring a new can-do spirit and enthusiasm into every state workplace.

I thank our employee unions for cooperating in this effort.

An example of this cooperation is the new way we're providing hospitalization for our state employees through a planned "PPO" -- a move that is saving taxpayers about $16 million a year.

As I said earlier, 1992 also saw the completion of the most far-reaching management audits in Ohio history, aimed at helping us deliver value to our citizens -- quality service for the least amount of money.

And do you know what? It works!

Despite a current biennial budget with the lowest growth in 25 years -- and despite four separate cuts totaling over $600 million -- our state departments are still getting the job done.

Twelve state agencies are operating this year on fewer dollars than they did two years ago, and another six are below the inflation rate.

I'm proud of my cabinet.

By March of this year, they will have implemented 70 percent of the Operations Improvement Task Force recommendations.

We thank the General Assembly for passing legislation last year, allowing for implementation of 25 percent of the O.I.T. legislative recommendations, and we look forward to working with you in the present session to address many of the remaining issues.

When I became Governor, frankly, I was worried whether we could have any impact on other areas of state spending -- higher education, for example.

I found out we could, and I want to publicly thank Ray Sawyer, Elaine Hairston, and the Board of Regents for undertaking the Managing for the Future Task Force, Tier One and Tier Two.

Tier One represented the most thorough review of Ohio's higher education system since its inception, and Tier Two was the only time that each state institution conducted its own "O.I.T." review.

If all of their recommendations are implemented, the result will be significant savings of taxpayer dollars.

I am also impressed with our progress in another area where I'd feared we might not have much influence -- the Department of Education.

Our outstanding Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ted Sanders, used the Model for the Future audit conducted by the Governor's Education Management Council to shift the department's focus from monitoring and record-keeping to results and performance.

Finally, McKinsey and Company did a fantastic, free audit of the Ohio Bureau of Worker's Compensation, which I will talk about shortly.

Altogether, these separate public-private partnerships represented the collective work of 535 volunteer experts, who gave 186,000 hours of service to the people of Ohio, representing a total contribution of nearly $10 million.

We're thanking them by converting their recommendations into better service to our customers, the people of Ohio.

That's the good management news.

My greatest frustration on the management side is that spending in certain areas continues to skyrocket at a rate much greater than inflation.

The areas that under my direct managerial control are doing fine, but they constitute only about 13 percent of the budget -- it's the other 87 percent that remains a problem.

Number one on the list is Medicaid.

It cost $3.9 billion last year and grew by 237 percent over the last decade, while inflation was rising about 48 percent.

The fact that Medicaid reform is Senate Bill 1 underscores that you share my concern.

The bottom line problem is that 51 percent of the Medicaid budget is being spent on less than six percent of the total caseload. With the cooperation of the nursing home industry, we have made some progress in this area, including our new prospective reimbursement system that saved the taxpayers $200 million this biennium.

Our Medicaid reform package includes other initiatives such as expanding community-based care options and PASSPORT, establishing a Certificate of Need bed moratorium, and tightening nursing home admission standards.

And I have great news for older Ohioans -- our Washington office has just informed us that we've succeeded in our efforts to expand the PASSPORT program.

This will enable us to triple our services by 1998.

Most older Ohioans would rather stay in their homes or apartments, surrounded by the loving care of their family and friends, and assisted by local services, which are so much more affordable than nursing homes -- and it's our responsibility to help make that happen.

In addition to our collective action in response to our Medicaid crisis, I will be doing everything in my power, working through the National and Republican Governors Associations, to eliminate federal mandates without money, which is the genesis of our crisis.

I'm very hopeful that President Clinton -- a long-time governor -- will understand the ongoing plight of the states in this regard.

The second area where we must begin working to control our costs is Ohio's adult and juvenile corrections system.

The budget for our adult prison system has grown by 280 percent in the last 10 years, and our juvenile system, 58 percent -- each triggered by unrelenting increases in our institutional population.

Lt. Governor DeWine and I have talked a great deal about this issue, and he has convinced me that nothing less than bold change is necessary for us to have any hope of plugging this continuing drain on Ohio's resources, both human and financial. We need to give our judges more options.

Mike will be sharing our plans in this area with you in the near future.

With respect to education, let me begin by saying that I remain committed to being Ohio's "Education Governor" and to Ohio being the "Education State."

The tremendous effort put forth by our GEM Council and Ted Sanders in '91 and '92 to examine our education system has delivered us to the doorstep of education reform.

Their work in completing the school finance and governance reports, along with the Gap Analysis of our progress on the six national education goals, was superb.

It was especially gratifying when William Kolberg, president of the National Alliance of Business, said the following with respect to GEM:

"I use what is going on in this state as perhaps the best example in the country of a public-private partnership. It will help shape the most far-reaching education legislation ever prepared in Ohio."

A good deal of the reform package will be folded into the new biennial budget, but let me tell you now what education reform means to me.

Education reform means education results -- results that will be demanded, measured, and rewarded.

All children must start school ready to learn, and when they get there, we're going to expect more from them, their teachers, principals, and school systems.

We must change our education funding system to assure that every Ohio child has equal access to world-class schools and teachers, and we must give the State Superintendent the authority to make sure that the money we spend on education is going into the classrooms, and not for excessive administrative costs.

We're going to make sure that Ohio's teachers are the best in the world, and we'll closely evaluate their performance. If they are not performing or are having problems, we'll help them -- but if they cannot be helped, we're going to ask them to leave.

We're going to use a new "education passport" program to make sure that when students graduate, they have the knowledge and skills to find a good job in the field they want -- and if they choose college, they are not going to need remedial work.

Finally, we're going to provide access to quality, affordable lifelong learning to all Ohioans, including displaced workers needing new skills, people needing additional training to keep their jobs, and all others looking for two-year, four-year, or graduate degrees.

Although most of our work in education is still ahead of us, we have nevertheless made progress in the last two years.

In the midst of last year's budget cuts, we were able to increase spending for primary and secondary education by more than seven percent -- a feat that few states could claim in 1992 -- and we provided $45 million to increase equity for 218 bottom-tier school districts.

Two years ago on this occasion, I drew the line in the sand and declared our commitment to the present generation of Ohio children and to ending the debilitating cycle of poverty and hopelessness that ensnares so many of them.

I'm proud of the work we've done thus far to honor that commitment.

For example, in an extremely tight fiscal environment, we increased state Head Start funding in the current biennium by 50 percent the first year, and another 33 percent this year.

We remain number one in state Head Start funding in America, and we have included enough money in the next biennial budget so that, by the end of 1995, we can reach our goal of serving all eligible children.

We lead the nation in allocating state dollars to Healthy Start, which provides low-income children and pregnant women with health care through Medicaid, and enrollment has increased by more than 168,000 over the last 19 months.

We increased childhood immunizations by 36 percent in 1992 over 1991 levels.

Child support enforcement collections increased from $880 million in 1991 to more than $1 billion last year.

Most significantly, our Family and Children First Initiative, which I first talked about last year, is now beginning to take hold. Its primary goal is to replace our often-fragmented social service delivery system with better-coordinated, local partnerships. More than 80 counties expressed interest in our pilot projects to establish local partnerships in seven Ohio counties, so we know the interest is out there.

When you look at the money we're putting into education -- into equity -- into all of our initiatives on behalf of families and children -- and when you see what we're putting in the '94-'95 budget -- you'll see that Ohio is, indeed, moving toward a fair, adequate, and reliable system for supporting our kids and their education.

All of this work represents an investment that will pay growing dividends in the years ahead -- and when it does, we will have the satisfaction of knowing we made a difference for this generation of Ohio's children and families.

There's one other ingredient we need to get education results -- I call it the "love factor."

The Ohio Adopt-A-School program is one effort that helps.

My wife, Janet, working closely with the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, has carried the Adopt-A-School message to communities throughout our state, visiting 22 schools statewide in 1991, and 36 more last year.

This year, she's concentrating on intergenerational programs that are good for our children and for our older citizens.

During a presentation to the Cabinet early last year, Janet introduced us to Roger, an 8th grader at Columbus Starling Middle School, his mother, and his tutor, Kathy Kildow, of the Bureau of Employment Services.

Roger told us that he had been a struggling student before Kathy came into his life, but that, because of her, his grades were improving and he was going to become a doctor.

There wasn't a dry eye in the room, and I'm proud to report that today, 29 state agencies have adopted schools and are making a positive difference in the lives of many youngsters.

It's my pleasure to introduce to you Roger Little, his mother, Mrs. Ann Little, Kathy Kildow, and my wife, Janet.

Just as I am encouraged with our progress in education and management, I am also pleased with the work we've done to protect and create jobs for Ohioans and to help sharpen our competitive edge.

We must not forget that there are still too many Ohioans out of work, and too many others worried about keeping the job they've got.

The Jobs Creation Act we passed last fall was the most significant jobs legislation in anyone's memory, and it incorporated the research, development, and export incentives I talked about in last year's State of the State address.

It was another example of what happens when we work together as a team!

The Department of Development had another busy year, providing technical and financial assistance to 355 companies who invested more than $2 billion in Ohio, which created or retained 45,000 jobs.

Ohio was just ranked third among the 50 states in attracting new companies and helping existing businesses to expand, according a leading industry magazine.

1992 was also a good year for the promotion of Ohio products in the global marketplace.

Our business mission to Southeast Asia last September was one of the most successful Ohio has undertaken, according to those who've gone on them before, and it generated $4 million in immediate sales for our participating companies, and millions more will follow.

Our Ohio Export Promotion and Trade Council, headed by John McConnell of Worthington Industries, recommended the establishment of a not-for-profit corporation to provide fee-based export services -- creation of an offset and countertrade program -- better use of the information and resources at our state universities -- and full participation by Ohio in the Eximbank program.

These excellent suggestions will be implemented in 1993.

Our Science and Technology Council has submitted its preliminary recommendations, and they include creating an Ohio Network for Environmental Technology to help Ohio businesses in areas like technology transfer, research, and development.

Our Travel and Tourism Division continued its aggressive campaign to promote Ohio as a premier travel destination, and our 1-800-BUCKEYE number set an all-time record in 1992, handling nearly 1,000,000 calls.

We renewed our commitment in 1992 to Ohio's number one industry -- agribusiness.

Our new capital budget provides $16. 3 million to the Department of Agriculture which will bring its administrative offices and the consumer analytical lab, which is a converted hog barn, out of the Victorian era.

Agribusiness will be one of the featured industries on our business mission to Eastern Europe in April, and ODA's international team did a super job promoting Ohio's agricultural products overseas.

We're also very proud of the hard work being done in our 12 regional development offices around the state.

Collectively, these offices worked on 212 major economic development projects in 1992, assisting in such victories as the new truck line at Toledo's Chrysler/Jeep plant that helped retain 5,500 jobs; the new Meijer's project in Tipp City near Dayton, with its 1,500 new jobs; and the huge Procter and Gamble research facility in Warren County, with its 1,800 jobs.

These offices also helped dozens of smaller Ohio companies, like the Kelch Corporation in Geauga County, which will eventually create 100 new jobs.

One of the most satisfying things for me, however, was that we did not forget the obligation to make sure that everyone has an equal chance to get a piece of the pie.

We increased our purchases of goods and services from Minority Business Enterprises by about $60 million in Fiscal Year 92 -- that's a 26 percent increase, and Ohio is the only state that publishes quarterly reports on our EEO and MBE efforts, so that our performance can be monitored.

With specific respect to Ohio's competitive posture in the global marketplace -- 1992 was certainly a good year for our state. The approval of House Bill 478 was an important step forward in our need to bring health care costs under control in Ohio. When I signed the bill, I called it a jobs bill.

On the environment, you will find that the budget I present to you will contain more money for environmental protection than ever before.

I'm glad Ohio is one of the few states that established a moratorium on commercial hazardous waste incinerators.

I also hope we will pass an industrial reuse bill in 1993 to help us convert hundreds of acres of Ohio land that cannot be developed because of pollution problems into land that can be used to create jobs.

We must also pass the auto emissions testing bill, which will help clean our air, protect jobs, and create new ones.

Failure to do so would mean that many counties will fail to meet federal attainment levels by 1996, thereby stunting job growth, eliminating potential new industries, and threatening federal highway funding, which would substantially cripple our "Access Ohio" plan to manage and upgrade Ohio's transportation system well into the next century.

Ohio's telecommunications infrastructure must also keep pace with rapid changes in the global marketplace.

Fiber optics, distance learning networks, and the Info Port under way in Central Ohio -- these are just some of the elements of that infrastructure that will help keep Ohio on the cutting edge.

With respect to energy, the P.U.C.O. is hard at work developing a statewide strategy to conserve resources and keep costs down. Another key jobs component is workforce training, and I'm very proud of what our Ohio Bureau of Employment Services accomplished in 1992.

At the top of the list is our Workplace Development Initiative, which coordinates our 31 workforce preparation programs in 15 separate agencies, and gives them, for the first time, a clear strategic focus and common mission.

That mission is to link Ohio workers, today and tomorrow, with the skills they need to succeed in a high-performance workplace. Also, to help Ohio absorb the nearly 100,000 veterans and spouses expected to re-enter our economy by 1995, the Bureau created the Ohio Military Transition Assistance Program, which offers free, regional seminars to Ohio veterans, to help them convert the skills they've learned in the military to civilian jobs.

In addition, I am today announcing that our new budget provides funding for a study of Ohio's economy and tax structure, which hasn't been done for 25 years.

Without a doubt, our key jobs challenge in 1993 is the reform of Ohio's Bureau of Worker's Compensation.

It's hard to believe that there are those out there who still claim that there's nothing wrong with the system.

Let me read you a portion of a letter that was just sent to one of our regional jobs representatives:

"When you talk to the Governor, please tell him it's no wonder companies are leaving Ohio and not flocking into Ohio. Workers' Compensation is a major, major problem that needs to be addressed without the bureaucratic red tape. I for one am totally frustrated with doing business in the State of Ohio. I hope the bureaucrats realize that when companies look to relocate, they don't just talk to the local Chamber of Commerce and city officials, but also to businessmen to see what the climate is really like."

Make no mistake about it -- our workers' compensation system is the silent killer of jobs in Ohio!

The McKinsey Report gave us the prescription to fix the system.

The reform of Ohio's Bureau of Workers' Compensation has got to be our number one "jobs" initiative in 1993. Can you imagine the impact on Ohio jobs if we fixed workers' comp --screwed a lid down tight on health care and energy costs -- and reformed our education and training systems?

I've tried to use this time today to discuss our immediate challenges.

I hope to speak to you again later this year to address our long-term challenges -- we call it our "Ohio 2000/Ohio First" plan. The overriding challenge before us today is to work together and not let partisanship or egos get in the way of solving Ohio's problems -- meeting our challenges -- and seizing our opportunities.

When we did that in 1992, we hit home runs for the people of Ohio.

Through it all, however, we must never lose sight of the fact that we live in an era of limited resources, when the competition is more fierce than at anytime in America's history -- and that competition will only escalate, not diminish.

We have no time to lose!

I picture Ohio as a ship now racing through a storm -- pitted against 49 other American competitors, and dozens more ships flying the flags of nations around the world.

What I want us to accomplish during my years in this office is to assure that, when the storm has passed and the sun is shining -- Ohio will be sailing out front.

With God's help, together, we can do it.