AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today told legislators that Texas is poised to enter a new era of unlimited possibility if leaders stay the course of fiscal responsibility and continue to make wise investments in education, healthy families and job creation.

Speaking to a joint session of the Texas Legislature for his State-of-the-State address, Perry said he is optimistic about the future, telling legislators, "Because of the right choices you have made, we find ourselves at the brink of a new era of possibility. And today I ask you to consider what is possible if we make wise investments in good jobs, great schools and strong families."

The centerpiece of Perry's remarks was his vision for education reform. "We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make sure children of every background are given a chance in life," Perry said. "Our challenge in education is to go from good to great by empowering children of modest means to live unlimited dreams. We still have an achievement gap in Texas schools that will be an opportunity gap when today's students become tomorrow's workers."

Perry said the state must make a concerted effort to improve failing schools, and advocated for meaningful incentives for campuses that serve large numbers of economically disadvantaged children. And he discussed an incentive plan to attract our best teachers to struggling schools, saying, "I want our best and brightest teachers to be paid salary incentives as high as $7,500 a year when they rekindle the love of learning among children too often left in the shadows of success."

Perry also made the case for making change at schools that chronically fail our children, saying, "We simply cannot sentence our children to a lifetime of mediocrity because of a state-sponsored policy of passive indifference."

He said the Texas Education Agency should establish "turn-around teams" that would be sent to troubled schools to help them improve management practices and provide teachers the mentoring support they need. He also advocated for school choice for parents and children with fewer options. "Every child is entitled to a public education, but public education is not entitled to every child," Perry said. "Let's give children who need a second chance, new choices that can forever change their future."

While saying he favors spending additional money on education, the governor said that how Texas spends that money is even more important.

"When our work is done, parents won't measure our success by how much money we spend, but whether more children learn," Perry said.

Perry also urged legislators to look at the school finance debate as "a rare opportunity to modernize our tax system" and said he would work with them to develop a broad-based business tax that is fair, equitable, and has a low rate that cannot be easily increased.

Citing better economic times, Perry said, "The goal is to create greater tax fairness, not a greater tax burden on the people of Texas."

In addition to urging lawmakers to provide hardworking Texans property tax relief, he also called on them to place a 3 percent appraisal cap on property appraisals, saying, "Texans don't like taxation without representation, and they are sick and tired of taxation by valuation."

He also called on the legislature to adopt the City of Lubbock's "Truth in Taxation" plan for all local jurisdictions. Excluding new construction, Lubbock leaders automatically lower their rate to adjust for appraisal growth so they generate the same amount of revenue as the year before. Then city council members vote on whether they need to raise or lower that rate.

Citing Texas' dramatic budget turnaround, going from a $10 billion shortfall to $6 billion above what was budgeted two years ago, Perry credited the legislature with making sound fiscal decisions in 2003 that helped usher in an economic recovery. And he urged continuing fiscal responsibility.

"We did not tax and spend our way to a revenue surplus, and we need not tax and spend our way to future shortfalls," he said. "Our challenge is to make sound, strategic investments that stand the test of time."

Perry lauded the state's newest job creation tool, the Texas Enterprise Fund, as a key factor in the state's job creation success. Texas landed the largest capital investment project in the nation in 2003, and the largest job expansion in the nation over the past four years in 2004. And Texas is now ranked the best state in the nation for job creation, according to the international Site Selection magazine.

Perry, however, also credited legislators with making other important decisions that have contributed to the state's ability to create 162,000 new jobs since September 2003, including passing sweeping reforms to end frivolous lawsuits, creative solutions to transportation needs and making continued investments in public schools.

As part of his focus on strengthening families, the governor called on lawmakers to expand mentoring programs, including those to help children of prisoners and to encourage responsible fatherhood "for dads who have lost their way."

And he once again called for comprehensive reform to protective services to better protect "those in the dawn of their lives, and the twilight of their years who are at risk of neglect and abuse." He reiterated his call for more investigators, better salaries and better use of technology at CPS. And he urged lawmakers to reform APS by adding caseworkers, improving training and transferring guardianship services to the Department of Aging and Disability Services.

Perry also expressed his support for funding dental, vision and mental health care under the Children's Health Insurance Program, while warning, "We must not lose sight of the long-term goal to move more Texans from subsidized insurance to private insurance."

Earlier in the day, the governor presented his proposed 2006-07 budget to lawmakers, a $135.4 billion spending plan that substantially increases investments in jobs, public education, higher education, health care and protective services while reducing spending at 60 percent of our state agencies. The budget also provides a $2.3 billion cushion to close out the books on this biennium, and invest even more money in key priorities.

Perry's budget starts at the same base as the Legislative Budget Board's proposed spending plan, and adds additional revenue for the governor's spending priorities, including:

• Providing $300 million in renewed funding of the highly successful Texas Enterprise fund, which is bringing more than 22,000 new jobs and $6 billion in capital investments to Texas.
• Increasing funding to Child Protective Services by $327.3 million to add thousands of new caseworkers, investigators and support staff to address systemic changes needed to better protect vulnerable children.
• Providing $300 million for a new Emerging Technology fund that will provide world-class research institutions, cutting edge technologies, and the miracle of modern science and also keep Texas competitive with other states seeking to tap the $3 trillion in revenues that emerging technologies are expected to generate over the next decade.
• Fully funding the Irma Rangel School of Pharmacy in Kingsville and the new Texas Tech Medical School in El Paso.
• Adding inspectors general at major state agencies to detect and deter fraud and waste.

"Our work is before us," Perry said. "It cannot be passed to future legislatures and must not be passed to future generations. May we boldly seize the moment with singular unity. And may we build a Texas of unlimited possibility."

Excerpts of Gov. Rick Perry's 2005 State of the State Address
Text of Gov. Rick Perry's State–of–the–State Address
Governor's Special Guests for the SOS