 Okay, well this is our Q&A time, and so we'll be taking questions from the two mics, the open mics on the floor, and then also, we're, if you would like to twit, uh, twit, twit. If you'd like to twit a question. If you'd like to tweet a question, we have our Twitter account up here where you can send us a question over Twitter, and we also are live streaming, so we have questions, questions abound, but we'll open up with one question, and actually I do want to, we've already said hello to, um, and thank you for coming to Senator Banda Puth, thank you again for joining us on the panel, Representative Villarreal, uh, Dennis Campa, and, um, Mary Ellis's Narrows, who is the President of American Sunrise and former San Antonio City Council member, so we're thankful to have them, and we also want to say good morning and thank you for joining us to Tony Van Buren, who's the Senior Vice President for United Way of San Antonio and Bear County, so thank you to our panel for joining us this morning. I'm going to open up with, um, one question to get the ball rolling, and I hope you guys will join us in questions in the audience, so, um, easy, easy, I'm going to softball this one for you, you ready? So, how are we going to make the 6.9 million kids who live in Texas our state's top priority? Easy, easy question. How do we, how do we try to make sure that kids and families are a top priority for the next legislative session and moving forward? And y'all can just kind of jump in. I think we need to stop defining this issue as a partisan issue. Republicans and Democrats are going to fight. We need to tell them, go fight somewhere else. Really, this isn't about a party dominating another one, this is about our children. We need to think about these issues in different terms. I think any issue that falls into the framework of Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative, once it's stuck in that framework, it is so hard to get anything constructive accomplished, whether it's in the Texas legislature and certainly in DC. And so in talking to, I encourage everybody here to have a conversation with your state representative, your state senator, and try to explain to them that this isn't a partisan issue. This is about the future of our community. It's about kids. I think I would begin a little bit before that by suggesting that everybody in this room makes sure that you're registered to vote and that you do so every chance to get. We are blessed in this county to have incredible elected officials who pretty much think the way we all do in this room and pretty much support our initiatives. It's when you get to other parts of the state that they're not quite as like-minded. And so I would urge you, I believe there's a vote coming up soon in a few weeks. I think we have the latest maps and I'll let the senator address that. I don't want to talk maps, but I do want to talk kids. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here, particularly with my colleagues who work so hard in the house. And I see so many friends here and people from different organizations, so it's a joy to be here. My comment is you need to hold your decision makers accountable. When my colleagues care more about a report card from a fringe group that bases their report card on how much you can cut and they're more concerned about those report cards than our children's report cards or kids count report cards, then the priorities are going to reflect exactly the decisions that were made. If you go to the legislature with a cuts only mentality in a fiscal downturn, then all other priorities get left. So you heard what happened to us with education, with health care, but you don't hear the other story. We have 250 vacant positions of DPS troopers in this state. And it's not aware in the budget, right, because it was there, but they have to cut to pay for fuel. We didn't even give them money for cars fuel. And so when you think about the public safety, how does that impact our children? So until the voters, the taxpayers, demand transparency and demand accountability, you're going to have folks that go up there and they are just as pleased with themselves because they voted no. They voted no, they voted no, they voted no. I mean, who takes away 100,000 kids from a vaccine program? Well, that's what your state did. And if you allow us to complete, to do that, then shame on us. So I'm sorry. We've got an opportunity now. Bear County has really maybe not reflective of all that legislative mantra. But when you have 40 new people come into the Texas House and all they're concerned about is cuts, then you get the exact outcomes that happened in 2011. And we're going to continue that unless the people of Texas wake up all over the state and say, you know what, you've got to have more than a cuts only mentality. Thank you, Senator. Let these have end of view for stating it. Shame on us. Thank you, representative. We are young and the other representatives have been with us. Shame on us. We in San Antonio. And I just want to have a little bit of the sign is whatever that's out there. But I came because I thought it was important, important for us to stand important for us to have our voice for our children. This is the future of Texas. This is about our children and our community. Henry and I live in the poorest census tract, supposedly in San Antonio, 78207. We chose to live there and to stop complaining about the parents not doing enough teaching their kids and helping them with their homework. Or the teachers in the public schools, Crockett and Mark Hill that happen to be in our area, not doing enough or not paying attention. And decided to just open up American sunrise right in one of the, you know, small little homes that we're out growing already and don't tell the fire department because we've got we've grown their space already. And they come and we help them and we tell the parents, you teach them Spanish at home. It's okay. Your children will have two languages when they grow up. And that's important in our Hispanic community. You're right. In any event, it takes us all in San Antonio and Bear County to help to do a little something to voice and to be here. I'm proud of each and every one of you for being here this morning. And I'm most proud of the Benedictine sisters that that are here, which you also allow us to thank you. Will you stand or are they here? Oh, okay. I want to, before we go on to the next question, I want to add two very concrete things to complete the answer to this question, because it's very important one. So I was a little soft on how we should have this conversation. But I think ultimately there are two things that we can do here in Bear County to shift the conversation. Number one, if there is not a political consequence to the cuts that happen in the last legislative session, be sure they will happen again. They will happen again. And so in Bear County, there are competitive legislative races taking place. Go discover who they are. I know this is a nonpartisan event, though. We are a 501C3. You're a 501C3. Go find out where those competitive elections are taking place. Have a conversation with the candidates in the current office holder and you decide who stands for children and get involved in that campaign. So there's actually just one campaign in Bear County that's competitive that can make a difference. The second thing, whether you live in a district where there is a competitive election or not, if Bear County could boost its voter turnout, if we could boost our voter turnout, we would send a message to statewide elected officials that they need to pay more attention to what's going on in Bear County. So even if you're living in a legislative district where there is a contest, if you can get your neighbors and your family members to participate, if Bear County becomes a leader in voting, we actually can do a much better job of shaping the agenda statewide. Well, thank you very much for that. I wholeheartedly agree with all those sentiments and I'm also interested to hear from, you know, as a San Antonio son, Dennis, and also now with the Annie Casey Foundation, who their primary goal is to put children and families first and they've done it very successfully for several decades. How do you see that we can put kids and children first in Texas? I think you have a very rare opportunity in San Antonio. With the Brain Power Initiative, since it's not on a ballot right now, I can talk about it. But what you have is an opportunity to make significant investments in early childhood. And I think we would all argue that the more we invest in early childhood, we improve educational attainment and educational attainment drives economic mobility. And that's what our country is lacking right now. And I think the other part, San Antonio can demonstrate to the state what they need to do. So San Antonio takes up this issue of the Brain Power Initiative. They can show the state how the state can be responsible like San Antonio is responsible. And the last thing I want to close with is a paraphrase from a good friend of my name, Charlie Brunner, who's a former state senator in the Midwest. And in San Antonio, children represent 28% of the population, but 100% of the future. So what would that future be? Thank you. Okay, any questions at the mic? Yes, ma'am. Katie Reed. And I know you all know who I am, but I want to make sure the audience does also from Northside School District Board of Trustees. And I've been elected official as long as Leticia has. We both ran in 1990, so it's a long history. That's right. And I had one point to make and one question to ask. I remember years ago hearing Steve Murdoch, our state demographer at that time, talking about what the future is going to be like. And he's actually said that San Antonio is what the future will be like. Because we're already there. The rest of the state is not. And definitely the rest of the country is not. But we are a prime example of a very diverse population. Not necessarily a really high income level, but we are doing the right things to make sure that we do achieve the goals with our children. Now that was a long time ago before we had all these budget cuts. But it's something that we need to continue to talk about out there with everybody that we are the future. And we're the future of this state. And the state legislature needs to hear that message. One of my big concerns was before the last legislative session, everybody said, oh, they won't cut public education. They won't do that. They won't do that. Well, they funded everything else that they were going to fund before they even got around to public education. And what we got was what was left over. And it was a huge decrease. So I would ask, Mike, how can we assure that education is not going to be again the last item addressed in the budget? Thank you. What happens in January of 2013 when the legislature reconvenes follows from the results that take place on election day? It is that simple. If the current office holders who made these deep cuts in education and health care, women's health are reelected, if their colleagues are reelected, then the takeaway is, see, there's no consequence. We can do it again. And there will be a need to do it again because, as you know, the state still has a structural revenue shortfall, a built in recurring shortfall. And so next session will be just as difficult as the prior legislative session. And with a governor who is saying no to any taxes or anything that looks like it tax, then because the state has to balance its budget, then there will likely be cuts. And so if we wanted a different outcome, we need to turn it turn out in a big way this coming November. I would like to add to that, too, is that a lot of people tell me, well, you just preached to the choir a lot of time. And well, you know what, that may be true. But what I'm looking for now is for the choir to become the preachers. And so it's incumbent upon us to go out and talk to our family members, talk about it at the Thanksgiving dinner table. I'm sorry it needs to happen. You talk about it Thanksgiving dinner table, you talk about it at Easter brunch. You talk about it with your neighbors, you talk about it with your church members, you talk about it with everybody about what needs to happen, what you've learned here today. Because I don't I think people like the idea of cuts, they like the concept of cuts that feels good, we're being responsible. But when you actually get down to it and talk to people about what's actually going on, there was a Texas Tribune poll that came out during session last year, and they started asking people, do you like cuts? And over 50%, the vast majority of people, I think it was like about 60% of people said, yes, cuts, great. And then they said, okay, well, so you like the idea of cuts. Do you think we should cut public education? Oh, no, no, no, it was like 90% said no. Well, what about higher ed? It was like 70%. No, no, health and human services? No, I mean, you went down the whole list of things that we ended up cutting and nobody wanted to cut an actual service that we provided. We just liked the concept of cuts. So I think if you can get people talking about the real life consequences of these cuts that we talked about today, and we learned about today, you can get people to kind of have that aha moment. And that maybe cuts don't sound so good when we get to the real life impact. So yes, ma'am. Thank you. I think it's on. Is it on? Okay. Yeah. Good morning. My name is Kelly O'Keefe and just a brief intro. I'm a consumer advocate. And what I do is essentially help people resolve consumer grievances with large Fortune 2000 companies. My question is for Mike Villarreal. Essentially, one of the things that I have to do is constantly stay abreast of current events. And I had to actually write my question because I get nervous in front of the crowd. But essentially, my question is, knowing what's going on with the governor, obviously, you hear a lot of, you know, obvious, not so great publicity with regard to his salaries, his perks and so forth. What do you suggest that we do as individuals and obviously, you know, collectively to essentially voice our displeasure at knowing this information and knowing that people are suffering because of unemployment, because of these cuts in programs that, you know, obviously we're talking about today. I've also spoken with other fellow business owners as well. And there are a lot of people that want to, you know, have this dialogue or at least voice this concern to him. But because he's kind of right, the CEO of the state kind of does what he wants. It seems like in a lot of instances and very pro business and I'm a small business, but we're talking about big business. We just want to kind of get your take on that. Well, it goes back to the advice that was given just a while ago. We need to be a voice for these concerns with our friends and our family members. And whenever there's a chance to enlighten someone who says something like, Well, you know, the problem is all these entitlements in Texas. We need to tell them, Well, actually, you know how poor you have to be to receive cash assistance. Family of three, we learned they need to earn no more than $2,300 a year, a year. A lot of people don't know that. And so I think we need to be the preachers sharing this information. I'm going to download this and carry it with me. And that's what we all need to be doing. And ultimately, our voice is clearest is most heard. It makes a difference. It is counted literally counted. When we go vote, when we go vote. And that's what needs to happen. And actually, we're at time. So let's take one question from from Twitter, and we'll wrap it up. Okay, so one of this is actually came in a few times, but actually, this is Corey had him or she's the co author on the port. So say yay, Corey. So the question is, what options does Texas have to bring in revenue? Speaking to the revenue question, we said we have a structural revenue deficit. So what options do we have? I'll take that. Let me tell you, the options, there are a lot of options on the table, but we weren't allowed to even discuss them. I think there was an intense necessity for because some of our elected leaders were seeking higher office, that they were so polarized that there was no options on the table. We have huge big corporate loopholes that we could have done. In fact, in the Senate on six different occasions, we had amendments to bring in just for the school foundation program. So we could just pay for enrollment growth, about $1.2 billion by eliminating a big tax loophole in loopholes that we give huge businesses that no other state gives. So it's not like, okay, they're going to go somewhere else because they have to pay the same tax someplace else. But we've got to redo our margins tax. The thing that was enacted in 2006, which caused that structural deficit. But the real factor here is that if you can't even discuss it, or allow local communities, the option to even put a tax on themselves, whether it's for infrastructure on highways or water or the capital side, which I'm so excited that Mayor Castro is going to do this brainpower initiative. It's a result of a bill that I passed 10 years ago called better jobs to allow communities to sustain and to put money into the human capital side. And there are five categories, pre-K, after school care, long term training. It was wonderful. So we could do that. But unless you have the format and the legislature to be able to discuss, the other thing is you got to get the suits in the room. And what I say the suits is the CEOs and the board members. I see people here who sit on boards in all of our not for profits. And there's folks on your boards that are from the major 500 companies. If we keep going down the path we're going, the educational level of our students will not give them the opportunity to live a life with dignity. But on the business side, they won't make enough money to buy the goods and services that our businesses need to say economically viable. It should be an enlightened self interest. And so talk about it to folks who are in the big business. Because small business owners are already there. They want health insurance for their employees. They want to be able to do that. But if you don't get folks talking about we've got to redo our revenue system to meet the needs of a growing Texas, then we're going to end up the same situation we were last session. Here are five taxes or in revenue strategies. Okay, five revenue strategies. Number one, the Senator mentioned the business tax. It is broken. Business taxpayers actually want to fix this because they spend a lot more money hiring CPAs and accountants to try to be in compliance. Very complicated. So they want it to simply simplified. And we want it to be reformed. So it has a broader base and more people are included in the business tax. So that's number one. Number two is there are subsidies that cost us billions of dollars. Comptroller has a report. She estimates total amount $40 billion a year. There are some that we will certainly keep like the homestead exemption. There are others that we should take a serious look at like subsidizing gas drilling. An exemption that was snuck through the legislature in 2003 in an omnibus bill. Number three, there is discussion about a vehicle registration fee to help fund transportation infrastructure. There is a discussion right now happening about a fee on water services to help fund water development infrastructure in the state of Texas. And finally, a discussion that happened started two sessions ago that I think still should be on the table is at least indexing the gas tax so that it does not decline with inflation. And if we were to do that, a part of that funding stream actually goes to education. In addition to that information you got today, we at the center, all of our policy analysts are available for to come to you and give additional presentations. And we have an excellent team who works on tax and budget issues who can talk about these details with your board. And I want to make a point here too. Mary Alice's Narrows is a great example of what you should actually be doing. She advocated. She came up and advocated with me that we have one more question. So can you guys hang with me for just a couple more minutes? And it worked. It's amazing. She came, she asked, I said yes. That's what happens with your legislation. I mean, maybe not yes, but you know, at least you get informed, right? It's amazing how many times a legislator just says I didn't know that they can they encounter thousands of bills. They may not have heard from anybody and you think, oh, somebody's talking to him about that. Don't assume that. Be that voice. Come advocate and maybe you'll get a yes. So one last question. Thank you, Mary Alice. Very much for advocating for me to present. It probably is not a question. However, I welcome your comments panel. In 1997, the Violence Against the Women's Act was created. VAWA. It stands a very difficult fight in the House these weeks, these days. It was voted down at the Senate. Traditionally, for obvious reasons, people voted with reason to approve the allocation. Today is in great peril. I represent as the CEO of the family violence prevention services, the better women and children shelter, one of its programs. 12,476 children. Because of numbers like that, I changed the name of the better women's shelter to better women and children's shelter. Two thirds of the population, domestic violence victims are children, are not women, are children. I don't know if they are part of this report, but it is a very sobering, important number. Representative Villarreal, when you say go send them to fight somewhere else, I wish I could send them into the stratosphere. Because they're still fighting in Washington and those federal allocations make it to all the way to our homes to where children who are in the CPS system, children who are in each and every one of the institutions and nonprofits that are represented here today are affected and participate in this report. Can you please give us a hand to make sure that VAWA is recognized as an act that should not be partisan? And I exhort my colleagues in this room today to become informed as to what the politics will do to the people we represent in services. This is not the moment to be lamenting what happened in Austin about a year ago. It is time that we become very educated as to who it is that we are voting for. And thank you very much because I know that I'm preaching to the choir. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. I'm going to make a quick comment on that. Just so many leaders. Part of the thing certainly the act needs to be recertified. It needs to be funded. But that's at a federal level. And I think that our community is very supportive of it. But Washington has lost its focus. And I'm going to say this as a true proud Democrat. It is so dysfunctional there. It's no wonder why there's only 8% approval rating for our Congress. They've lost their way. It's not about winning or losing. It's just about making the other side look bad. And when it comes to Texas, there's a great misinformation and misunderstanding between Texas budget and policy and Washington budget and policy. So a lot of the I think folks that got elected was this backlash of they need to get their spending under control. What most people don't realize is Texas has never had a deficit budget, not because we wouldn't do so, but because it's required by the Constitution that we have a balanced budget. So don't let folks come beat their chest and say we passed a balanced budget. We've always passed a balanced budget. It's required by the Constitution. But I think the key to the reenactment of the Violence Against Women Act and many of the programs, ladies, you need to get mad again. 20 years ago, I saw women be very upset. And I've seen women now. I haven't seen them this angry in a long time. Do you remember when Clayton Williams was running for governor and he made that statement about rape that if it's just like rain, if it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it? Well, we responded by electing a woman governor. Ladies, you need to tell the story about what's happening to our kids and you need to tell it in the suburbs. You need to tell it where the votes that there's really some competitive battles there. And and when we get those whether you call them soccer moms or grandmas, where they have to say it's our kids that are important. And women are angry about a whole lot of stuff in women's health. Use that anger to motivate other folks to get that information, join with similar groups. Texas can do better, but it's not going to do better without you getting involved. I so appreciate the panel's comments and their wisdom today. I'm going to pull a CNN on you. I'm going to pull a CNN on the panel, and I'm going to say we're we're running to commercial, but you have 10 seconds to tell me based on your experience and your job and your work, where you hope that we go forward for kids in Texas. Tony, 10 seconds, I've never done that. Each not across. I think everything, you know, I echo everything that's been said here. And I just constantly and you actually pointed this out to me a couple years ago. Unfortunately, when the economy goes down, we take it out on the ones around us that we supposedly love. And that's the domestic violence issue. It's the child abuse. It's the senior issue. And so I mean, somehow we've got to draw that correlation to some of the business folks about, you know, as the economy goes so does, you know, our society and our social ills and really do a whole lot better job of communicating that. But ultimately, I think everybody needs to vote and vote as often as you can. So thank you. With regard to children on the personal level, I always tell people, I feel like I'm the cup runneth over girl. I know I've got we've got six children and now five grandchildren. And so far, everybody healthy. You know, that demographic about the Texas and the enthusiasm of Texas families to increase their numbers. Well, I resemble that remark. But on the public side, I think it's all our responsibility to be the cup half empty. Because we could do so much better. And we know that the reason that we've got even as best statistics as we do is because of the vibrancy of our not for profits and the resilience of so many families that when paleised with all odds, they can overcome them. Just think with the resiliency factor of so many of our families in the community, what could they do if their children got a quality education, if they had job training, if they had healthcare, and if they had a system that supported their success. We can do this. In San Antonio, because we care and because each of you showed up this morning, you care. And I know that if you do, I want to say that we can do better. And I would venture way out to the technology and say we can do Skype events at your home with our representatives giving that message out via Skype. You can do it via Comcast or podcast. You know, we've got to get smart about how we spread the word in our own particular neighborhood, in our own particular precinct. And the representatives are so right about turning up to vote. If you do not, then that message does not ripple out and it does not get back to Austin. And so my message to you is if you care, and we all do, you've got to vote and you've got to do the podcast at home and you've got to do the Twitter's and the Facebook. And let's get into it because it works. One thing I'm going to do before November is write down a list of names, five names, of people who I know do not have a history voting, but I'm going to get them to vote. I'm going to ask that many of my friends follow this advice that we all identify five people and we get them out to vote. And before they vote, we tell them about our concerns about the future of Texas. Two mics. So I do double talk here. You know, I'm biased. My responsibility is state policy reform. And I have the opportunity to invest in 53 groups, 50 states and three territories to do this type of work to ensure that data leads to good policy, good investments in kids and families. But when I think about my home and my home state, I think about something that the Brookings Institution taught me not that long ago, but in an international panel on economic competitiveness. And that is that most innovation is not happening at the national level globally. We know it's not happening in our country that innovation is occurring at the state level and at the regional level. So I think if you want change to occur to improve conditions for kids and family, you're going to have to do it at the state level and you're going to have to do it locally. So and what that takes in what everyone has said about get out to vote is really having the will. Thank you very, very much for everyone coming out. And please let me know if you have any additional questions will be up here for a few minutes. Thank you. Well, it was.