United Tribes Intertribal Summit VI
The Honorable John Hoeven
Best Western Doublewood Inn
Heritage Ballroom
Bismarck, North Dakota
September 5, 2002
This is an important event for North Dakota's tribes, and your theme, Preparing the Tribal Workforce for Tribal Economic Development, is right on the mark.
We are focusing our resources on six pillars in building our future in North Dakota. These six pillars are excellence in education, economic development, agriculture, energy, technology and quality of life.
Education is our first pillar because our schools and colleges produce the human wealth on which our progress depends. Education enables us to reach our potential as individuals - and as a state. In the last legislative session, we made a major push in funding for K-12 education that resulted in a $3,000 a year salary increase for our teachers. We also won major funding increases for technology, and created incentives for hard-to-fill teaching positions.
We made advances in Higher Education as well. Through the Higher Education Roundtable, we increased the university system's flexibility so that they could move forward in partnership with us to create jobs and grow businesses in North Dakota.
We have completely changed our approach to economic development, our second pillar. During the 2001legislative session, we created a new department of commerce, providing one-stop-shopping for business developers. Economic development and finance, work force development, tourism, and community services all fall under one agency, the Department of Commerce.
Five targeted industries hold the greatest promise for economic development in our state. Our targeted industries are value-added agriculture, advanced manufacturing, technology, energy and tourism. (This next sentence is out of place or doesn't make sense) (In addition, we added venture capital, both public and private.)
Today, we have new loan programs for beginning farmers, tax credits and loan forgiveness for new businesses, information technology and nursing scholarships to ensure that our young people are prepared for the jobs of the future.
And we are making progress. Sales tax revenues are up; per capita income is up; and despite a national recession, employment is up. We created 2,400 new jobs last year.
Agriculture, our third pillar, is the foundation of our economy. Today, we have a new farm bill, with a counter-cyclical payment plan that protects our farmers when the economy is down. We have grants in value-added agriculture to create jobs and additional income for farmers.
We are also Building Our Future in North Dakota on energy development, our fourth pillar. Our Lignite Vision 21 project is working toward building a new clean coal power plant in North Dakota. We have initiated tax incentives to promote wind power, ethanol, biodiesel and other environmentally friendly energy sources.
Our fifth pillar, technology, has made great strides. Today, our state is wired for the future. Our high-speed voice, data and video network is now deployed statewide. We have a new Enterprise Resource Planning project, Connect North Dakota, that linksour universities and government in unprecedented ways. Last year, North Dakota leaped from 38th to 8th place in a national survey of digital democracy, a measure of how well states are serving the public through technology.
Quality of Life, our sixth pillar, is measured in so many ways, and there, too, we have made progress. Today, every community health unit in our state has a comprehensive and funded tobacco health program. Our Healthy North Dakota program is addressing public health concerns and empowers people to change their lifestyles. North Dakota remains the safest state in the nation, and we are working to keep us the safest state. We are implementing the Amber Alert network, the first of the year to make sure that we protect our most valuable citizens, our children. North Dakota has some of the cleanest air in the country. We are one of only 14 states that comply with the National Ambient Air Quality Standard. And, we are creating economic opportunities for our people in an environmentally responsible way.
Clearly, we are making progress in each of these six areas - but we cannot allow that progress to stop at the border of the reservations.
The tribes have made a good start with the casinos, employing tribal members and generating much needed revenue for services and additional economic development activities. But we need to go further - we need to be ready for opportunities as we create them, as they come, and that means additional training and economic opportunities.
The United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) is doing a excellent job of educating and training our Indian youth. Back in May, I attended the opening of the UTTC's new Student Life and Technology Learning Center, which goes to the very heart of what is necessary to build a good future for our youth both on and off the reservation.
Education and technology fuel economic development - throughout our entire state. That is why we are focusing our resources on education and technology in building our state's future.and that is why we are partnering with the tribes on workforce development in new and meaningful ways to help you build your future in North Dakota, as well.
For the first time, we are including tribal members on all state workforce development committees and on our youth development council, so that we will have an ongoing dialogue and the participation of the tribes in our workforce development efforts.
We are also using the Native Employment Works program - the tribal NEW programs - rather than the traditional JOBS programs, to help recipients receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) make the transition to work. Using tribal staff and tribal expertise to advance workforce development efforts, and giving the tribes greater say in who gets trained and how, in a culturally sensitive way are critical in making a successful transition to work.
An exciting development is the availability of interactive training locally, with ready availability to the reservations. This enables people to remain on the reservation and get training at a nearby location to improve their job skills and increases their employability. Right now, LPN and RN courses are being offered to Certified Nurse Assistants. Medical transcription training is also being offered. These provide opportunities for tribal members to acquire training with a minimum of travel. Most importantly, the training qualifies them for good-paying jobs.
There are other economic development opportunities for the tribes. Your heritage is one of your greatest assets, particularly with the upcoming Lewis and Clark commemoration. We have included Tribal Representatives on the Governor's Lewis and Clark Advisory Council in preparation and planning for the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Commemoration. We are collaborating, and moving toward a joint Tourism agreement between the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations and the State of North Dakota through our Department of Tourism.
In addition, an ad-hoc tribal tourism group is exploring avenues to advance Native American tourism issues in North Dakota. Cultural tours, particularly Native American, are the number one priority of the international tourist trade. Tourism gives the tribes opportunities to create many micro-businesses in many fields that build on the rich heritage of the Indian people. We need to be partners in that, because North Dakota shares your pride. Building our future in North Dakota means building bridges. Building our future means building mutual respect.
Several collaborative projects, like theWalking Shield Project at Spirit Lake, which provides homes for tribal members, and the Renewal Community designation at Turtle Mountain, that offers companies incentives to locate their businesses on the reservation, and at Standing Rock, we are building Sitting Bull College, at the Three Affiliated Tribes, the Four Bears Bridge Development Project, is underway, all of these projects areoutstanding examples of the tribes and the state working together in our economic development efforts statewide.
These projects can be more than just construction projects. They can serve as symbols of the bridges we are building together for our future in North Dakota.
Thank you for inviting me to be with you. Your focus on economic development and workforce training is very important, and I commend all of you for your work.
