Thank you Presiding Officer Gregory, Minority Leader Kennedy and the Suffolk County Legislature for serving

as our hosts this evening. Thank you to News 12 and Fios 1 for streaming this address live to Suffolk County residents.

Thank you also to my fellow Countywide elected officials and most importantly thank you to the residents of Suffolk County who have joined us in this chamber or are watching at home.

BUDGET MITIGATION We cannot discuss the State of Suffolk County without talking about the state of our finances.

When I came into office two short years ago, the county was in a financial freefall and we were looking at a deficit of more than $400 million dollars and many people talked openly about the possibility of Financial Control Board.

This is because in 2008, sales tax receipts plummeted and then in 2009 they fell again, something unprecedented in modern times.

The result was a cumulative $1.2 billion revenue shortfall against expected amounts by the time I took office. Unfortunately, governments across this nation didnt adjust to the new reality. Instead of making structural reforms, government papered over the shortfall with one-shot revenue sources. In 2009, 90 percent of the shortfall was covered by one-shots.

I am proud to say that coming together with this Legislature, we have changed that kick the can down the road mindset, making the tough decisions necessary to restore the fiscal health of the county.

Due to the tough decisions we have made over the past two years to reduce the size of government, improve efficiency, build partnerships with New York State and grow our economy, we have seen real improvement in our fiscal health.

When I entered office in 2012, I was told that Suffolk County government had been cut to the bone. That turned out to be false. Today, there are approximately 1,000 fewer staff on the payroll than when I came into office, a savings of $100 million a year for taxpayers. I want to take a moment to recognize our public employees for the important work that they do. We have some really talented and dedicated people working in this government and I am grateful for their service.

While we do not have a hiring freeze, we have very tight position control, which means that positions are only added to the payroll after we are satisfied that an analysis has been undertaken about the need for that position. I will come back to that point in a few minutes.

Last year, we approved a partnership between Southampton Hospital, Hudson River Healthcare and Stony Brook University Medical Center to shift county health centers over to a private, Federally Qualified Health Center located on the grounds of Southampton Hospital. This agreement will save Suffolk County taxpayers an estimated $3.8 million over five years while expanding health services for East End residents by including additional dental and mental health care.

In particular, I want to thank Legislator Jay Schneiderman who represents those communities for playing a key role in passing this important agreement that provides better care at a lower cost for taxpayers.

We ended the 25-year saga of the Foley Nursing Home and secured a $17 million state grant to pay off the debt on the building saving taxpayers $10 million dollars a year.

We have negotiated contracts that are fair to current employees and do something unprecedented make future employees more affordable, both by reducing salaries and having them pay into health care.

For the first time you now have County employees paying into health care and since I believe that leadership starts at the top I volunteered to be the first employee in County history to directly contribute to their health care.

Because I do believe in leading by example, I also began my term in office with a staff 20% smaller than the prior administration and I voluntarily cut my pay by $22,000 - 3,000 less than the last County Executive - and I will continue to voluntarily freeze my pay at that level throughout my term. We have also seen real growth in the health of our local economy. Suffolks unemployment rate, which stood at 7.2 percent in December, 2012 dropped to 5.3 percent in December, 2013 and our County created more than 18,000 private sector jobs in that time.

And heres what we have to show for all of those efforts. We have virtually eliminated the massive deficit that we inherited and we have made significant progress in bringing the county budget back into structural balance And where one-shots once comprised the lions share of budget mitigation efforts, we now rely upon one-shots to close just one-third of the deficit.

And I am pleased to say that we have done this without piercing Governor Cuomo's property tax cap. I have said it before, and I will say it again, I will not deliver or sign a budget that pierces the property tax cap.

This is not about politics, this is about the future of our region. If we are to grow our local economy and make this a place where people want to stay, then we must live within the tax cap and ease the crushing property tax burden on homeowners.

So, while we have made significant progress, there is still much work to be done to climb out of the massive hole we inherited. To do so, Ill continue to work closely with the leadership of the Legislature to support policies that improve our fiscal condition, hold the line on spending, keep taxes below the tax cap and make our government more efficient.

The fact is that we must continue to target our resources because we have some critical challenges before us which will define the future of our region.

WATER QUALITY There is no greater challenge to our future than the water quality crisis that we must now begin to confront. Nitrogen poisoning of our surface and ground waters is the greatest crisis this County has faced in a generation.

Water is at the heart of everything on Long Island. It is critical to our health and our quality of life. The water that we drink is beneath our feet. The water that sustains our multi-billion dollar tourism industry and is central to our quality of life, surrounds us. And in the wake of Sandy, we now know more than ever, that water can also be a threat to us.

I recently released a report, conducted by our experts in the health department which demonstrated that we have been polluting this precious resource in a way that has devastated our surface waters-- our bays and river corridors-- caused negative trends in the quality of our drinking water and left us more vulnerable to future storms, like Sandy.

For the health of our region today and for the sake of future generations we must reverse these trends.

To do this we must understand the source of the problem. The primary cause of this significant decline in water quality is nitrogen. As I have said repeatedly around this County, Nitrogen is public water enemy # 1.

The primary source of nitrogen pollution roughly 70% - is failing Septic systems and Cesspools on residential property. The fact is that 3 out of 4 homes in Suffolk County are unsewered. To put this in context, according to the EPA, the average in the rest of the country is 1 out of 4 homes are unsewered. We are one, single County and yet we have more unsewered homes here than the entire State of New Jersey.

I'll quote Walter Dawydiak, our Acting Director of Environmental Quality here speaking at a water quality hearing, "we have a million and a half people, approximately 70%, or roughly a million people, who are not sewered. This is probably the only place in the world with that large a density in this tight a space where the waste is going into a sole source aquifer immediately beneath us that we're drinking, and then Walt added in his usual understated way, And this is a big concern."

Look, while it is important to note that the water coming out of your faucet is absolutely safe to drink today, there have been alarming increases in nitrogen pollution entering our aquifer and our surface waters and this threatens our future.

For years, we have seen the impacts of this increased nitrogen pollution. Harmful algal blooms, closed beaches, brown tide and the total decimation of an iconic Long Island industry. Just 30 years ago, more than half the clams eaten in the United States came from the Great South Bay fueling an industry that employed more than 6,000 people. And now it is all gone and the cause? Nitrogen pollution.

In my lifetime, I have witnessed the decline of our waterways and the decimation of this iconic Long Island industry. And in my lifetime, I want to see us Reclaim our Water for current and future generations. I want to Reclaim our Groundwater to avoid expensive treatment systems. I want to Reclaim our Surface Waters so they are safe to swim in and safe to eat from. Clean water should be the birthright of every Long Islander and its time we tackle this crisis together and Reclaim our Water.

I want to thank a number of advocates for clean water who are here tonight, representing the Long Island Clean Water PartnershipDick Amper, Bob DeLuca, Adrienne Esposito and Kevin McDonald. The groundbreaking chairman of the Suffolk County Planning Commission, Dave Calone. I also want to acknowledge Environmental Committee Chair, Legislator Kara Hahn who has been working closely with the Clean Water Partnership.

The response to this crisis must be comprehensive. We must undertake the largest expansion of Clean Water infrastructure in Suffolk Countys history and we must look to leverage both public and private sector funding.

We must create a roadmap to begin solving what has seemed like an almost insurmountable obstacle; the billions that it would cost to sewer the rest of Suffolk County.

We started with the approximately 360,000 unsewered homes in Suffolk County. By applying key criteria, we reduced that number to a target approximately 200,000 households.

In short, if we can put those 200,000 households into a sewer district or install another advanced wastewater treatment system, we will have largely solved our water quality crisis.

The fact that the solution to this issue will run into the billions of dollars and take years, if not decades to implement, has served as a convenient excuse for inaction. But, by working together, beginning this year, we can take the first steps to solve this problem.

The first step is that we must improve coastal resiliency. In the wake of Sandy, we understand that pollution into the Great South Bay which primarily enters through river corridors has eroded our coastal defenses and left us more vulnerable to storms. Rebuilding these coastal defenses, in addition to the important work we must undertake to secure our barrier islands through the Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Plan is critical to protecting our communities. And on that point, let me say to my colleagues at every level of government we must come together to rebuild the dunes on Fire Island as quickly as possible. Thanks to scientific research and Governor Cuomos NYS 2100 Commission, we know that tidal wetlands play a critical role in slowing waves and protecting communities from storm damage. Yet in the Great South Bay, we have lost most of our natural defenses and sustained nitrogen pollution means that we are unable to rebuild them. Studies show that we lost approximately half the wetlands in the Great South Bay between 1954 and 2001 and conditions have only worsened since then.

In order to rebuild those coastal protections and rebuild our wetlands, we must make major strides to reduce the nitrogen which flows each day into the Great South Bay, which is why we are developing a comprehensive plan to expand sewering in our County.

These efforts would build upon the work we began last year through the new Suffolk County Sewer Infrastructure Committee where we approved projects in Northport with the leadership of Legislator William Spencer, to stop red tide into Northport Harbor, in Riverhead with the leadership of Legislator Al Krupski to install a new high-tech filtration system to reduce nitrogen discharge into the Peconic Bay as well as projects in Wyandanch and Patchogue.

We will also look to expand sewering paid for by the private sector in new projects, such as the Ronkonkoma Hub and Hauppauge Industrial Park. I commend our Public Works engineers for recognizing that instead of utilizing 9 acres of prime real estate to build a Sewage Treatment Plant at the Ronkonkoma Hub, it would actually cost less money and use just 2500 square feet to instead connect to the Southwest Sewer District, which may also create other opportunities for communities to potentially tie in.

Tonight, I can announce a number of concrete steps we will take to address our water quality crisis.

This year, we will create a roadmap to solve the problem that analyzes on a household-by-household basis which homes we should sewer, which need improved single-home systems and which can be part of neighborhood clustered projects. This analysis will make recommendations based on conditions including, groundwater and surface water modeling, proximity to existing wastewater infrastructure, soil conditions, depth to groundwater, and other factors to guide us as a County in making the best possible investments going forward.

For many homes in less dense areas, the most efficient option will be improved, single-home wastewater treatment systems. The good news is that there are more than 17 systems that can cut your households nitrogen pollution by more than half over a traditional septic system. The bad news is that there are no approved technologies for advanced single-home systems in Suffolk County. Yet.

That is why this month, I have directed the Suffolk County Department of Health to give manufacturers throughout the nation the opportunity to demonstrate their technology in Suffolk Countyat no cost to taxpayers so we can test these systems in local conditions and approve systems this year.

Why would manufacturers just give us their products? Because with more than 360,000 unsewered homes, Suffolk County represents the largest single market in the country for improved single-home wastewater treatment systems.

We are also finalizing criteria through our Suffolk County Sewer Infrastructure Committee to initiate projects for the installation of community-scale innovative alternative systems which can serve clusters of between 50 and 200 homes. Of course, as we test these technologies, we want to make sure that not only are they addressing the need to reduce nitrogen, but also other emerging water threats, like pharmaceuticals.

This is a year of action for our water. By the end of this year, we will have firmly identified the scope of the problem, begun work to sewer critical areas, have a clear roadmap as to what type of technology we need for every impacted home, and will begin to roll out have proven technology to place in those homes.

These efforts, though substantial, represent just a fraction of what we will need to do to Reclaim our Water. And let me add this, with everything we do, it is critical that we are united. We live together on one island, we drink from one aquifer which is below our feet, we share in the benefits of a healthy Great South Bay, we share in the benefits of a healthy Peconic Bay, we share in the benefits of a healthy Long Island Sound. When a home in Wyandanch is sewered, we all benefit. When a home in Southampton installs an improved onsite system, we all benefit. When the Village of Northport uses funds from the Sewer Infrastructure Fund to upgrade their treatment plant and tackle red tide, every Suffolk County resident benefits.

We cannot be parochial in our efforts. We must use the best science to establish priorities and then work community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, house by house. We must all take responsibility to Reclaim our Water together.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

While we protect our environment we also need to grow our economy

We need to Create sustainable economic growth - and the measure of our success in this effort will be this - can we Reverse the Brain Drain that has plagued our region for more than 20 years now. For the past two decades we have been losing our young people at an ever accelerating pace.

To put this as simply as possible, you cannot build a strong economy with broad based prosperity if you cannot retain or attract young, high skilled, high knowledge workers. In today's interconnected global economy where people and businesses are less attached to specific locations than at any time in human history, the success of any region will be based on its ability retain and attract young people.

Let me be clear about something, the brain drain represents a failure of government to do the things necessary to make our region attractive to the young creative class that is necessary to power an innovation economy.

We must reverse the brain drain.

So how do we do it? The answer is actually pretty simple - we must once again become THE place that young people want to be, as we were for much of the 20th century.

For too long in our region we have assumed that young people and businesses would always want to be here because of all the incredible assets and natural beauty that we have in Suffolk County. That despite the problems we have and the governments failure to remedy them that people and businesses would always want to be here. Well we now know that this is not the case. As a region we need to get our act together and make ourselves more competitive in attracting that young creative class. I want to thank the President and CEO of the Long Island Association, Kevin Law, who has been a leader in efforts to reverse the brain drain in our region.

So how do we become that place again? We build upon the assets we have to deliver the things that young people want and need. I have a plan for that called Connect LI.

We build quality, affordable rental housing in our downtowns that provides the housing that young people need in an environment in which they want to live, with restaurants, entertainment, shopping, parks and jobs all within walking distance. As an added bonus, building housing in and around our downtowns also strengthens our small businesses by expanding their natural customer base. That means more vibrant downtowns, more jobs and a broader tax base that benefits us all.

We invest in transportation strengthening the connections between downtowns and other places that young people need and want to be like job centers, colleges and universities, research centers, and parks and recreational spaces. The great news is we have a robust transportation network that already exists in Suffolk County, three lines of the LIRR that stretch across our County. The bad news is this rail network moves entirely in an east west direction making it impossible to easily move around this County without getting into an automobile.

So we need to make north south mass transit connections that will truly link our downtowns, colleges, research centers and parks. We need to implement Bus Rapid Transit systems that can easily connect the different branches of the LIRR. A great example of where we are focused on doing this is Nicolls Road. At one end of Nicolls Road you have Stony Brook University - an institution of Global Significance. The LIRR stops at the university - you can link the LIRR stop and the Stony Brook Campus to the Selden Campus of Suffolk Community College just to the south on Nicolls Road. Continuing down Nicolls Road you can then link the Ronkonkoma Hub and Long Island MacArthur Airport. Now you have the Ronkonkoma and Port Jefferson branches of the LIRR linked. Continuing south on Nicolls Road you can link up with Patchogue Village which has been a regional model for downtown and economic revitalization. Now you have all three branches of the LIRR in Suffolk County linked in a north south direction. We can make connections like this in other areas of Suffolk County like the Route 110 Corridor and the Sagtikos Parkway.

By making these Connect LI links we can build a series of innovation campuses in downtowns across Suffolk County where young people are able to move easily between, exchanging ideas and information that will help power start-up companies spawned by our research centers and universities.

But we're not just talking about it, we're doing it.

A few weeks ago, I was joined by our IDA Executive Director Anthony Manetta, Legislator Spencer, Huntington Councilman Mark Cuthbertson and Mark Lesko, head of Accelerate Long Island at the groundbreaking of our new IDA supported incubator space in Huntington Village. We are Creating innovation hubs in our downtowns. Were no longer just talking about building a new Transit Oriented Downtown, we broke ground on the Wyandanch Rising project where we are transforming one of the most economically distressed communities on Long Island.

This is happening, in large part thanks to the support and leadership of our Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory who represents the Wyandanch community. We're doing it in Patchogue where the New Village Development moves closer to completion and the downtown renaissance continues under the leadership of Mayor Paul Pontieri.

Suffolk County Community College is another crucial component of our Countys economic development future under the leadership of its innovative President, Dr. Shaun McKay. Suffolk Community College has partnered with local industry and offers both degree programs and workforce development and training programs to meet local business needs. The college is hosting a major International Badminton Tournament this summer which will draw athletes from around the world and boost our local economy. We are working with the college in pursuing opportunities tied to Governor Cuomos transformative StartUp NY program. Dr. McKay often speaks about educations ability to transform lives. He is proving that as a partner in our regions growth, the College can help transform our economy as well.

This year, we will keep the progress going.

We will work with our colleagues in Babylon to complete Phase 1 of Wyandanch Rising and get Phase 1a and Phase 2 moving.

We will work with our colleagues in Brookhaven to begin work on the Ronkonkoma Hub.

We will work with our colleagues in Islip to begin work on the Heartland project.

We will advance Bus Rapid Transit systems on the 110 corridor, the Sagtikos Parkway and Nicolls Road.

We will begin study for a comprehensive East End Transportation Plan.

We will work with Governor Cuomo to locate NY StartUPs in our downtowns.

And we will advance a Transit Oriented Development near Republic Airport in anticipation of double track.

We will also continue the progress we are making for some of our most iconic industries, supporting efforts to enhance Suffolk Countys improved agriculture on the east end and supporting the right of New York fishermen to catch their fair share. I joined Governor Cuomo in September in support of his push for increases in the flounder catch for New York fishermen and we have made major progress.

These industries are not only important and vibrant sectors to our economy, but as someone like Legislator Krupski knows these industries are part of our heritage. Al knows because he is a 4th generation family farmer and the first farmer to serve on the Suffolk County Legislature.

I want to thank Deputy County Executive for Economic Development Joanne Minieri and IDA Executive Director Anthony Manetta for their partnership on reforming the IDA and implementing a comprehensive economic development agenda for our County. In the two years prior to their arrival, the IDA closed on 5 projects, in the past year the IDA has closed on 24 projects which represent 4,300 jobs retained, 1,400 new jobs, $43 million in payroll into our local economy and $232 million in new capital investment.

GOVERNMENT REFORM When I took office two years ago I made government reform a top priority and we have made significant progress. But if we're going to have the resources to invest in water quality, if we're going to grow our economy and create high paying jobs, if we want to reverse the brain drain then we need to continue our efforts to reform this government.

Governor Cuomo has done this at the state level. Albany was once regarded as the most dysfunctional state government in the Country. But thanks to the Governor's leadership that has all changed. In a very short period of time, Governor Cuomo turned that around, delivering on time budgets, adopting pension reform, lowering state taxes and putting a cap on local property taxes.

We have been doing the same thing here in Suffolk County. We have streamlined the government, consolidated departments and eliminated outdated functions. We have made performance management and Data Driven Decision Making Cornerstones of this administration.

Prior to my administration taking office, the culture in this government was when you see a problem you immediately hire more people and spend more money. We've changed that. Before we spend more of your money we look at the function, we examine the processes and determine if there is a better way to do it. Throwing more money and resources at an outdated and inefficient process is just a waste of taxpayers money.

The Performance Management team I put together in my office under the leadership of Deputy County Executive Tom Melito has been doing just that. The team has produced tens of millions in savings and revenues for the County in the past year and a half. They launched a new Traffic and Parking Violations Agency in less than a year and operated it without taxpayer subsidies, something other municipalities have taken years to accomplish. Their work exemplifies our approach to managing government.

This approach has been successfully demonstrated by our Clerk, Judy Pascale. When there was a backlog in the Clerks Office, Judy and her team analyzed the problem and then worked collaboratively with my office on solutions.

By working with Civil Service to redeploy some county workers and strategic use of overtime and technology, the Clerks Office not only eliminated a backlog, they forwarded $20 million to the General Fund in 2013all without adding additional staff.

This is an unprecedented milestone and a prime example of what we can accomplish when we work together to collaboratively serve our mutual constituents.

This is the same kind of analysis that is going on right now in the Health Department where we are looking at the way we process permits, with the goal of reducing the time it takes to approve a permit in half. After undertaking this analysis to know that the process is as efficient as possible, then, and only then, should we look at whether or not there is need for additional staff. It never makes sense to throw additional staff at broken processes.

I believe this is the type of detailed analysis Suffolk County taxpayers demand from us to ensure that their taxpayer dollars are being wisely spent.

And there is more we need to do in Suffolk County to make government more efficient. In Suffolk County government today the great dividing line is between those who stand for government reform and those who seek to protect the status quo. I stand with the majority of this legislature, firmly in favor of reforming this government as the best means to protect the taxpayers of this county.

We should start by giving Suffolk County voters the right to decide whether the elected offices of Comptroller and Treasurer should be consolidated into a single elected office. A majority of the Legislature voted to do just that last year.

Suffolk County remains the only County in the State of New York - the only one of 62 counties - to have a separately elected Comptroller and Treasurer. The opponents of consolidation would have you believe somehow that we have it right in Suffolk County and the other 61 Counties have it wrong. Don't believe it. As you can imagine, the current system is inefficient and by consolidating these offices we can eliminate patronage positions, make government more efficient and save taxpayer money. In the end, voters should have the right to decide.

Another area in which we must improve efficiency is various levels of government working together to deliver shared services for our mutual constituents. Under Governor Cuomos leadership, the state is looking for municipalities to live within the property tax cap as we have done in Suffolk County and to pursue consolidation and shared services, which we must do. As a longtime Town

Supervisor who is now leading County government, perhaps there is no better partner for me in this effort than a longtime County official who is now leading the largest Town government in Suffolk County, Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine, who has been a forceful advocate on the issue of shared services.

Working together, we have already implemented a shared service to provide enhanced support for Brookhaven veterans by stationing a Suffolk County Veterans Service Officer at Brookhaven Town Hall several days a week.

With the support of the Suffolk County Legislature, Supervisor Romaine and I just implemented a shared service to place additional bus shelters on County roads and split revenues between Brookhaven and Suffolk County.

And along with Legislator Sarah Anker, we are also looking at an initiative to utilize Brookhavens groundbreaking status as the first Long Island town to undertake single-stream recycling, in order to improve recycling at County buildings and also helps Brookhavens bottom line. And my hats off to Supervisor Romaine for that achievement.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Perhaps in no part of our government is the effort to improve efficiency as important as it is in law enforcement where inefficiency means that criminals remain on our streets.

When I came into office a little over two years ago, I inherited a lot of problems, but also one of the finest law enforcement agencies in this nation, the Suffolk County Police Department. And over the past two years, by implementing Intelligence Led Policing and Enhanced Community Policing, the results speak for themselves:

Since January 1, 2012, Violent Crime is down by nearly 12 percent. Property crime is down by 18 percent. Robberies are down by nearly 20 percent and Burglaries are down by more than 30 percent. The fact is that Suffolk County residents are safer than ever in their homes, and I could not be prouder of the team that has led this department, Police Commissioner Ed Webber and Chief of Department James Burke, the architect of Intelligence Led Policing.

Suffolk County has also implemented life-saving legislation written by Legislator Kara Hahn to provide Narcan to prevent overdose deaths caused by heroin. In 2013 alone, the police, EMTs and other first responders made 594 Narcan saves. And its not just the Police. Every day, our Probation Officers are working to make Suffolk families safer. And just last week, thanks to some investigative work by Probation Officer Jose Martorell, to request a search carried out by Senior POs Caryn Branda, Jeff Nichols and Dan Buckley, 2 men were arrested for holding 2 women, including a teenage runaway against their will, in a Lindenhurst home. I want to recognize these outstanding officers and their colleagues for their work.

With the support of the Suffolk County Legislature, we have taken resources that would have gone towards building mini-shelters for sex offenders and instead used those funds to implement the nations toughest monitoring, enforcement and verification program in partnership with Laura Ahearn and Parents for Megans Law. And for anyone who has any questions about that program, I would like to point them to the Level 3 predator who was arrested in Holbrook three weeks ago, living a few hundred feet from a day care, who had failed to properly report his location.

The message to sex offenders is clear, youre always welcome to leave Suffolk County. But as long as youre here, you had better obey the rules, because we are watching.

My wife Tracey is here tonight. We have three young children. When it comes to protecting our children there should be no party and no politics. This legislature passed the Community Protection Act 18-0 and I want to thank them on behalf of my family and all Suffolk County families.

When I came into office, I was determined to make Suffolk County more inclusive for all our residents. I am proud of the progress we have made to improve relations with ethnically diverse communities, ensure language access for all Suffolk County residents, and prioritize community led policing. I want to thank Theo Oshiro, Deputy Director of Make the Road New York and Daniel Altschuler from the Long Island Civic Engagement Table, along with the advocate community for working with us to build a more inclusive Suffolk County.

And part of our approach to policing must be to reduce recidivism. As Ive noted in the past, it costs $18,000 a year to educate a child, but nearly $100,000 a year to put him in jail. That is why Deputy Police Commissioner Risco Mention-Lewis is mobilizing the resources of nearly every branch of our government and engaging communities, in order to stop programs from operating in a vacuum and to work together to combat recidivism.

I also want to thank the new chair of the Social Services Committee, Legislator Monica Martinez for devoting her efforts to this critical issue. Among the services were providing are a first of its kind jobs fair for rehabilitated criminals. Because the best way to keep someone from reoffending is to make sure they have a job.

We are blessed in Suffolk County to be home to some of the most dedicated volunteer fire fighters and first responders in the nation. And it is critical we support them with the best technology to help save lives. Last month, I announced the implementation of the Suffolk County PulsePoint Application. Suffolk County is the first community on the East Coast that is using this app which empowers CPR-trained residents by sending an alert to their smart phone, letting them know they are near someone in cardiac arrest who is in need of life-saving assistance. I thank the thousands who have already signed up and I encourage others to take a moment to download this life-saving application.

We are also a County which stands by our veterans. In the last year, our Suffolk County Veterans Service Agency, led by Tom Ronanye, helped Suffolk County Veterans obtain $26.9 million in claims awards. Outside this chamber, is a painting of one of Suffolks heroes, Joseph Dwyer, a US Army combat medic who lost his battle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In his name and in his memory, we began the Joseph P Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Program to give our returning veterans the kind of support that Private First Class Dwyer never had. More than 700 Suffolk veterans have been helped by this program, and I want to recognize a key to its success, Marcelle Leis, a retired 24-year Air Force veteran, a mother, a wife and a Peer Facilitator who through Suffolk Veterans Services, is making sure that Suffolk veterans know you are not alone. Thank you Marcelle, and thank you to all who serve our nation.

CONCLUSION

Over the past two years, I think back to where we were, what we have gone through together, and where we are today.

We have been through wildfires, Superstorm Sandy, an historic blizzard, and this winter, it seems like a new snowstorm every week. We have been through the worst fiscal crisis in our Countys history, and though were not out of the woods yet, we do see daylight ahead. And we will continue to make progress without piercing Governor Cuomos property tax cap.

We are a stronger Suffolk County than we were just two years ago, and we are on the brink of so much more.

We are a safer county thanks to some of the best, most dedicated law enforcement officers, Fire and rescue personnel in the nation.

We are a county that is no longer a national poster child for intolerance, but a place that embraces the diversity which makes us stronger.

Our local economy is stronger and while we have a county government with approximately 1,000 fewer taxpayer funded jobs, we have created approximately 18,000 mainly private-sector jobs in the past year alone.

We are a county that has stopped talking about doing things like building Transit Oriented Developments and tech hubs in downtowns, and has actually started doing them.

We are a county that will no longer allow our water quality crisis to go unaddressed, but is going to come together to Reclaim our Water.

The state of our county today is resilient and over the next year, I look forward to working together for an even better Suffolk County.

Thank you, and may God continue to bless Suffolk County and all those who call this wonderful place home.