also put money into into our long term unfunded liabilities so we put extra money into the retirement systems we also put money into our reserves because you need to have a rainy day at home you need to have a rainy also so those are certain issues and we're kind of talk about those in a second i really want to really get an overall analysis from you on the health of the state in its case call health care and i really specifically want to pinpoint you on this bob bancroft was here saying he's very concerned about the fiscal health of the state moving forward about what's coming ahead of us and i want your viewpoint as the state treasurer to give us your viewpoint about the health of the state and what you see coming up certainly so in order to have fiscal health you have to do a couple of things number one you've got to reduce your reliance on the credit card on debt and so again i need to tell a little bit about the things we're doing here so over the last four years we reduced to nine percent and then i believe eight percent in this year were recommending another to you by any moon do step by another seven percent solution our reliance on debt and i think that's extraordinarily important for me  structurally balanced budget means that you're recurring revenues sufficient to meet your current expenses and to pay down your long term liabilities so that from my perspective we've had surpluses over the last several years to take the next step is how do we take that bottom line in translate that into what does it mean for citizens and how do they share in their bottom line so i'm going to get back yeah there's a sense that a double a question is like how is the state doing and then how are the citizenry doing this sort of a double edged with those parameters now again i'm all for reducing costs for the taxpayer and i got to be blunt about that you need to find ways to do that so one of the things that we've worked on as our pension programs in over the over the years we've lowered the we have a big unfunded liability and that was something because we want doing the right things in terms of the bottom line from around one thousand nine hundred to two thousand and seven we want pain the pain down a critical essentially we weren't doing that and now we're paying for those sins of the past to be very frank and for me we've done good things are moving forward we looked at ways that we can make that more efficient with best employees decide to assist we've worked with the legislature and all and we're going to save the taxpayers from two thousand and ten to two thousand and thirty eight one point three billion dollars and that's that's exciting to me that's that's part of our job as a fiduciary of taxpayer dollars but the same time  is the the the the innovative things that you can do with smart finance at the same time we're able to maintain benefits for retirees make sure that people do when they get to an end of their career they have adequate retirement because that gets back to your comment about fiscal health or more economic health when people have adequate income in retirement they buy goods and services and that's part of the economic generator so just cutting isn't the answer but the same time just spending is also not the answer it's a delicate balance of looking at how do you get best value for the taxpayer and best value that is shared by all the taxpayers so just a reminder if you have a question for beth about state finances you can dial in directly and ask that question at eight six to three nine six six that will continue on this a little bit what do you see then as the near term and maybe even the long term challenges that the state is facing that season we talk about you know what's wrong all the time and we took in that it almost becomes a self fulfilling prophecy you know we can't afford these programs on the other side you know you can't you have to invest in your assets and i think our  people and our assets our natural environment our own lakes and rivers so we need to invest in those assets you know put it into economics if you're if you're if you're if you're manufacturing something we're going to use widgets i never actually i've used the widget example several times i don't know if the widget actually exists i have no idea but if you're making widgets and you've got a machine that makes widgets you need that machine to be fissioned and you need it to be you need to invest in it every year to make sure that it continues to make widgets and it doesn't break down and for me we need to invest in in the things that help grow the economy and one of them is our natural resources right now in two studies or a couple years old two point five billion dollars in our lakes and rivers makes sense from an economic side and also makes sense from a health and safety side because about forty two percent of our drinking water some surface water across the state so we need to take a look and recognize that you have to make proactive investments in our natural resources and in our people if you want to grow the economy i think that you need to be more positive about the assets of a man does have a quality of life the ability to find good good jobs in this state there are they are there and we have a more diverse economy than we did at say ten years ago we do have workforce stressors we need to get the education system wind up to the mid some of those workforce needs and i think that we're making progress there and i think people are recognizing that i hear a lot about our demographics and our aging demographics those we need to see those is challenges that we can address and move forward if you just look at them as problems and say we can't we can't afford programs and what you're doing is having a self fulfilling prophecy in a downward spiral so i want to kind of speak about some of the programs because you found some money for lakes and streams and we'll get into that but i just want to touch base on something here that you just raised here about programs and things like that do you think paying people to move to the state of vermont is a good idea we see from the economic develop michael sterling's team scenarios like this and i'm curious if you think that's a good idea well i'm going to be blunt i have not had the opportunity to look at the data i have heard from them that they had a lot of economic i mean a lot of activity and a lot of interest in the state as a result of that but i have not looked at the specifics of that particular program but to bring individuals to the state we have to have a message that says we're a vibrant state we're a state that's glowing state that provides opportunities in terms of health care opportunities in terms of day childcare opportunities in terms of good wages and the see that those are investments in our future and grow the economy that way i think that if you're young and you want to come to vermont you want to hear about actually buttes that it has that attracts you and we need to also have an education system their peers students with the skills that they need in our new economy so moving on you have found some money for our lakes and streams and increased wallet water quality it's sort of a two prong question sense first of all thank you for finding the money and why was that money even there in the first place in the sense i mean i think vermonters want to make sure that their government is operating as officially as possible  this was by finding efficiency find efficiencies so just to put the lake issue in put in perspective and again i should say lake rivers plus the state because ninety four percent of the state ninety four percent of the state is under what's called a t n d o which is a total maximum daily load which is essentially a pollution budget and the only part of the state that isn't under t n d l pollution budget with the e p a is the bennington area and they have peeled away so we've got it issues across the state that we're working on with that and again going back to the widget analogy invest in new natural resources we get fees taxes i think i heard an number someplace around three hundred million dollars in income to the state from that truism business so it's we have in our capital planning and we saw where for some reason some reasons that that a one time we were able to pull out some of the money that was going to go to other projects we prioritize some of those projects and find about fifty million over the of a two year period so that we'd have twenty five million per year that could be used to assist us in the in creating a bridge to a long term plan now you have also indicated that this is by no means an enough can you speak to about what you think you would actually take care in terms of dollars and cents and are your commitment houser unlimited so we we did an analysis and this is the great thing about vermont collaborative work we had twenty three stakeholder meetings with environmentalists with farmers with business people with local town officials twenty three meetings with about a thousand people and so there was a pretty comprehensive study we asked them what are the different sources of ways to purchase what revenue sources might be used what financing ideas you have would efficiencies you might identify and boil that down and we also did some cost analysis bring in all the different groups together we worked very closely with agriculture natural resources all the states transportation departments and they were very helpful and very cooperative the bottom line for us is that we saw that we needed to put in to meet there was a there was a total amount two point three billion of  needs overt of a twenty year period now some of that is already met to existing resources so we've counted for that and there was about i think it's about one point two five billion that was remaining we looked at that over a twenty year period in we were talking someplace in the area of sixty some odd million dollars a year some of that we called to one interior to tijuana must have things that we need to do interior to work the things that are good to have bend the cost curve but aren't necessarily essential at this moment tear one came out about forty eight point five million dollars per year now we also recognize that that's an all in cost that's not government cost that's not just the state that's local government and that's also businesses it's also farmers it's also people that that run your local retail businesses and the like so it's an all in cost and what we said is the state should be look to assist with half of that so we came up with a bulk twenty five million is our target and said that minimally we need to look for twenty five million per year i think we're going to find out well we did for the first two years and i think that that gave us time to come up with a plan i'm optimistic that we can do that but i think it needs some work from the legislature frankly i was a little disappointed last year with both the administration and to some extent the legislature but all folks involved with us that we didn't get this moving a little further we've got two years of funding but in order to stay on target we need to come up with a solution implemented in this coming year for fiscal year twenty and for me i'm optimistic but there are three decisions that have to be made one the allocate that twenty five million who gets what piece of the pie and that's a policy decision that the legislature needs to take a look at we can help with that we can help in terms of analysis of where you get better bang for your dollars but ultimately that is a policy decision that the legislature and the governor in the ministration are going to have to to address the second is how do you deliver the services how do you deliver those in their different models we did a ninety some odd page report i'm a firm believer that we need to push this money down into the communities we do not need to create more state bureaucracy we need to get that money out to the communities and still a third decision is what is the financing of funding source and i'm ok with using existing resources i'm in thrifty with your tax dollars but they have to be reliable they have to be measurable predictable and not built into the base budget it can't that's a big goal that i'm confident that the legislature both the house and senate political great deal of work into this list year we need to finish it up ok beth we're just down to our last minute thank you so much for your time here today why don't you just give us a thirty second closing statement about your candidacy and what you hope to achieve for these nicotine you know i've been treasurer since two thousand and eleven i love the job it's the best job in the state i think it's just something that i've been doing for government finance for forty two years for me to some unfinished work that needs to be done retirement security for those hundred and four thousand individuals that do not have that we have a program called able to even a better life experience which is a program to help individuals with disabilities get to financial security financial literacy programs we believe done a great deal of work there we need to do more and that's important to me but i'm line is we've got work to do proud of the work we've done i think we've been good with taxpayers we've been good with our citizens in terms of looking at innovative smart financing we need to do more good beth pearce my thanks for joining us here this evening on our live candidate forum for the twenty eight hundred general election a reminder you can go to our website c h seventeen dot tv for a complete list of upcoming candidate forums and don't forget that early voting is already begun here in the state of vermont you can register to vote and cast your ballot on the same day don't forget to join us here tuesday september rather tuesday november sixth at seven pm for complete election results for all of us a town meeting television town meeting television channel seventy nine that kalie thanks for watching