Urban Innovator Award Winner

2008
Mitch Daniels, Governor, State of Indiana to Receive Urban Innovator Award for Education Reform

On October 8, 2008, the Manhattan Institute presented Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels with our Urban Innovator Award, in recognition of his innovative policy initiatives which have led to improved services for Indiana's citizens. CCI Chairman Emeritus and former Indianapolis mayor Stephen Goldsmith delivered opening remarks and presented Governor Daniels with the award.

Governor Daniels has restored Indiana's fiscal health, created a business environment that has received top national rankings, and instituted creative policies such as leasing the operation of the Indiana Toll Road for $3.8 billion and using the proceeds to establish Indiana’s Major Moves program, the only fully-funded ten year statewide transportation infrastructure rebuilding program in the United States. This program, consisting of over 400 highway construction projects, has created jobs and will improve Indiana's standing as a logistics and transportation hub. Governor Daniels has also simplified laws to make brownfield development easier, proposed a plan to increase access and affordability for the state's high school seniors to pursue higher education by utilizing future growth of the state lottery, and he improved the prison and welfare systems, as well as the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, which has achieved a 97 percent overall customer satisfaction rate.