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Gov. Bill Lee promised innovation during his seventh annual State of the State Address on Monday while previewing a $59.5 billion proposed budget that revisits several past priorities like farmland grants, nuclear energy and increased investments in trade schools.

Lee’s speech provided a glimpse at his upcoming budget proposal, including hundreds of millions for teacher pay raises and bonuses, further investments in nuclear energy developments and other economic development money and efforts to preserve natural resources like the Duck River and farmland.

Fresh off of a four-day special session where he fast-tracked bills on immigration and school vouchers, Lee led by calling the session an “exciting and productive start” to the year, praising the bulk of the Republican-led legislature for supporting his rapid-fire policies.

“Government is usually seen as a bureaucratic mess, but this General Assembly proved everyone wrong and showed what happens when we move not at government pace, but at real-world pace,” Lee said.

Boasting the efficacy of his aggressive maneuvers through the special session, Lee also teased more breaks from procedural norms, urging other “bold” efforts from the legislature in the name of “innovations” to benefit Tennesseans and, he hopes, catch national attention.

“2025 should be the year to think bigger and to think boldly about what is possible and to go there,” Lee said. “If Tennessee has led the nation as a beacon of opportunity and security and freedom, then why can’t we be the nation’s capital of innovation?”

“Somebody is going to determine what the future looks like. That should be Tennessee,” he added.

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Lee also touted the state’s continued commitment to deregulation and conservative spending, noting a $35.6 million addition to the rainy day fund. Lee also hinted at alignment with the Trump Administration’s new and embattled Department of Government Efficiency, led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, noting his plans to “streamline” state boards and “simplify” licensing processes. While this is his first public reference to DOGE, Lee has been more closely associated with President Donald Trump in the early days of his second term and conservatives hinted at replicating DOGE in Tennessee before Trump was even in office.

The speech did not detail some of Lee’s most costly proposals, like more than $200 million in local public safety investments and a $38 million expansion of the Tennessee Highway Patrol. Others were referenced without any specific price tag, like an unknown investment into teaching “civics and American exceptionalism” to K-12 students.

More details of Lee’s plan will emerge when the governor previews his budget to the state Senate on Tuesday morning, but there are big-ticket items he touched on Monday.

In addition to the $145 million for his private school voucher program, which educators opposed for years out of concerns that it would siphon public resources from school districts over time, Lee’s budget proposal includes more than $580 million in public school investments, including both one-time teacher bonuses and teacher pay increases promised during the special session.

“The future for Tennessee students and teachers is very bright,” Lee said.

Lee is also proposing more than $69 million in higher education, including a $12 million expansion of the state’s free tuition at Tennessee College of Applied Technology, to further reduce the barrier to a trade education.

“We’ve built the workforce pipeline, but how do we innovate to fill that pipeline,” Lee asked, noting that additional fees and supply costs still keep some prospective students from pursuing TCAT courses with already free tuition.

“Tonight, I’m proposing the TennesseeWORKS scholarship, a new award that will cover every penny of TCAT tuition and fees for all students, and it will finally relieve the extra cost burden of tools and equipment for those most in need,” Lee explained.

The governor is also proposing $80 million in “strategic” economic development grants and a $50 million investment into the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plan to use the Clinch River nuclear development site in Oak Ridge to try its hand at building the first small nuclear reactors.

“We’ve now laid the groundwork. We have a willing partner in the White House. Now is the time to develop the Clinch River site and build the first small modular reactor in the nation on Tennessee soil,” Lee said.

Lee’s proposal also proposes $280 million for environmental conservation, including the creation of five new parks, $100 million for a new regional water system to preserve the Duck River and an unspecified investment in the creation of the Alexander Institute for Environmental Education and the Sciences near Great Smoky Mountain National Park, in the name of former Sen. Lamar Alexander, who was in attendance.

That figure also includes $25 million earmarked for farmland conservation as the governor returns to a failed effort to create a grant program to retain agricultural farms in the state, claiming that Tennessee loses 10 acres of farmland per hour.

“Another blessing that holds a challenge: farm families in our state. They keep food on our tables. They drive our economy,” Lee said, urging support for his Farmland Conservation Act, a previous version of which stalled during last year’s legislative session.

Some Democratic lawmakers walked out of the speech, refusing to be in the same room as Lee following the special session. Others took issue with the governor’s depiction of Tennessee as an innovative beacon for the rest of the nation, noting what they perceived as regressive policy approaches to issues like education and infrastructure and outright ignoring issues like gun violence.

“You know, it’s quite a statement from somebody who’s using the same old tricks and the same old ideas out of the old GOP playbook, you know, tax breaks for billionaires, politics of fear and culture war nonsense,” Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) said of Lee’s repeated “innovation” mantra.

This story was provided courtesy of the Nashville Banner. Sign up for the Nashville Banner’s newsletters here.