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CHARLOTTE – Mayor Anthony Foxx delivered his first ever 'State of the City' address Tuesday, exactly one year to the day from when he took the oath of office.

During his speech, he pointed out the highlights of 2010, including major strides in housing, transportation, and the addition of 8,500 jobs to the area.

"We still have a lot of work to do as a community but the thing I want people to realize, if you look back over the course of the last year, we've done an awful lot.”

Looking forward, Foxx says he's focusing on what he deemed the 'Three C's', consolidation, regional collaboration, and children.

The idea of consolidating city and county governments has come up a good deal over the past year as a means to save money and Foxx said he wants to see something happen in the next six months.

As for the city's children, he said cuts to education on the city level need to stop.

"And as we go through this budget year we've got to do everything holy to get that money back in our budget," Foxx added.

In the coming months, the council will also need to take a long hard look at how the city pays its police officers and firefighters after a task force found the current pay plan in place would run out of money by 2013 without budget cuts or a tax increase.

While lay-offs were not directly discussed, a reduction to their pay scale was put on the table as a possible option.

"I think they will understand the need to have this conversation and hopefully we can get to a point, where as much as possible, we get agreement,” said Foxx.

On a positive note, Foxx said they have time on their side to formulate a new plan.

He said he's in the process of assembling a team of budget experts along with representatives from police and fire, to present a number of options to the council that could work for everybody this upcoming budget year.