Perdue unveils budget changes for 2010-11(WRAL.com)
Posted: 9:53 a.m. today
RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Beverly Perdue’s budget plan would cut nearly $1 billion for the coming year by eliminating programs and cutting Medicaid abuse.
Perdue on Tuesday unveiled her recommended changes for the second year of the two-year budget approved by the General Assembly last summer.
Most state agencies would have spending cut an additional 5 to 7 percent starting in July, except for education, which would be cut less than 4 percent. More than 600 state jobs would be eliminated under Perdue’s plan.
Public schools would get money to buy hand-held devices to help teachers in lower grades assess student performance.
Other education increases include limiting class sizes in kindergarten through grade 3 and fully funding enrollment growth in the University of North Carolina system and the state’s 58 community colleges. More money also will be provided for need-based financial aid in higher education.
Teachers also would receive their longevity-based salary increases after they were suspended last year because of the bad economy. State employees and teachers would get a one-time bonus to make up for furloughs last year.
Perdue also calls for providing a tax credit of $250 per employee to small businesses that provide health insurance to their workers and for creating a $15 million incentive fund to encourage small businesses to hire people who have been unemployed for at least two months.
A proposed $22 million “mobility fund” would address transportation bottlenecks, and another $10 million would be used to streamline the state’s databases of criminal records. Other safety-related funding includes raising the salaries of probation and parole officers to boost recruitment and retention and expanding the ability of law enforcement agencies statewide to collect DNA at the time of felony arrests.
Perdue said she expects her crackdown on Medicaid fraud and waste to save the state $35 million in the coming year, and she said spending on inmate medical care would drop by $20.5 million by linking payments to the Medicare and Medicaid fee schedules.
