News-Record.com

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From the Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) _ Highlights of the $20.7 billion 2007-08 final state spending plan given tentative House and Senate approval Saturday. The figures reflect increases or reductions to base budget expenses, some of them based on projected rises in recurring spending.

Salaries and benefits

_ Average 5 percent salary increase for public school teachers; 5 percent for community college and university faculty and judges; 4 percent for most state employees: $490.3 million.

_ Additional 31-year salary step for public school teachers: $9.9 million.

_ Cost-of-living raise of 2.2 percent for state retirees: $35.7 million.

_ Fifth and final installment of retirement funds intercepted in 2001 to narrow budget shortfall: $45 million.

_ Cash influx to cover projected shortfall in state employee health plan, eliminate indemnity plan in July 2008: $110.2 million.

Public education

_ Replace 170 fewer school buses next year: -$4.5 million.

_ Student performance bonuses for teachers: $70 million.

_ Maintain 18-1 student-teacher ratios in kindergarten-3rd grade: $37.5 million.

_ Provide more funding for low-wealth school districts and schools with at-risk students: $23 million.

_ Expand "Learn and Earn" high school initiative to nine more schools, planning funds for 12 more: $3.1 million.

_ Deliver college courses electronically to high school students through Gov. Mike Easley's Learn and Earn Online program: $11.5 million.

_ Upgrade public school broadband connectivity: $12 million.

_ Increase school district funding for instructional supplies and materials: $2.8 million.

_ Increase district funding for academically and intellectually gifted programs: $1.8 million.

_ Increase district funding for children with disabilities: $5 million.

_ Provide additional money to help small-county school districts: $2.1 million.

_ Hire 100 literacy coaches in schools with eighth grades: $5.7 million.

_ Support pilot programs for Chinese, Farsi and other critical foreign languages: $500,000.

_ Establish district dropout prevention competitive grant program: $7 million.

_ Fund pilot program for five school districts with teacher recruitment and retainment bonuses, teacher mentoring and science and math assistance: $4.4 million.

_ Allow eight high schools to participate in technology pilot that provides computers to all teachers and students: $3 million.

_ Expand More at Four prekindergarten program by 10,000 slots, increase money per slot: $56 million.

University of North Carolina system

_ Reductions of 23 positions, other spending cuts recommended by President's Advisory Committee on Efficiency and Effectiveness: -$4.1 million.

_ Reduce campus operating budgets based on future recommendations of advisory committee: -$15 million.

_ Eliminate N.C. Progress Board: -$228,000.

_ Restores funding for projected fall university enrollment: $6 million.

_ Provide tuition grants to 1,000 additional students attending private colleges in North Carolina, raise grant to $1,950: $4 million.

_ Continue funding for UNC Online degree and certificate programs: $4.2 million.

_ Indigent care services at East Carolina University outpatient center and UNC Hospitals: $3.5 million.

_ Operating funds, equipment and faculty startup funds for UNC programs at North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis: $16.5 million.

_ Create joint graduate school of nanoscience and nanoengineering at Millennium Campus of N.C. A&T State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro: $1.4 million.

_ Improve N.C. Central University law school to address American Bar Association accreditation recommendations: $2.5 million.

_ UNC-Chapel Hill law school operating funds: $2 million.

_ Grant for fire truck to serve University of North Carolina at Pembroke: $750,000.

_ Begin Education Access Rewards North Carolina Scholars program, which provides grants to low-income college students: $25 million.

_ N.C. State University bioengineering program funds: $5 million.

_ Math and science teacher recruitment efforts for N.C. State University and UNC-Chapel Hill initiative: $1.5 million.

_ Create research competitiveness fund to support interdisciplinary research for emerging industries in state: $3 million.

_ Matching funds for UNC system campus endowed professorships: $6 million.

_ Fund Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University to attract federal investment in field at Piedmont Triad Research Park: $8 million.

_ general fund support for UNC Hospitals cancer research: $5.6 million.

_ preserve collection of Hugh Morton photos at Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill: $150,000.

Community colleges

_ Fund enrollment for additional 2,300 students: $3.3 million.

_ Increase community college tuition by 6.3 percent: -$7.5 million.

_ Additional funds for Allied Health programs: $5.6 million.

_ Improve community college broadband connectivity: $3.8 million.

_ Purchase of instructional equipment: $10 million.

_ North Carolina Motorsports Consortium funds: $500,000.

_ Operational funds for N.C. Military Business Center: $1.3 million.

_ Funds for community college efforts at North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis: $1.3 million.

_ Competitive grant program for campuses for facility and equipment needs: $15 million.

_ Advanced planning of capital projects and master plans: $8 million.

Health and human services

_ Sustain provider network that coordinate free care for low-income uninsured patients: $2.3 million.

_ Competitive grant program for rural health centers: $5 million.

_ Develop new health information system for services provided by local health departments: $2 million.

_ Remove 643 children from child-care subsidy waiting list, increase lagging subsidy rates: $8.4 million.

_ State match to purchase more than 634,000 treatment courses of antivirals in case of pandemic flu and create climate-controlled storage space: $8.3 million.

_ Fund HIV prevention and activities, including counseling and testing: $2 million.

_ Additional screening and diagnostic services for breast and cervical cancer: $2 million.

_ Funding for family planning services to uninsured women ineligible for Medicaid: $200,000.

_ Hire 54 public school nurses: $2.7 million.

_ Increase State/County Special Assistance rate for adult care homes: $1.9 million.

_ Carry out new program to meet higher education needs of foster youth: $2 million.

_ Reduce Medicaid provider inflationary reimbursement increases with some exceptions: -$35.4 million.

_ Medicaid cost containment activities, including increased fraud and abuse detection: -$15.3 million.

_ Drug management savings for Medicaid patients: -$7 million.

_ Three hundred additional slots for Community Alternatives Program: $4.5 million.

_ Expand Medicaid coverage for foster care youths age 18-20: $216,000

_ Funds to reduce county share of Medicaid from 15 percent of nonfederal share to 11.25 percent in October and 7.5 percent in July 2008: $86.2 million.

_ Study method to expand health care coverage of children in families between 200 percent and 300 percent of poverty level: $368,000.

_ Fully fund N.C. Health Choice program: $7.5 million.

_ Realign mental health services funds for crisis services and supported employment: -$15 million.

_ Reduce budget of Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh to account for anticipated closure in the fall: -$31.8 million.

_ Reduce budget of John Umstead Hospital in Butner to account for anticipated closure in the fall: -$35.3 million.

_ Open and fund new central regional psychiatric hospital in Butner: $62.4 million.

_ Transfer half of forensic unit from Dorothea Dix Hospital and Broughton Hospital in Morganton: $4.7 million.

Natural and economic resources

_ N.C. Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund, designed to prevent loss of farmlands: $8 million.

_ Create Biofuels Center of North Carolina, which will encourage growth in biomass production and development in keeping with legislative mandated study: $5 million.

_ Hire two agricultural safety officers to conduct migrant housing inspections and train farmers: $125,000.

_ County grants to adopt local programs to enforce statewide private well construction standards: $300,000.

_ Test private wells for contamination and pay for alternative drinking water supplies: $615,000.

_ Savings by increasing water quality fees by 20 percent: -$202,000.

_ Water quality monitoring of ferry vessels: $300,000.

_ Fund N.C. state aquariums to replace admission receipts: $2.5 million.

_ Implementation of swine waste technology initiatives in separate bill: $2 million.

_ Matching funds for clean water, drinking water revolving funds: $9.4 million.

_ Additional state travel and tourism division funds: $750,000.

_ Promote Blue Ridge Parkway: $450,000.

_ Regional film commissions: $300,000.

_ Promote state's grape-growing industry: $500,000.

_ Promote state's motorsports industry: $100,000

_ Promote International Home Furnishings Market in High Point: $1 million.

_ Create N.C. Green Business Fund, providing no-interest loans to small private business to encourage environmentally based economy: $1 million.

_ One North Carolina Fund for economic development: $14 million.

_ One North Carolina Small Business Fund for economic development: $4.8 million.

_ Operate N.C. Center for Automotive Research in Northampton County: $3.5 million.

_ Help Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte: $2 million.

_ Support Defense and Security Technology Accelerator, a business incubator to boost economic development in homeland security and defense industries: $1.5 million.

_ Increase funding for N.C. Institute of Minority Economic Development: $1.5 million.

_ N.C. Community Development Initiative: $3 million.

_ N.C. Minority Support Center: $3 million.

_ Create incentives for broadband in rural areas, distribute funds for cable access channels through e-NC authority: $4 million.

_ N.C. Biotechnology Center create three "regional centers of innovation": $3 million.

_ Expand N.C. Rural Economic Development Center Economic Infrastructure Fund and establish Rural Economic Transition Program: $19 million.

_ N.C. Rural Economic Development Center funds for water and sewer system grants to local governments: $100 million.

Justice and public safety

_ Modernize technology in court system: $9.8 million.

_ Hire 77 new assistant district attorneys, DA investigators and legal assistants: $4.2 million.

_ Fund 150 new deputy clerks of court: $4.6 million.

_ Hire 21 new magistrates: $768,000.

_ Hire nine District Court staff members: $485,000.

_ Expand family court by two judicial districts, hire 10 employees: $568,000.

_ Two new special Superior Court judges: $190,000.

_ Raise hourly rate for privately assigned attorney for indigent defendants in non-capital cases: $4.1 million.

_ Hire more sworn agents, staffers and technicians at State Bureau of Investigation, startup cost for Triad regional crime laboratory: $1.5 million.

_ Eliminate 75 vacant positions in the Department of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention. -$2.5 million.

_ Staff and contractual service costs for flood plain mapping program: $4.1 million.

_ Grant to N.C. Sheriff's Association for technical assistance and training association with immigration enforcement: $750,000.

_ Gang prevention, intervention and suppression initiative grants: $4.8 million.

_ Reduce backlog of victims' compensation unpaid claims: $1.6 million.
Transportation

_ Reduce Department of Transportation division administration funds to pay for Interstate 40 resurfacing project: -$11.8 million.

_ Security management equipment at 31 Division of Motor Vehicle locations: $2.5 million.

_ Purchase one aircraft to upgrade department fleet: $3.4 million.

_ Hire 36 Division of Motor Vehicles workers to implement new drivers license secure card production system to comply with federal "Real ID" act: $1.6 million.

_ Increase funds for DMV technology upgrade for commercial driver's licenses: $3 million.

_ Hire 40 additional ferry division personnel, pay for rescue boats and generator upgrades and train personnel to meet Coast Guard regulations: $5.5 million.

_ Reduce expenditures for Triangle Transit Authority's commuter rail project: -$23.4 million.

_ Create 24 positions to support advanced statewide emergency responder radio network: $2.3 million.

_ Create five new state trooper positions: $497,000.

_ Streamline freight rail operations through relocating or building new tracks and interchanges: $3.9 million.

_ Replace obsolete State Highway Patrol helicopter and establish airborne unit to perform search and rescue operations during disasters: $3.6 million.

Other agencies and funds

_ Increase funding for rape crisis and sexual assault funds: $894,000.

_ State Energy Office operations: $7.7 million.

_ House remains of Civil War Confederate ironclad CSS Neuse: $500,000.

_ International Civil Rights Museum: $500,000.

_ Increase operational support for Queen Anne's Revenge archaeology project: $150,000.

_ Expand N.C. Arts Council grants, Grassroots Arts Program and public school arts project: $3 million.

_ State conversion of Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum: $300,000.

_ State aid to local libraries: $475,000.

_ N.C. Housing Trust Fund, including money to build apartments for people with disabilities: $12.5 million.

_ Continue home foreclosure protection pilot program: $1.5 million.

_ Redact personal information from Secretary of State business entity database: $813,000.

_ Reduce by 2 percent Department of Revenue items related to temporary employees: -$1.8 million.

_ Reserve for morale, recreation and welfare fund distributed to military installation: $1 million.

Reserves and capital projects

_ Continue upgrade of state's human resources, payroll and financial systems: $30 million.

_ Eliminate undetermined number of state government positions vacant for longer than six months: -$10 million.

_ Equipment for state secondary data center: $8 million.

_ Health care facility at N.C. Correctional Institution for Women: $5 million.

_ Planning, development and construction of new Department of Environment and Natural Resources building and expansion of Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh: $25 million.

_ East Carolina University dental school: $25 million.

_ UNC-Chapel Hill dental school addition: $25 million.

_ N.C. State University Centennial Campus library: $17 million.

_ UNC-Charlotte energy production infrastructure center: $19 million.

_ Construct new buildings at eastern and western agricultural centers: $8 million.

_ N.C. Ports improvements in Morehead City, Wilmington: $7.5 million.

_ Special indebtedness for construction projects, including prison additions, university projects and Tryon Palace visitors center, issued over four years: $550 million.

_ Add to savings reserve account: $175 million.

Tax provisions

_ Make permanent state portion of sales tax at 4.25 percent: $258.4 million.

_ State holds counties harmless in Medicaid tax swap: -$19.3 million.

_ Renew long-term insurance tax credit: -$7 million.

_ Adoption tax credit equal to 50 percent of federal credit: -$3 million.

_ Reserves for energy tax phaseout provisions, work opportunity tax credits: -$13 million.

_ Sales tax refund for aircraft parts manufacturers: -$800,000.

_ Increase judicial fees, dedicated to court system technology and staff upgrades: $35.5 million.