News-Record.com

The folks at the JWP Civitas Institute, a conservative policy group, just put out this study on N.C. Senate earmarks:

During the current "short" session of the General Assembly, more than half a billion dollars worth of earmark spending has been requested by the North Carolina Senate as identified by The Civitas Institute. The total for the two year budget cycle comes to roughly $1.3 billion in Senate earmark requests.

Now hold on a minute, you may be saying. Didn't the Republican leadership just come out with an earmark list that totaled $2 billion?

Yes, but the methodology is different. While the Republican leaders counted any appropriation bill as an earmark, the Civitas study used a more narrow definition, more in keeping with what the word "earmark" has come to mean: an appropriation that takes the decision making out of the executive branch's hands and sends money to one particular geographic area.

Of local note: Civitas calls Sen. Katie Dorsett's request for $500,000 to go to the John Coltraine Music Hall in High Point one "of the most outrageous/controversial items."

Update: Worth noting - I would still quibble with some of the items counted as earmarks. More than $2 million in drug and alcohol treatment grants that would be administered by the department of corrections wouldn't count in my mind because that money isn't "earmarked" for any one particular nonprofit or company.