General Assembly has not raised base salaries since 1995

By Jana Benscoter | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — North Carolina’s top-paid legislator in 2009 earned 48 percent more than the average state government employee earned in the same year, and 54 percent more than the average private sector employee. The top-paid legislator was Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight, D-Dare, who collected $86,211.48. The top-paid legislators also hold the highest offices in the state General Assembly. Among the 25 legislators collecting the highest compensation in 2009, the vast majority were Democrats; only six were Republicans.

Legislators’ earnings come from four sources: salary, which varies based on a lawmaker’s position in the General Assembly; per diem, which is paid each day the lawmaker does legislative work; travel, including mileage reimbursement between Raleigh and lawmakers’ homes, along with other travel related to legislative business; and an expense account, which also is tied to individual lawmakers’ positions inside the General Assembly.

Hurricane Earl strengthens as it bears down on East Coast, bringing island evacuations

Hurricane Earl steamed toward the Eastern Seaboard early Thursday as communities from North Carolina to New England kept a close eye on the forecast, worried that even a slight shift in the storm's predicted offshore track could put millions of people in the most densely populated part of the country in harm's way.

Vacationers along North Carolina's dangerously exposed Outer Banks took advantage of the typical picture-perfect day just before a hurricane arrives to pack their cars and flee inland, cutting short their summer just before Labor Day weekend.

High turnout underscores residents’ opposition to tax hikes

By David N. Bass | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — Watauga County voters snapped a seven-referendum winning streak for supporters of local tax increases Tuesday by voting down, 62-38 percent, a quarter-cent sales tax hike.

County commissioners had pledged to use $1.9 million in revenue generated by the tax to build new recreational facilities, but voters wanted no part of it. At 17 percent, turnout was high for a referendum not held in conjunction with a primary or General Election. Many residents also took advantage of early voting.

“By soundly defeating the tax increase, taxpayers sent a loud and clear message to county commissioners: don’t spend our money like drunken sailors. Spend our money more wisely and efficiently,” said Michael Sanera, the John Locke Foundation’s vice president for research and local government analyst.

Board looking at potentially explicit e-mails, audit of Health Department

By Sarah Okeson | Carolina Journal

YADKINVILLE — Yadkin County commissioners took the first steps Monday toward a possible investigation of the county Health Department, whose director recently announced he will retire. But the commission’s initial moves were not posted on a public agenda beforehand, a potential violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act. Moreover, the board’s attorney was not present at the meeting.

The commission also has balked at a request to make e-mails between a county employee and a county official reportedly containing sexually explicit content available to the public.

Raleigh, N.C. – Over half of North Carolina’s unaffiliated voters support drilling for oil off the state’s coast, according to a new National Research Inc. poll released today by the Civitas Institute.

According to the live caller poll of 400 unaffiliated likely voters, 51 percent said they support drilling for oil and natural gas off the coast of North Carolina. Thirty-eight percent of voters said they oppose drilling, and 10 percent said they do not know or have no opinion.

This percentage of support mirrors a May 2010 Civitas poll which found that of all statewide voters, 56 percent support drilling for oil while 37 percent oppose it.

Powerful Hurricane Earl wheeled toward the East Coast, driving the first tourists Wednesday from North Carolina vacation islands and threatening damaging winds and waves up the Atlantic seaboard over Labor Day weekend.

Visitors were taking ferries off Ocracoke Island and told to leave neighboring Cape Hatteras in North Carolina's Outer Banks, and federal authorities have warned people all along the Eastern seaboard to be prepared to evacuate. Emergency officials as far north as Maine were checking their equipment and urging people to have disaster plans and supplies ready.

Some educators say they inspire boys to read

By Hal Young | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — You could call it a clash of titans, to borrow a phrase. In just one month, one American organization criticized superheroes as bad role models for boys, while a Canadian group promoted the use of comics and graphic novels to increase literacy among them.

While the value or harm of comic books has been debated for decades, the genre has grown in acceptance among librarians and educators, and some libraries now host large collections of graphic novels, Japanese manga, and plain old American comics. The comics were once hidden behind the textbooks; now they may be handed out by the teacher.

An emerald so large it's being compared with the crown jewels of Russian empress Catherine the Great was pulled from a pit near corn rows at a North Carolina farm.

The nearly 65-carat emerald its finders are marketing by the name Carolina Emperor was pulled from a farm once so well known among treasure hunters that the owners charged $3 a day to shovel for small samples of the green stones. After the gem was cut and re-cut, the finished product was about one-fifth the weight of the original find, making it slightly larger than a U.S. quarter and about as heavy as a AA battery.

Membership plummets as parents wonder about organization's role in schools

By Sara Burrows | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — While the North Carolina Parent Teacher Association is becoming less popular among parents, it is becoming more popular among politicians.

North Carolina parents are leaving the PTA by the thousands, opting to form independent parent teacher organizations. Some are making the switch because they’re fed up with the PTA’s political involvement — it partners with teacher unions to lobby against school choice, and its national organization opposes the Bush tax cuts — but most parents just want more bang for their buck.

The General Assembly found NCPTA worthy of more than $1 million in dropout prevention grants over the last four years. The grants were given for NCPTA’s Parent Involvement Initiative, even though parent involvement in the organization has declined steadily for 50 years.

Campaign staffers advised him of ‘variety of ways’ to handle air travel

By Don Carrington | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — Officials of Gov. Bev Perdue’s 2008 campaign advised New Bern attorney Trawick “Buzzy” Stubbs on a “variety of ways” to handle the nearly $30,000 in unreported flights he provided to the campaign, according to a Board of Election report.

The report, by Kim Strach, the Board of Election’s deputy director of campaign reporting, was in the possession of the State Board of Election on Aug. 24 when it ruled that there was no intentional wrongdoing on the part of the Perdue campaign in its tardy reporting of the flights, which spanned the period from January 2007 to December 2008.

The campaign paid for none of them until May 2009.

Photo: State Board of Election members Bob Cordle, Chairman Larry Leake, and Chuck Winfrey question Perdue campaign attorney John Wallace at the Aug. 24 board meeting in Asheville. Photo by Don Carrington.

RALEIGH - The Department of Correction is pleased with today’s N.C. Supreme Court decision. The department is committed to continuing its long-standing policy and practice that has served the interests of public safety and good prison order.

“The Department takes very seriously its responsibility to calculate sentences correctly and the court's decision today has upheld our ability to do that,” said Secretary Alvin Keller. “We are grateful to the court for upholding those policies and practices that have well served the state for more than 50 years.”

JLF expert makes case for scrapping counterproductive rules, requirements

By CJ Staff | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — North Carolina lawmakers should eliminate certificate-of-need laws, mandated health insurance benefits, and most licensing requirements if they're interested in improving health care in the state. That's the conclusion the John Locke Foundation's top health expert reaches in a new Policy Report.

"Regulation of hospitals and other health care providers makes care more expensive, while mandated benefits make insurance more expensive and encourage more unnecessary regulation," said Joseph Coletti, JLF Director of Health and Fiscal Policy Studies. "The deregulation recommended in this report would improve North Carolinians' access to care and quality of care. These changes also would have a positive impact on cost and innovation."

Agencies decline to release list of films, say none were pornographic

By David N. Bass

August 26, 2010

RALEIGH — A state employee kept pirated movies and video games on his government computer and used illegal software routinely to share them with co-workers and managers, according to a report (PDF download) State Auditor Beth Wood made public Thursday.

Corey Palmer, a systems analyst at the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina, installed the software-ripping program AnyDVD on his work computer and duplicated copyrighted material, in violation of federal law and ESC policy. He kept “dozens” of copied DVDs and “numerous containers of blank DVDs” around his desk, according to the audit.

The ESC’s chief mission is to administer the state’s unemployment insurance program.

Hotels, restaurants, resorts on alert for new government initiatives

By Karen McMahan | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — The unemployment rate in North Carolina and around the country may be flirting with double digits, but that isn’t preventing the U.S. Department of Labor from tight enforcement of employment laws.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis signaled as much during her swearing-in ceremony when she said, “to those who have for too long abused workers, put them in harm’s way, denied them fair pay, let me be clear, there is a new sheriff in town.” The Service Employees International Union heralded Solis’ confirmation, saying it was a “momentous occasion” that organized labor had been “fighting for.”

Few safeguards to prevent raids by General Assembly, governor

By Amanda Vuke | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — North Carolina created the state's Education Lottery in 2005 amid promises that the money would be used solely to supplement current funds for education. Before passage, then-Gov. Mike Easley assured state residents that money from the Education Lottery would “supplement, not supplant existing spending for education,” and he would “not recommend nor sign legislation that reduces that state’s spending for education.”

That promise has not been kept. To help balance the 2008-09 budget, Gov. Bev Perdue emptied $50 million from lottery reserves. The 2009-10 budget diverted to the General Fund $69 million in lottery money slated initially for school construction.

Total cost for delegation in 4th and 1st quarters: $8.7 million

By David N. Bass | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — North Carolina’s 13 U.S. House members spent almost $29,000 on snacks and bottled water during a six-month period, even while the state’s unemployment rate hovered in double digits, federal deficits loomed in the trillions of dollars, and the Dow struggled.

The expenses are a fraction of the $8.7 million that lawmakers spent to run their offices during the final quarter of 2009 and first quarter of 2010, according to official receipts.

The records, prepared by the Chief Administrative Officer of the House, give taxpayers a bird’s-eye view of how elected officials used their congressional allowances, which range as high as $1.9 million annually. Carolina Journal reported on expenses for the third quarter of 2009 in January.

Receipts show that Tar Heel congressmen paid their staffs $6.7 million total — including 15 staffers who make six figures — and spent $318,000 on traveling and $56,000 per month on district office rent. (Staff salary figures include compensation only for the three-month period.)

D.C. offers higher benefits, lower premiums ... and can't pay its way

By Karen Welsh | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — Two plans. Two options. Too many?

North Carolina and the federal government now offer separate, side-by-side plans to provide health insurance to individuals with pre-existing conditions. Insurance providers often find these individuals too expensive to cover under traditional plans, so the high-risk pools are set up to reduce some of the costs of coverage.

To date, 4,162 individuals have registered in the state program, paying an average of $561 a month, and 158 have enrolled in the federal pool, paying one-third less than those enrolled in the state pool.

Both options are considered temporary, stopgap measures until the Affordable Care Act takes full effect in 2014.

STAFF REPORTS

RALEIGH — The Governor’s Highway Safety Program announced Friday that state and local law enforcement officers will be out in force as part of the Labor Day “Booze It & Lose It” campaign to crack down on impaired drivers. The campaign begins today and runs until Sept. 6.

“As we celebrate the end of the summer, I remind motorists to do so responsibly,” said David Weinstein, director of the GHSP. “Impaired driving is simply not worth the consequences. Remember, it’s Booze It & Lose It.”

In 2009, there were 11,304 alcohol-related crashes in North Carolina, resulting in 394 fatalities and 8,791 injuries.

County voters to decide Aug. 31 whether to raise sales rate by 0.25 cents

By Carolina Journal Staff

RALEIGH — Days after opening the most expensive public school in North Carolina's history, Watauga County commissioners will ask voters to approve a $1.9 million tax increase. The John Locke Foundation's latest Regional Brief cites the history of the new Watauga High School while questioning the wisdom of a tax hike.

Watauga voters will head to the polls Aug. 31 to decide whether county commissioners can raise the local sales tax rate by 0.25 cents.

Board of Elections may take action at Tuesday Asheville meeting

By Don Carrington | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — Gov. Bev Perdue’s campaign attorney knew prior to the November 2008 election that her campaign had received more than $28,000 in unreported free air travel over a 20-month period from her friend New Bern attorney Trawick “Buzzy” Stubbs,” according to a report (PDF) prepared in June by State Board of Elections investigator Kim Westbrook Strach.

The Board of Elections is scheduled to discuss “possible action on air travel of 2004 and 2008 gubernatorial campaigns” at a meeting Tuesday in Asheville.

Monday, Oct. 20, 2008, Raleigh attorney John R. Wallace — who represented the Easley and Perdue campaigns, and also served as a legal adviser to the North Carolina Democratic Party — was responding to questions from the Raleigh News & Observer about a Carolina Journal Online story published that day on unreported flights that benefited the 2000 and 2004 Mike Easley campaigns.

By the end of the week, Wallace was trying quietly to account for similar unreported flying for the 2008 Perdue For Governor campaign paid for by Stubbs’ law firm. The firm — Stubbs & Perdue P.A. — is named in part for Bev Perdue’s late husband Gary Perdue, who died in 1997. The flights were made using a plane owned by Stubbs & Perdue. It is against the law for businesses to make contributions to gubernatorial campaigns. While businesses may make in-kind contributions to political parties, the donations must be reported promptly.

Photo: Attorney John Wallace, who has represented the campaigns of Govs. Mike Easley and Bev Perdue, at last year's Board of Elections hearing investigating Easley. Photo by Don Carrington.

By Jana Benscoter | NC Civitas

The $25 million, state-funded, job-creating Jennette’s Pier project in Nags Head has sustained a Nor’easter and a broken wind turbine. That said, recently hired Pier Manager Mike Remige says the project’s timeline is on schedule to open May 21, 2011. The pier’s operating budget alone, Remige mentioned, will cost $578,000 a year, and he followed that up by saying he believes he needs to soon hire four more employees, which is NOT included in the $578,000.

The pier’s budget is to be paid for by Aquarium receipts, and event and fishing fees. Event fees were recently posted on the Jennette’s Pier Web site. According to it, a five-hour event with up to 175 guests costs $3,300. Deposit is $500, as well as $500 each additional hour. Or simply put, increased taxes that have yet to be passed, specifically in Nags Head, Dare County and in the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources budgets.

Gov't-ordered review finds crime lab evidence errors in 190 NC cases, including 3 executions

Analysts at North Carolina's crime lab omitted, overstated or falsely reported blood evidence in dozens of cases, including three that ended in executions and another where two men were imprisoned for murdering Michael Jordan's father, according to a scathing review released Wednesday.

The government-ordered inquest by two former FBI officials found that agents of the State Bureau of Investigation repeatedly aided prosecutors in obtaining convictions over a 16-year period, mostly by misrepresenting blood evidence and keeping critical notes from defense attorneys.

The review of blood evidence in cases from 1987 to 2003 by two former assistant directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation calls for a thorough examination of 190 criminal cases, stating information that could have helped defendants was sometimes misrepresented or withheld.

N.C. counties take varying approaches to cooperating with feds

By Sara Burrows | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — The notion of “sanctuary cities” may face heightened scrutiny from a provision in SB 1070 (PDF), Arizona’s new law targeting illegal immigration.

The provision prohibits counties, cities, and towns from adopting “sanctuary” policies that limit the enforcement of federal immigration law to less than the full extent permitted by federal law.

An op-ed by former Immigration and Naturalization Service general counsel William P. Cook, published July 30 in The Wall Street Journal, said U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton’s decision to uphold that provision — while reversing several others — set a precedent for other states to crack down on what he calls “renegade localities” that refuse to take part in immigration enforcement.

But state wiretap law probably does not apply to routine stops

By Sara Burrows | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — Attorney General Roy Cooper will not say whether it is legal to videotape police officers in public places in North Carolina.

At least one local prosecutor suggests it shouldn’t be, though there’s enough ambiguity in the law to leave some civil liberties advocates leery.

The case of the Maryland motorcyclist facing 16 years in prison for videotaping an “out of control” police officer has spurred a national debate over the legality of the practice.

Anthony Graber was speeding down the highway on his motorcycle when an off-duty state trooper in an unmarked vehicle cut him off, forcing him to the side of the road. The trooper, dressed in plain clothes, got out of his car, pointing his gun at Graber and yelling before identifying himself as “state police.”

Sales tax increases sail through in ’10, unlike past years

By David N. Bass | Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — North Carolina residents have approved seven out of eight local sales tax referenda in 2010, a trend that limited government activists say reflects new tactics county officials are using to sell the tax hikes to voters.

It’s a marked difference from the past two years, when voters rallied against the quarter-cent sales tax by wide margins. In 2008, increases passed just three of 34 times on the ballot, often voted down by 3-to-1 margins.

The sales tax is one of one of two local-option taxes that dozens of counties have considered during the last three years. The other is a 0.4 percent land-transfer tax, which has failed every time it’s been up for a vote. The General Assembly gave counties the right to put the local-option taxes on the ballot beginning in 2007.