RALEIGH
Gov. Bev Perdue said yesterday that county governments would receive nearly $38 million in lottery money earmarked for school construction that she held back six months ago to manage the state's budget woes.
The money, generated from profits by the N.C. Education Lottery, had been intercepted by Perdue along with several hundred million dollars from other dedicated pots of public funds to ensure that she could pay state expenses.
Perdue ended up having to close a $3.2 billion shortfall for the year ending June 30.
"I had to turn over every stone to pay North Carolina's bills -- to pay teachers, to keep schools and other core services running," Perdue said in a prepared statement.
Now that the books are closed on last fiscal year, she said that there was money left over, so she could release the $37.6 million in construction money next week to support school districts in all 100 counties, from $3.9 million for Wake County to $14,052 to Hyde County. Perdue made the announcement at the annual meeting of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners in Hickory, where members gave her rousing applause.
The decision is another among others that shows that Perdue "is committed to working with counties and really trying to form a partnership with counties," association spokesman Todd McGee said.
The delay had forced many counties to look elsewhere for construction money.
In Beaufort County, which is expected to receive $158,092, the holdback forced the county leaders to delay purchases on computer servers and other equipment so it could find money to pay down $33 million in school-construction bonds.
"We had to make some crucial cut to services in the county," Assistant County Manager Jim Chrisman said.
"The county's really happy (now) because the state and the governor realized the initial intention of these (lottery) funds to begin with."
Perdue took criticism for seizing lottery money and an additional $50 million from a lottery reserve fund because the General Assembly approved the lottery in 2005 with the understanding that the money would go only to education programs.
Perdue said during last year's campaign for governor that she wanted to take extra steps to ensure that profits from the lottery were spent solely on education.
The $50 million reserve has not been returned, Perdue spokesman David Kochman said, but legislators reimbursed the Public School Textbook Fund for another $50 million that Perdue decided to take in February when she was faced with state cash-flow problems.
Perdue also took money from the state's "rainy day" reserve fund, which had nearly $800 million, to deal with this past year's shortfall.
Perdue's budget troubles aren't over. A $19 billion spending plan for this year was signed into law just three weeks ago. But her budget office already said that it will hold back 5 percent of money allocated to state agencies because of uncertainty about the state's economy.
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