The so-called short session is designed to tweak the two-year state budget approved in 2011

Gov. Bev Perdue will ask legislators to spend an additional $562 million on K-12 schools and increase the state sales tax in the $20.9 billion budget she plans to release Thursday.

The annual North Carolina state budget dance is about to begin in earnest now that legislators know how much money they'll have to spend. Republican legislators still have yet to hear formally from their partner - Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue - about what she'd like.

Some budget tightening was worthwhile, several superintendents said, leading to creative new approaches. Mostly, though, the 25 superintendents who spoke said the cuts had taken a heavy toll in school districts across the state.

In a way, the very idea of state budget reform presumes some basic level of government transparency. Many simply take for granted the premise that access exists to information like budget documents and state expenditures. Yet the amount of information related to the spending of tax dollars provided by each of the state governments varies wildly.

With state and local education budgets under pressure and questions about student achievement front and center, administrators, parents, and teachers are now looking to advanced and increasingly less-expensive technology as a way to help address some of the current issues in education. One school district in particular, the Mooresville Graded School District, in Mooresville, NC stands out as an example of how technology can help improve student achievement in times of tightening budgets

Perdue said her spending proposal for the year starting July 1 will call for a temporary sales tax increase of three-quarters of a penny, whose revenues would be dedicated to public education. That would raise the sales tax consumer in most counties pay from 6.75 percent to 7.5 percent.

North Carolina state government is undergoing the biggest reorganization in 40 years, in an effort by Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue - with the support of the GOP legislature - to save money during difficult financial times.

How to close North Carolina's projected $139 million Medicaid shortfall this year is once again breeding conflict between the governor's office and Legislature.

North Carolina should expand NCOpenBook.gov to provide transaction-level detail updated daily with spending and revenue for all of state government. Each state agency should provide easy access to its transaction information on every page of its website.

Under the bill, about $8.2 million in uncommitted One North Carolina Fund and Job Development Investment Grant money would be transferred to the General Fund to help reduce the state's $3.7 billion budget deficit.

Splitting 3-3, the N.C. Supreme Court has let stand a lower court ruling that former Gov. Mike Easley acted improperly in 2002 when he raided the state's Highway Trust Fund to plug a $1 billion budget shortfall. A spokesman for Gov. Bev Perdue said she does not feel restricted by the ruling, which applies only to the Easley case. Perdue moved money during the last budget cycle from the Clean Water Trust Fund, the lottery reserve fund and funds for building public schools and buying textbooks.  Perdue is now facing a predicted 2011 revenue shortfall of over $3 billion. Her office said the state's top executive has a constitutional duty to balance the budget during an economic crisis.

Nearly everywhere, tax revenue plummeted as property values tanked, incomes dwindled and consumers stopped shopping. Falling prices for stocks and real estate have made mincemeat of often underfunded public pension plans. Unemployed workers have swelled the demand for welfare and Medicaid services. Governments that were frugal in the past are just squeaking by. Governments that were lavish in the good times, building their budgets on optimism and best-case scenarios, now risk being wrecked like a shantytown in an earthquake.

With state and local education budgets under pressure and questions about student achievement front and center, administrators, parents, and teachers are now looking to advanced and increasingly less-expensive technology as a way to help address some of the current issues in education. One school district in particular, the Mooresville Graded School District, in Mooresville, NC stands out as an example of how technology can help improve student achievement in times of tightening budgets

North Carolina should expand NCOpenBook.gov to provide transaction-level detail updated daily with spending and revenue for all of state government. Each state agency should provide easy access to its transaction information on every page of its website.

The state should discontinue the confusing practice of allocating funds to each school district using various funding formulas. Coupled with open enrollment for schools statewide, student-centered funding would ensure that schools of the parents' choosing receive funds necessary to educate each child and nothing more. The state should also implement a merit pay system for teachers that will pay a portion of their salary based on the value that they add to their students' academic performance.

North Carolina should define government's role in each policy area. Some policy goals are better achieved by families, charities, or free enterprise.  It should post budget bills online 72 hours before the first vote and provide a five-year fiscal note with each budget.   The state should also expand the rainy day fund to 10 percent of General Fund appropriations in the most recent fiscal year.

Article presenting seven steps that would make future budgets better, including posting budget bills online 72 hours before the first vote and providing a five-year fiscal note with each budget.

Analysts put liability at $3.23 trillion - more than $10,000 per person.

Public sector compensation and retirement benefits have made headlines lately for their sheer size and weight in comparison to the private sector. The problem of unfunded liabilities is decades in the making, but the bills are starting to come due this legislative session. Budget leaders are learning that they won't have decades to undo this disaster.

The North Carolina General Assembly gave final approval Wednesday to a new state government budget that contains no raises for state employees for a second straight year and threatens to underfund pension contributions even more if extra money doesn't arrive from Congress.  Gov. Beverly Perdue signed the bill into law, marking the first time a budget was approved on schedule since 2003.

Nearly everywhere, tax revenue plummeted as property values tanked, incomes dwindled and consumers stopped shopping. Falling prices for stocks and real estate have made mincemeat of often underfunded public pension plans. Unemployed workers have swelled the demand for welfare and Medicaid services. Governments that were frugal in the past are just squeaking by. Governments that were lavish in the good times, building their budgets on optimism and best-case scenarios, now risk being wrecked like a shantytown in an earthquake.

To all the other fiscal travails facing this country’s states and largest cities, now add their pension obligations, which are far greater than they may realize or are willing to admit. This paper focuses on the crisis in funding teachers’ pensions, because education is often the largest program area in state budgets, making it an obvious target for cuts.

This all boils down to who gets to pick taxpayers' pockets first, public pensioners or municipal bond investors? More people are waking up to the hard reality that when it comes to state and local government, somebody has to lose money over the next few decades. The National Association of Bond Lawyers is worried enough about it to issue "Considerations" for advising clients who think they're getting safe investments.

Despite an organized campaign to stop public pension reform, reality is beginning to break through.  One recent report outlines a possible path to long-term solutions and another details the necessity of states and municipalities finding their own way because federal bailout is impossible.  And Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel released a plan that could have been based on both reports.

Hey, young public employees, what are you going to do when your pension checks bounce after you paid in for decades? That is what will happen in many - maybe all - states and municipalities sooner or later if they do not reform right now. If you want to see the future, just look at Illinois. One citizen there did, and came up with a real reform plan that might work.

Public employees should take their pension money now and run to avoid risk of getting reduced benefits - or nothing - in the future. It's the best deal for them and for taxpayers. A growing chorus of credible voices including the Government Accountability Office, a Federal Reserve bank and now the Harvard Kennedy School Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government confirm state and local government finances are "spiraling out of control" and even draconian reforms only make it "more likely" that future benefits will paid in full.

Hey, young public employees, what are you going to do when your pension checks bounce after you paid in for decades? That is what will happen in many - maybe all - states and municipalities sooner or later if they do not reform right now. If you want to see the future, just look at Illinois. One citizen there did, and came up with a real reform plan that might work.

This is what it sounds like when the Federal Reserve Bank screams: "Much has been written about the various headwinds restraining economic activity over the near term. However, our economy also has other headwinds to confront over the medium- to-longer-term. ... the finances of some state and local governments are also under stress and in need of serious adjustments."  - Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Sandra Pianalto

State legislatures are still working out the logistics to make the July 1 budget deadline. The states on the West Coast are working on getting their finances in some semblance of order, while those on the East Coast are still struggling to balance their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year.

Public sector compensation and retirement benefits have made headlines lately for their sheer size and weight in comparison to the private sector. The problem of unfunded liabilities is decades in the making, but the bills are starting to come due this legislative session. Budget leaders are learning that they won't have decades to undo this disaster.