RALEIGH, N.C. – Gov. Beverly Perdue’s panel to find ways to root out wasteful spending and reorganize state government met for the first time Tuesday – a committee that fulfills a campaign vow but lacks the same inherent authority to force change as its predecessors.

Speaking to the new Budget Reform and Accountability Commission, Perdue said the state’s fragile fiscal picture will continue for the near future, requiring additional ways to make government leaner and to eliminate outdated programs.

The first-year Democratic governor already has ordered holding back 5 percent of money that’s supposed to go to state agencies from a $19 billion budget from the Legislature that she signed less than three weeks ago.

“The state is going to face another challenge this time next year,” Perdue told the commission, comprised largely of familiar faces to state government, many with Democratic pedigrees. “I need for you all to help me find some resources that we can deploy in a more efficient and effective way.”

Commission leaders want to make their first round of recommendations by February so they can be considered by lawmakers when they return in May for their next regular session.

Nothing is off limits, the leaders said. Topics included efforts under way to examine state’s purchasing and contract method and budget procedures that make it difficult to evaluate whether programs are worth the money spent on them.

“I truly believe no one is here just to be sitting here and talking,” said Hilda Pinnix-Ragland, the commission’s co-chairwoman and head of the state community college board.

The panel held its first meeting nearly three years after Perdue first unveiled the concept, before her gubernatorial campaign began in 2007.

The governor ultimately wants the General Assembly to require itself to vote yes or no, without amendments, on each of the ideas the panel offers to legislators – a method similar to the one Congress uses to vote on base closing recommendations.

But getting legislative leaders to cede authority will be a difficult undertaking in a state that became the last in the country to give its governor the power to veto legislation in 1997.

The veto “isn’t used very often mechanically but it’s used as a threat any day,” said Rep. Jim Crawford, D-Granville, a co-chairman of the House Appropriations Committee who is not on the commission. “I can’t see the Legislature giving up its institutional powers (further) to another branch of the government.”

Given the state’s awful fiscal condition, lawmakers are still interested in what the commission suggested, he said.

“If they come up with a good idea, I think the Legislature would be anxious to implement any efficiencies at this point,” Crawford said.

Perdue said the panel can be effective immediately by offering recommendations that can be implemented quickly by her administration and other agencies without changing state law. With no elected officials on the commission, Perdue argues the recommendations won’t be colored as much by politics. But without legislative cooperation, the panel is essentially advisory in nature and follows a long list of similar efficiency and waste-ridding panels dating back at least 20 years.

She said she’ll take a two-pronged approach to push more dramatic changes the panel offers and requires legislative approval.

“I will work really aggressively to have buy-in from the people of this state as we then work congruently to get buy-in from the Assembly,” Perdue told reporters. “This is not easy.”

A statewide government audit in the early 1990s generated more than 300 recommendations, of which 125 were carried out, said Anne Bander, assistant state budget officer. Then-Gov. Mike Easley created such a commission in 2001 and recommended $241 million in loophole closings and spending efficiencies to lawmakers.

The Legislature ultimately approved some of the 2001 panel’s recommendations on its own, such as removing the $1,500 sales tax cap on automobiles, but other suggestions often have been ignored.

“The problem here has never been a shortage of ideas about how to slim state government down. It’s always been a shortage of political will,” said John Hood, president of the conservative-leaning John Locke Foundation in Raleigh.

That’s not to say creating the panel based on a base-closings model is a bad concept, Hood said. Lawmakers have trouble voting to delete wasteful state programs because they often have been initiated by their colleagues, he said.

Perdue already asked for help last week from teachers and state employees by asking them by video to suggest ways the state can save money. The panel also has a Web page to take ideas from the public.

“At the end of the day I expect to turn this basket upside down and make some things happen,” he said.

DETROIT  – The head of the Obama administration’s autos task force says the government wants to sell its shares in General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC as soon as possible.

Task force chairman Ron Bloom told a congressional panel meeting Monday in Detroit that the government is eager to dispose of the shares.

The U.S. government owns 61 percent of the new General Motors and eight percent of Chrysler. Together the companies have received $65 billion in federal aid. Both recently emerged from bankruptcy protection.

Bloom was testifying before a panel overseeing auto industry bailout money. Treasurers from GM and Chrysler also are scheduled to testify.

WASHINGTON – A group that studies sports in society is urging the Obama administration to step up the federal government’s role in athletics, possibly with a Cabinet-level post.

Sport in Society, based at Northeastern University in Boston, says the enhanced government role could serve several important goals. It says the U.S. could encourage more youth participation, increase access for women and the handicapped, and promote healthier lifestyles.

According to the group’s proposal, made Wednesday, most countries already have a minister or secretary of sport. Sport in Society says the government could create a “Secretary of Sport and Culture,” establish a special adviser, or increase funding for existing programs.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Gov. Bev Perdue launched the first wave of NCOpenBook.gov, a government transparency website for searching state contracts and grants.  Gov. Perdue signed Executive Order No. 4 on Jan. 12, her first day in office, ordering the creation of NC OpenBook.

“In the 21st century online accessibility and transparency should be the standard for public information,” Perdue said.  “We’re going to let the sun shine in on state contracts.”

NCOpenBook.gov provides a database of about 2,500 state contracts and 5,000 grants that are now available in a searchable format.  The Office of State Budget and Management is working with state agencies and departments to streamline their contract databases so that North Carolina will have a comprehensive searchable database online this year on NC OpenBook.gov.

In addition to state contracts and grants, NCOpenBook.gov will feature detailed information about state agency performance measures and planning as outlined in Executive Order No. 3.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – Former top aides to Senate leader Marc Basnight and former Gov. Mike Easley have been named to a new panel designed to recommend ways to rid wasteful spending in North Carolina state government.

Gov. Beverly Perdue on Thursday filled out the remainder of her Budget Reform and Accountability Commission with five additional members.

They include Dan Gerlach, a former Easley budget adviser who now runs the Golden LEAF Foundation, and Norma Houston, once Basnight’s chief of staff.

Other new members are former Glaxo chief executive Charlie Sanders, who was the first chairman of the state lottery commission; IBM executive Curtis Clark; and North Carolina Central University department chairman Ron Penny.

Perdue named Norris Tolson and Hilda Pinnix-Ragland to lead the committee earlier this month.

WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked Congress on Tuesday for broad new powers to regulate nonbank financial companies like troubled insurer American International Group whose collapse could jeopardize the economy.

“AIG highlights broad failures of our financial system,” Geithner told the House Financial Services Committee. “We must ensure that our country never faces this situation again.”

At the same time, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke revealed that he had considered filing suit to keep AIG from paying millions in executive bonuses but that his legal advisers counseled him not to do so.

Geithner acknowledged that the current climate of anger, including the furor over those retention bonuses, will complicate any effort by the Obama administration to get more bailout money from Congress. “We recognize it will be extraordinarily difficult,” he said.

Geithner joined Bernanke in calling for greater governmental authority over complicated and troubled financial companies – power they likened to the authority wielded over banks by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That includes the power to seize control of institutions, take over their bad loans and other illiquid assets and sell good ones to competitors.

AIG is a globally interconnected colossus, with 74 million customers worldwide and operations in more than 130 countries. The government decided it was simply too big to let fail.

“Its failure could have resulted in a 1930s-style global financial and economic meltdown, with catastrophic implications for production, income and jobs,” Bernanke told the panel.

Geithner, Bernanke and New York Fed President William C. Dudley testified in a rare joint appearance before the panel. Their testimony came a day after the Fed unveiled a new bank rescue plan under which the government would take responsibility for up to $1 trillion in sour mortgage securities with the help of private investors.

That delighted Wall Street and the Dow industrials shot up nearly 500 points. On Tuesday, Wall Street gave back some of its gains. The Dow was down just over 30 points in midmorning trading.

Much of Tuesday’s discussion centered on ways to help the government better deal with future AIG-like companies whose failure could devastate the financial system and the drag down the economy.

“As we have seen with AIG, distress at large, interconnected, non-depository financial institutions can pose systemic risks just as distress at banks can,” Geithner said. “The administration proposes legislation to give the U.S. government the same basic set of tools for addressing financial distress at non-banks as it has in the bank context.”

Geithner made it clear he believes the treasury secretary should be granted unprecedented power, after consultation with Federal Reserve Board officials, to take control of a major financial institution and run it. The treasury chief is an official of the administration, unlike the FDIC, which is an independent regulatory agency.

The witnesses were asked if AIG would have been treated any differently, including the payment of $165 million in bonuses earlier this month, if such powers had existed last September, when the Fed began the government bailout of the insurer.

“Quite differently. It could have been taken into receivership or conservatorship. …The bonus issue would not have arisen,” Bernanke said.

He said that contracts providing for the bonuses could have been adjusted and “we could have taken haircuts” against some of AIG’s financial obligations to other companies.

AIG has become a symbol of reckless risk-taking on Wall Street. The House last week voted overwhelmingly to slap 90 percent taxes on the largest bonuses and similar, although not as punitive, legislation is before the Senate.The bonuses came even as AIG reported a stunning $62 billion loss, the biggest in U.S. corporate history.

The government has bailed out AIG four times, to the tune of more than $180 billion altogether.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Monday that 15 employees who received some of the largest bonuses from AIG have agreed to return them in full, totaling about $50 million.

Bernanke said it was “highly inappropriate to pay substantial bonuses” to the employees. Bernanke said he asked that the payments be stopped but was told that they were mandated by contracts agreed to before the government seized control of AIG on September 16.

“I then asked that suit be filed to prevent the payments,” he said. Bernanke said that his legal staff counseled against this action on the grounds that Connecticut law provided for substantial punitive damages in the event any such suit failed. AIG’s financial products division has a base in Connecticut.

The AIG bonuses created a public relations headache for President Barack Obama at a time when he was trying to gin up public and political support for his economic policies, bank-rescue plan and overhaul of the nation’s regulatory structure.

Government bailouts of AIG, Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and others have put billions of taxpayers’ dollars at risk over the past year and have angered the American public.

Twenty local governments, nonprofits and other organizations have received grant awards totaling $48.85 million under the new federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program developed late last year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Gov. Bev Perdue said Wednesday 20 local governments, nonprofits and other organizations have received grant awards totaling $48.85 million under the new federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program developed late last year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The program’s purpose is to assist those areas hit hardest by the housing crisis.

“Foreclosures, subprime mortgages and mortgage defaults are hurting homeowners, families and our communities,” Perdue said. “These new federal funds will go to communities most severely affected by the housing crisis and will be used effectively. I’m encouraging all participating organizations to collaborate in order to leverage these grant funds and make them go even further.”

States were required to identify areas of greatest need based on the number of foreclosure starts and other housing-related statistics from state and national sources. In North Carolina, areas in 23 counties met the “greatest need” criteria: Alamance, Brunswick, Buncombe, Cabarrus, Catawba, Cumberland, Dare, Davidson, Durham, Edgecombe, Forsyth, Gaston, Guilford, Iredell, Johnston, Mecklenburg, New Hanover, Pitt, Randolph, Rowan, Union, Vance and Wake.

See the “Greatest Needs Analysis” map

Forty-six NSP grant applications were submitted by Feb. 3. Of those, 11 local governments and six non-profits were funded for specific areas; the three statewide organizations selected will ensure the areas of greatest need in the 23 counties receive assistance. Brief program descriptions follow this release. Grant recipients:

Local Government Recipients:

• City of Raleigh, $2.5 million;
• Wake County, $2.5 million;
• City of Charlotte, $2.5 million;
• City of Greensboro, $2.5 million;
• City of Winston-Salem, $2.5 million;
• City of High Point, $2.5 million;
• City of Gastonia, $2 million;
• Henderson/Vance County, $2 million;
• City of Durham, $2 million;
• City of Rocky Mount, $2 million;
• City of Lexington, $2 million.

Non-profit Agency Recipients:

• St. Augustine, in Raleigh, $2 million;
• Charlotte Housing Authority, $2 million;
• Guilford Habitat for Humanity, $2 million;
• Forsyth Habitat for Humanity, $2 million; P
• Passage Home (in Wake County), $2 million;
• Greensboro Housing Authority, $2 million.

Statewide Agency/intermediary Recipients:

• Self-Help Credit Union, $2.5 million;
• N.C. Community Development Initiative, $3.5 million;
• N.C. Housing Finance Agency, $4 million.

NSP funding is provided through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. In North Carolina, the NSP grants are administered by the Commerce Department’s Division of Community Assistance. DCA staff developed North Carolina’s guidelines through a public process late last year. Total NSP grant funding to North Carolina is $52.1 million; 5 percent of that will be used by DCA to implement and monitor the program.

To ensure that funds are used most effectively, HUD recommended a minimum award of $2 million. DCA staff evaluated the 46 applications and more than 9,000 pages of documentation using a scoring system designed to be sure that the state complies with federal regulations and uses the funds most effectively. Selection criteria were based on severity of need (50 points); treatment of need, i.e., how the needs would be addressed (20 points); capacity of applicant and program administrators (20 points); mitigation of fraud, waste and abuse (5 points); socio-economic factors (4 points); and green building components and techniques (1 point).

Learn more about the NSP program
Here is what the cities plan to do with the money:

City of Charlotte

The city will utilize NSP funds to engage the private sector to promote home ownership purchases and rehabilitation in the areas of greatest need and target specific neighborhoods within the areas of greatest need experiencing high levels of foreclosures. Specifically, the city’s proposed activities include down- payment assistance and housing rehabilitation. As a result of funds, the city anticipates serving approximately 100 low to middle-income households.

City of Durham

The city proposes to use NSP funds to help stimulate the development of mixed-income neighborhoods in the city’s area of greatest need. Through a down-payment assistance program, the city plans to serve 36 tenant households and approximately 47 future homeowners.

City of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County (WSF) proposes to use NSP funds to provide financing for the purchase and rehabilitation of foreclosed homes in neighborhoods which have experienced and/or are anticipated to incur high rates of foreclosure. These homes will be made available with attractive financing to homebuyers and non-profit affordable housing providers. The WSF project plans to serve a total of 101 low- to middle-income households.

City of Gastonia

The city proposes to use NSP funds to purchase and rehabilitate 14 foreclosed properties. The city’s overall goal is to provide homeownership opportunities to participants in the NSP Individual Development Account program as well as through a lease-purchase program. All of the city’s NSP activities will take place in the identified areas of greatest need. Due to the market absorption of foreclosed properties, the city will look to areas within the city to acquire properties not absorbed by the investor market when necessary.

City of Greensboro

The City of Greensboro’s NSP-Funded Housing Assistance Program proposes to address four objectives: 1) reduce the inventory level of foreclosed properties through incentives for homebuyer purchase, 2) reduce the inventory of dilapidated foreclosed properties through targeted acquisition and rehabilitation, 3) maintain homeownership levels, and 4) increase the availability of permanent supportive housing. The activities will be carried out in areas defined as high foreclosure risk where there are complementary community development activities and active partnerships under way to create synergies for long-term neighborhood stabilization.

City of High Point

The city proposes to use NSP funds to acquire, rehabilitate and resell 40 foreclosed properties. In addition to reselling rehabilitated properties, the city will build 10 new homes. It is anticipated that potential homebuyers participating in the city’s homebuyer education and foreclosure prevention training programs will be likely purchasers of rehabilitated properties.

City of Lexington

The affordable housing partners of the Homeownership Plan have identified a number of potential customers. These programs primarily serve families below 80 percent AMI (area median income). Based on the housing prices of foreclosed homes, it is necessary to create a mechanism for identifying buyers that are 80-120% percent AMI. As a member of The Association of Realtors, Lexington Housing and Community Development Corp. works closely with local Realtors and lenders. Lenders will also pay an important role in identifying customers 80-120 percent AMI.

The program will be openly advertised to the general public and clients of the Homeownership Plan partners. Contracts will be made available on a first come, first served basis. Customers must agree to homebuyer education/housing counseling requirements and obtain mortgage loans that meet affordability guidelines. The City’s financial assistance will not be used to leverage sub-prime mortgage products. Housing Counselors will assist in determining the household’s mortgage readiness and will review loan products of NSP buyers.

City of Raleigh

The goal of the Raleigh Neighborhood Stabilization Program is to strategically convert foreclosed properties into low-, moderate- and middle-income (LMMI) housing opportunities to stabilize targeted neighborhoods. Specifically, the city will acquire at least 30 foreclosed residential properties, rehabilitate 15 units for resale to LMMI homebuyers or for rental opportunities for households at or below 50 percent of area median income.

City of Rocky Mount

The City of Rocky Mount plans to use the NSP funds in a multi-prong approach, first concentrating on neighborhoods for which redevelopment plans are prepared and implementation has begun and then looking to additional areas with the greatest need. The NSP will be used to supplement current activities with an emphasis on abandoned and foreclosed properties.

Vance County/City of Henderson

Vance County and the City of Henderson have experienced tremendous job loss in recent years which has caused a large number of mortgage and tax foreclosures. There are approximately 20 structures that recently have been sold because of foreclosure. The city and county have 77 properties that have been turned over to an attorney to work through the foreclosure process. Eleven properties are currently owned by the city and county as a result of tax foreclosure process, of which 9 are currently on the market to be sold. In addition to foreclosed properties, the city and county have identified 125 properties that have been abandoned and are now considered blighted properties. With the assistance of NSP funds, Vance County plans to acquire, rehabilitate, demolish blighted structures, construct new dwellings, and provide down payment assistance to low-moderate-and middle income (LMMI) individuals and families.

Wake County

Wake County’s goal for the NSP is to stabilize neighborhoods and prevent abandonment and blight in areas of the county stricken with high numbers of foreclosures. We will do this by repopulating these foreclosed and abandoned homes with families and individuals who qualify as low-, moderate-, and middle-income, and are in need of affordable housing. At least 30 percent of the families assisted through the NSP program will have incomes that are less than 50 percent of the area median income, and the remaining families have incomes that are less than 120 percent of the AMI.

Our objectives are to contract with non-profit organizations that will purchase foreclosed homes at a 15 percent discount of the appraised value, rehabilitate these homes where necessary, and sell them to prequalified homeowners who have received homeowner counseling and are well equipped to maintain a home and its related responsibilities. The non-profit organization will identify homes to purchase that are located in areas of greatest need determine by a high number of foreclosures in neighborhoods that are at risk of future foreclosures.

Neighborhood Revitalization for Non-profits

Charlotte Housing Authority

The Charlotte Housing Authority’s NSP strategy is to 1) increase the number of units available for families making less than 30 percent of median income who may have been displaced by the mortgage crisis and 2) target specific multi-family properties within the areas of greatest need to ensure neighborhood stabilization in these areas. The Charlotte Housing Authority’s efforts are focused primarily on creating rental opportunities as a part of multi-family redevelopment efforts. The Charlotte Housing Authority plans to serve approximately 300 households with NSP funds.

Greensboro Housing Authority

The Greensboro Housing Authority plans to use NSP funds to purchase and rehabilitate 30 foreclosed properties in greatest need areas of Greensboro. These units will be made available for affordable rental housing.

Habitat for Humanity of Forsyth County

The Habitat for Humanity of Forsyth County will use NSP funds to purchase vacant, foreclosed homes within the greatest needs areas of the county that have high rates of foreclosures and also where there has already been substantial investment in mixed-income housing. Key neighborhoods to be targeted include: Scotland Ridge, Shalimar, Ridgewood, Pleasant Hills, Thornaby and Bedford Park.

Habitat for Humanity of Guilford County

The Habitat for Humanity of Guilford County will use NSP funds to provide high quality workforce housing and stem neighborhood decline. Specifically, funds will be used to purchase 24 foreclosed properties and make them available for purchase by eligible homebuyers.

Passage Home Inc. (South Raleigh)

Passage Home Inc. will use NSP funds to promote neighborhood stabilization and energy-efficient affordable housing by replacing properties adversely affected by foreclosure issues in south Raleigh. Specifically, funds will be used to acquire foreclosed homes at a discount, redevelop and/or rehabilitate properties for purchase by eligible homebuyers or rent to low to moderate income households.

Saint Augustine Community Development Corp. (Southeast Raleigh)

Saint Augustine Community Development Corporation through the Southeast Raleigh Stabilization Partnership seeks to purchase foreclosed and abandoned residential properties located near State Street and the Idlewild and College Park neighborhoods. The goal of this project is to rehabilitate or redevelop foreclosed properties in to homeownership opportunities for low to moderate to middle income households that currently reside in the target area.

Statewide Intermediaries

N.C. Housing Finance Agency

The North Carolina Housing Finance Agency will use NSP dollars to fund a second mortgage program for households at or below 120 percent of area median income wanting to purchase rehabilitated foreclosed properties. This second mortgage program will be available among the 23 areas of greatest need as identified in the NSP Guidelines.

Self-Help Credit Union

Self-Help will use NSP dollars to fund a loan-loss reserve. The loan-loss reserve will be used for eligible 1) homebuyers of foreclosed properties at or below 120 percent of area median income, and 2) non-profit and for-profit affordable housing developers for the purchase and rehabilitation of foreclosed properties. These NSP funds will be available among the 23 areas of greatest need as identified in the NSP Guidelines.

N.C. Community Development Initiative

The goal of this collaborative effort is to significantly enhance the ability of community development corporations, other non-profits and units of local government to engage with DCA and use State NSP resources to stabilize and rebuild communities within the identified areas of greatest need. The NC NCSP Collaborative proposes to provide services to all 23 counties identified by DCA as greatest need areas. More specifically, the Collaborative will target those areas where there may be gaps in service or a lack of institutional or organizational capacity to undertake State NSP activities.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Gov. Bev Perdue today announced the location of the Regional Health Reform discussion she will lead on March 31.  The discussion will be held at the Alumni Foundation Event Center on the campus of North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro.

“It’s important that North Carolinians will have a voice in shaping the nation’s health care reform,” said Gov. Perdue.  “Our best and brightest have the opportunity to speak up and be a part of a process that will help bring health care that is high-quality, affordable and accessible to all.”

A website containing details on the Regional Health Reform discussion has been set up.  Citizens can go to www.healthforum.nc.gov to learn more about the event.  New information will be posted as it becomes available.

Dr. Daniel Gitterman, recently named senior advisor on health and human services on a part-time basis, will help coordinate planning for the Regional Health Reform discussion.

Individuals and groups who wish to participate can go to the website, fill out a form and email it to Dr. Gitterman and members of the event planning committee at healthforum@nc.gov or call 1-888-818-8058.

The North Carolina discussion on health reform is one of five regional discussions across the country the Obama administration is conducting.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama approved an order Wednesday to overhaul the way the U.S. government awards contracts for work to be done by the private sector, reversing a Bush administration policy.

Obama joined Republican Sen. John McCain, his presidential campaign rival, and other congressional figures to announce an executive memorandum that commits his administration to a new set of marching orders for awarding contracts. Obama said “the days of giving government contractors a blank check are over” and said changes could save up to $40 billion a year.

One area in particular that is targeted is no-bid contracts, which the administration is seeking to change so that there will be more competition for government-paid work.

“Even if these were the best of times, budget reform would be overdue in Washington,” Obama said.

Obama’s presidential memo changes government contracting procedures. It directs Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, to work with Cabinet and agency officials to draft new contracting rules by the end of September. Those new rules, White House aides say, will make it more difficult for contractors to bilk taxpayers and make some half-trillion dollars in federal contracts each year more accessible to independent contractors.

Obama said the package of reforms could save up to $40 billion each year.

“We will stop outsourcing services that should be performed by the government and open up the contracting process to small businesses,” he said. “We will end unnecessary no-bid and cost-plus contracts that run up a bill that is paid by the American people. And we will strengthen oversight to maximize transparency and accountability.”