RALEIGH, N.C. – Gov. Beverly Perdue is seeing – as are her predecessors – how difficult it is to establish and retain a legacy, even those fashioned with catchy names.
Facing one of the state’s worst fiscal situations in decades, Perdue’s two-year state budget proposal would take a paring knife to the Smart Start and More at Four early childhood education programs championed respectively by former Govs. Jim Hunt and Mike Easley.
And Perdue, a fellow Democrat, would lop off completely the Support Our Students after-school program unveiled 15 years ago by Hunt, Perdue’s mentor, that worked with more than 14,000 students last year to keep them out of trouble.
The loss of Support Our Students “could be very, very devastating in some communities,” said Sorien Schmidt with the advocacy group Action for Children North Carolina. “It just puts parents in a bind.”
Perdue also couldn’t begin quite like she wanted on her broad “College Promise” program because there wasn’t enough money to begin efforts to make community college tuition free. She instead wants more university financial aid and job-retraining grants for community college students.
With the state struggling to narrow a $3.4 billion budget shortfall next year and political sway transient, it’s difficult for a governor to get a pet project started or keep it once out of office.
