Since Gov. Bev Perdue ousted one N.C. Highway Patrol commander in favor of a longtime friend, Randy Glover, we've been asking whether she had helped him for much of his career.

It wasn't until late Friday, after announcing Glover had stepped down from the patrol, that Perdue confirmed what one patrol insider had been saying: that she had helped him climb the patrol's hierarchy.
Here is a history of how she and her staff have handled this question since July 1, 2010, shortly after Glover's appointment was announced:

July 2009 (from press secretary Chrissy Pearson): "I talked to the governor about whether she remembered doing any sort of recommendation for Glover. She did not."

Oct. 22: Perdue, from China in a teleconference with reporters, did not answer the question, but noted that Glover's predecessor, Walter J. Wilson Jr., had promoted him to second-in-command. She chastised us for reporting Glover's 1987 transfer for having an affair with a Harnett County dispatcher. "This is a man who is lieutenant colonel of the Highway Patrol. He had an affair nearly 25 years ago. He's married with two beautiful little daughters, and I really, really am disappointed in this kind of journalism. And did I disclose it? I will have to be very honest with you. I never once in any interview for any position ask anyone about their sexual preference, their sexual orientation or their past marital history. I didn't figure it had a thing to do with the job they could do for the people of North Carolina."

Jan. 7: On her blog, Perdue challenges our reporting on Glover. We "went too far when Dan Kane wrote, regarding a past affair by Highway Patrol Col. Randy Glover, that I 'said the affair is irrelevant when it comes to Glover's abilities to lead the Highway Patrol.' This is not true, and Kane's reporting on Col. Glover continues to be peppered with inaccuracies." We asked Pearson to name those inaccuracies. She did not.

July 7: At a news conference to announce get-tough patrol policies, Perdue provides three answers to the promotion question in the following succession:

"I don't think anybody can say who intervened when. I'll tell you what, I didn't intervene when he went from lieutenant colonel to colonel."

"Randy Glover never asked me for a thing."

"I don't intervene in promotions. I don't intervene in promotions. I never intervene in promotions."

She was responding to our report that day that a former patrol secretary, Jacquelyn Walker, said that Perdue helped Glover get promoted to first sergeant in 1995 after his name was left off of a promotions list.

All of this leads up to the statement Perdue issued Friday afternoon, a few hours after Glover stepped down: "I have offered many recommendations on which men and women deserved recognition at agencies throughout state government, including Randy Glover and other qualified troopers at the Highway Patrol."

Such recommendations are not public record under the state's personnel law. This past session, state lawmakers as part of an omnibus ethics bill approved reforms to the law that would make salary and employment histories, and dismissal letters public. But they did not accept Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger's proposal that hiring recommendations from elected officials be made public.

Pearson said Perdue intends to sign the ethics bill into law.

State legislators will be focusing on the issue of diversity in public schools in light of the controversy taking place in Wake County.

As noted in today's article, the General Assembly approved the creation of a legislative study commission on diversity in public schools. The commission could recommend school districts adopt diversity policies and maybe even suggest changing the way the state funds schools to encourage those kind of busing efforts.

The reason for the state attention, backers acknowledge, is all the talk about the Wake school board scrapping the socioeconomic diversity policy.

IBM plans to add 600 jobs over the next two years at its massive campus in Research Triangle Park.

The technology company is opening a business process service center in RTP, Gov. Bev Perdue announced today. The new jobs will pay average annual salaries of $50,000, below the Durham County average of $57,772.

IBM could receive state incentives worth as much as $7.79 million if it meets its hiring goals and keeps the jobs for 10 years.

The news is an economic bright spot from one of the Triangle's largest employers, with about 10,000 local workers.

"We value this company's ongoing commitment to North Carolina and Research Triangle Park," Perdue said in a prepared statement.

A long-awaited report on air travel by gubernatorial candidates in North Carolina discloses one additional unreported flight by Gov. Bev Perdue, bringing to 42 the number of flights she took in the 2004 and 2008 campaign cycles that were not disclosed on public reports.

The flight was to a Michigan fundraiser in Sept. 2007. 

Previously, the Perdue campaign had said that a computer glitch helped identify problems and gave several reasons why so many flights were not reported as required by state elections law.

But the report offers new detail.

"The Perdue Committee has provided several reasons as to why flights were not timely disclosed, including: the fast paced nature of the campaign; lack of staff when the campaign was over; and constant turnover of staff. One reason expressed ... was that the campaign had no process in place to track and disclose information regarding flights," says the report, which was authored by longtime elections investigator Kim Strach.

"Based on the documentation provided by the Perdue Committee and interviews that have been conducted, the committee did have a process in place to obtain information on all flights and calculate the costs of the flight if no invoice was received for the flight. Based on documents produced, the Perdue Committee used a form for capturing data related to flights as early as 2005."

The report details efforts by one Perdue friend, Buzzy Stubbs, to properly account for flights he provided. But ultimately, his more than $28,000 in flights were not paid until recently, documents show.

The report also says:

• Former state treasurer Richard Moore, a Democrat, has destroyed all of his campaign's documents in violation of the state's campaign finance guidelines. "No records should have been destroyed until January 2011," the report says.
• Former Republican candidate for governor Fred Smith did not properly account for use of a plane he owned and traveled on during the 2008 campaign. According to an affidvait from Smith's lawyer, Smith believed he had been advised by the state Board of Elections that it could "be treated like the candidate’s vehicle." But the report says that's not the case, and that all expenses should have been disclosed.
• Former Republican candidate Pat McCrory didn't properly disclose a helicopter flight he took in the final days of the 2008 campaign. It was paid in Feb. 2010.

The report arose out of an earlier probe that dealt with flights provided, but not paid, by the campaign of former Gov. Mike Easley. Easley was fined $100,000 related to flights he took with friend and supporter McQueen Campbell.

A major basis of elections law is that campaigns properly disclose what money they take in and how they spend it. Air travel has been an increasing part of campaigns, moving candidates quickly around the state -- and elsewhere -- to meet with supporters at fundraisers. Because many of those supplying the planes are also donors who had given the maximum amount allowed, the law required that the campaign pay for their travel.

Elections director Gary Bartlett said the full state elections board could take up the new report next month, but in a memo he says that all campaigns had problems and that there appears to be no evidence of "any intent of wrongdoing."

The board could issue rebukes, levy fines or take other action.

Bartlett said that an educational campaign should be undertaken so candidates do better, but otherwise he recommends that "it is time for us to move forward."

-- J. Andrew Curliss

Documents:

The executive director of one of the state's largest employee groups says his organization supports the personnel law reforms as introduced in a Senate bill this week.

The omnibus ethics bill introduced by Senate leaders would make salary and employment histories public for most state and local employees. North Carolina appears to be the only state that limits public personnel information to an employee's current salary or position.

Dana Cope, executive director for the State Employees Association of North Carolina, had said in our recent series about the personnel law, Keeping Secrets, that he saw little issue with making that information public. So, it was not a surprise that he raised no objections when the bill was rolled out in a judiciary committee meeting Tuesday.

"I was surprised, frankly, that the law prohibited that information anyway," Cope said today.

Cope said he would have a problem if the legislation also opened up the release of information related to disciplinary actions. He said too many employees suffer discipline for political reasons, and that pain shouldn't be compounded by making the details public.

On the other hand, he said employees convicted of criminal misconduct should not enjoy such protections.

"In criminal activity, we support the opening of those records," he said.

Gov. Bev Perdue has submitted language that would make public personnel records related to criminal behavior, but that proposal did not make the Senate bill. Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, meanwhile, is pushing to make the details of disciplinary actions public.

The Senate bill had been slated for a vote on the Senate floor only to be pulled back over concerns in an unrelated provision that would provide public financing for several statewide campaigns. It is back before the Senate judiciary committee for more discussion.

On the eve of the election runoff, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall went stumping for votes at tonight's state NAACP rally.

Marshall, one of two candidates competing to be the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, stayed for most of tonight's rally as the Wake school board majority was excoriated for eliminating the diversity policy.

UPDATE

Marshall easily won the runoff Tuesday.

Gov. Bev Perdue's office made public this week draft legislation of personnel law reforms that would make state employees' salary and position histories public and allow the State Treasurer to report the agency for which retirees had previously worked.

The draft legislation also requires the release of personnel records for employees or appointees convicted of felonies. Those records would be limited to information related to the criminal conduct.

Her legislation would also require public boards and commissions to maintain and make public basic personnel information on appointees, such as name, year of birth, and dates of appointment or reappointment.

Perdue limited her legislation to state employees. Her spokeswoman, Chrissy Pearson, suggested in an e-mail message that we talk to the N.C. League of Municipalities or the N.C. Association of County Commissioners "about any push to include local employees."

Neither the league or the association have expressed an interest to change the personnel law for local employees. The league's executive director, Ellis Hankins, has said he likes the law the way it is.

But some of the former employees' whose pay or behavior have created an uproar worked for local governments, and therefore would not come under Perdue's legislation. Among those former employees are two of the biggest recipients of public pensions, Charles Franklin and Billy Williams, and Jessica Wishnask, a former teacher whose suspensions for improper conduct with a student weren't disclosed until she was caught having sex with him and sent to prison.

Pearson said Perdue would be open to legislation that provided more transparency in personnel matters involving local employees.

Perdue's legislation is the second to emerge after we reported earlier this year that North Carolina has one of the nation's most secretive personnel laws. The public is limited to current basic information about state and local employees, such as their current salaries and positions.

The law makes it difficult to track big pay increases or questionable job moves, or to find out about improper hires or the details regarding disciplined or fired employees.

In recent weeks, we have written about how the law is also making it hard to determine how public retirees' pensions have been calculated. Perdue's legislation is intended to make that process transparent. Her staff has been working with state Sen. Josh Stein, a Raleigh Democrat.

The state Senate appears to be taking the lead on passing legislation that would make personnel matters more transparent. Senate Majority Leader Martin Nesbitt, an Asheville Democrat, said Monday that his judiciary committee plans to roll out an ethics package next week that would make salary histories public.

Documents:

Gov. Bev Perdue has made her harshest criticism of the Wake County school system for dropping the socioeconomic diversity policy while also praising the efforts of the Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP.

As reported today in the Wilmington Journal, Perdue said North Carolina is in a "war" over resegregation and that it may be necessary to take the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court. She made her remarks Friday to the N.C. Black Legislative Caucus.

''If it takes going to the Supreme Court of this great country from Wayne County and for Wake County, and for other counties in North Carolina, so be it,'' Perdue said. ''We will stand together, to make sure that all of the children of this state have a chance.''

The 2011 budget approved by the House this morning provides $70 million to start up the N.C. Mobility Fund that Gov. Bev Perdue wants for some big statewide transportation projects that, with one exception, have not been named.

This will be one of the areas for negotiation with the Senate, which did not include the Mobility Fund in its budget proposal.

It isn't new money, as Perdue had proposed (she wanted $74.6 million in DMV fee hikes). It's all diverted from the Highway Trust Fund via two routes: ... [MORE]

These transportation bills were filed Tuesday in the General Assembly:

- HB 1963 (Brubaker) SPEAK, READ, & WRITE ENGLISH/DRIVER LICENSE (has DMV give driver license exam in English only, requires that applicant "be able to proficiently speak or read and write the English language." No definition of "proficiently.")

- HB 1970 (Holloway) ALLOW DOT TO USE RECYCLED ASPHALT

- HB 1975 (Holliman) EXEMPT DOT EQUITY FUNDS/GARVEE BONDS (federal bonds used for Yadkin River I-85 bridge project would not be subject to equity formula)

- HB 2002 (Gibson) DISAPPROVE HEAVY-DUTY VEHICLE IDLING RULE

- HB 2026 (Cole) ESTABLISH MOBILITY FUND (some details on how the money would be raised (lots of DMV fee hikes, a chunk of the money transferred now from Highway Trust Fund to General Fund, and a change that would effectively hike the Highway Use Tax paid on car sales) and spent (interstate maintenance, city streets, congestion mitigation, mobility enhancement and, first and foremost, widening I-85 near the Yadkin River bridge).

Co-sponsor Rep. Nelson Cole is among legislators who expressed doubts about Perdue's call for fee and tax hikes, after the Senate ignored her Mobility Fund proposal entirely. Here's an explanation of the proposal from Perdue's DOT.

- SB 1377 (Preston) SCHOOL BUS RAILROAD CROSSING EXCEPTION