After winning the District 22 state Senate seat last week, Mike Woodard (right) resigned his City Council seat at Thursday's council work session.

After congratulatory applause, Councilman Eugene Brown handed Woodard a bottle of red wine.

"Based upon the current makeup of the state Senate, you may need a little more of this," he said.

Woodard, a Democrat going into the Republican-dominated legislature, looked at the label.

"Based on the current makeup," Woodard said, "this says it's only 13.5 percent alcohol."

Woodard's resignation is effective Dec. 31. The remaining council members will elect a successor to serve out the last year of his term in January.
 

Claim: “Erv Portman was the only county commissioner to vote against increasing by $4 million classroom funding in the Wake County Public Schools.”

Source: A print ad distributed by the N.C. Republican Party

Context: Erv Portman is a Wake County Commissioner running as a Democrat for a seat in the state Senate representing District 17. His opponent is Tamara Barringer.

A recent ad by the N.C. GOP calls Portman “wrong on education” because of his vote against an increase in classroom funding.

Senate budget writers would offer $87 million more to the UNC system than their N.C. House counterparts have proposed.

But K-12 and community colleges would take a bigger hit, according to new spending targets released Tuesday by Senate officials.

As Lynn Bonner and Craig Jarvis report in today's paper, the Senate would spend about $40 million less overall on education than the House would, while apportioning that spending in different ways.

K-12 education would receive $106 million less than the House's version, while community colleges would get about $21 million less.

Updated, 11:15 a.m.

The State Senate's budget proposal would grant the UNC system authority to furlough its employees.

The university wants this and in recent weeks has lobbied extensively for the authority, a formal mechanism it would need before implementing the unpaid time off.

UNC system President Erskine Bowles has said furloughs, while not ideal, would be far preferable to the level of job cuts he said would occur if Gov. Beverly Perdue's proposed budget was approved.

Under that budget, about 1,200 jobs would be lost within the university system, half of which would be faculty positions, Bowles has said.

The Senate budget, which rolls out today, is said to be somewhat friendlier to education. It proposes a 4 percent budget cut, which is 2 percent less than Perdue's proposal.

"It's a great step forward from the governor's budget for our students," said Ernie Murphrey, the UNC system's vice president for finance.

To help offset that 4 percent cut, the Senate proposal would allow campuses to increase tuition by as much as $750.

It would scrap the law enacted last year that takes tuition revenues away from the campuses and deposits it into the state's general fund. 

Murphrey emphasized that tuition won't necessarily go up simply because the university has the authority to raise it.

"We're going to have to analyze it and talk to the campus about what to do," Murphrey said. "We're asking the campuses what they'd do if they had that authority."

Check back here at at www.newsobserver.com for more details as they come out.