Facing budget cuts of more than $2 million, Legal Aid of North Carolina plans to eliminate about 30 positions and close its offices in Smithfield, Boone and Henderson by the end of September.

Those three offices have served about 2,000 households a year in Johnston, Harnett, Sampson, Allegheny, Ashe, Avery, Mitchell, Watauga, Wilkes, Vance and Yancey counties.

The nonprofit looked at furloughs and salary cuts but the reductions in funding were too great, said George Hausen, Legal Aid of North Carolina's executive director.

Legal Aid's total budget was around $20 million a year before the cuts.

By closing rural offices, Legal Aid hopes to maximize the number of poor people it serves at its current funding level.

"We serve poor people, and in the rural areas we have to travel a much greater distance to serve fewer people," Hausen said.

"In order to keep the numbers high and serve as many poor people as we possibly could we decided that we needed to circle the wagons in the big, urban offices."

Amid a long discussion this morning on the budget cuts hanging over the UNC system, one member of the system's governing board spoke of what he called the university's "social compact."

That being, the cycle the university sets in motion by bringing a student to a public university.

Here's what Charlie Mercer said:

For many years, this university has educated people across this state that go back to their communities and contribute. When those students have gone to the university, the people in their community are very proud of them. There's an emotional component. They're going to go back to their community. So that one educated person will help that community. There's a societal benefit. We can't lose sight of that.
 

A UNC-Chapel Hill daycare center more than 40 years old is getting chopped by the budget axe.

The child care center at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute will close in July 2013, according to this memo on the institute's website.

"The decision to close in no way reflects on the quality of the program or its importance in the community," the memo reads in part. "Budget reductions have driven us to this decision. With ongoing budget recutions by the state and other grant agencies, FPG cannot continue to subsidize the costs of operating a high-quality, inclusive early care and education program."

The institute itself is in no jeopardy, the memo states.

Wildlife in North Carolina, a taxpayer supported monthly magazine, is moving to a bimonthly publishing schedule in response to looming budget cuts.

The magazine had been receiving roughly $750,000 annually from the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission to subsidize its publication.

Several months ago the agency informed the magazine that the money, which represented more than half of its budget, would likely no longer be available.

"It became apparent quickly that we could no longer afford to publish monthly, and that we needed to explore advertising," Greg Jenkins, the magazine's editor, said in an e-mail to freelancers announcing the changes.

The magazine will now publish six times a year and publish two free guides, a fall hunting guide and a spring fishing and boating guide.
 

 The nursing school at UNC-Chapel Hill is cutting enrollment 25 percent to save money.

That means the school will admit 152 students next year, down from 208.

The enrollment reduction starts with students admitted for the summer semester that starts in May.

The move is a reaction to ongoing budget pressures, including a 5 percent permanent cut instituted by the university in January and additional cuts expected to reach as high as 15 percent.

The move is a rare, tangible example of how the ongoing budget pressures are restricting access to public higher education in North Carolina. UNC system campuses generally try not to restrict access to their programs.

“We are committed to offering high-quality, rigorous and safe programs for entry into nursing practice at the baccalaureate and advanced practice levels,” said School of Nursing Dean Kristen M. Swanson. “The budget challenges have left us little alternative but to reduce the number of students we enroll.”

The enrollment reductions must be implemented now because postponing them until January 2012 would not allow adequate savings to meet budget requirements, according to a news release. The school continues to explore additional means to absorb the anticipated budget cuts.

School of Nursing students have two options for preparation to enter into practice as a registered nurse (RN): the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) six-semester program or the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) four-semester program for applicants with a baccalaureate or higher degree in another field of study. Together, the BSN and ABSN programs have been graduating approximately 200 new nurses each year.

The projected need for nurses continues to grow because of health-care reform, the health-care needs of the aging Baby Boomer generation and an aging nursing workforce.

“Given the nursing shortage it is truly unfortunate to find ourselves reducing enrollments to the levels we realized 10 years ago,” Swanson said. “However, we cannot sacrifice the quality or safety of nursing education, so our difficult choice was to reduce the number of students.”

Big changes are coming at N.C. State.

Chancellor Randy Woodson announced plans today for a major reorganization aimed at rooting out underperforming or non-critical departments, programs and units.

It's a budget-cutting measure intended to streamline the university and mirrors a similar initiative soon to get underway on the UNC system level.

Jay Price has today's story here.

And here's a video and text copy of Woodson's announcement.

In today's paper, the full story on new UNC President Tom Ross's desire to seek out duplication within the UNC system.

This should be an interesting process. On individual campuses, faculties aren'g generally programmed to think first about working collaboratively with their counterparts at other public institutions. It happens, but it isn't as high a priority as it's going to become.

Ross's first big venture will seek out what he calls "unnecessary duplication" among academic programs, an endeavor sure to result in some hurt feelings and turf wars.

Here's the story.

A 5 percent cut to the UNC system budget - which officials say is a reasonable expectation -  could result in the loss of 900 jobs across the state.

Of those, 400 would like be faculty cuts, according to data being presented this morning to the UNC system's Board of Governors.

After several years of budget cuts, the system appears ready to reduce its budget again, doing its part to help the state patch a hole in its budget estimated now at more than $3.5 billion.

A 10 percent cut would more than double those job eliminations - to 2,000 positions across the UNC system, including 1,000 professor slots.

UNC-Chapel Hill has already instituted a permanent 5 percent budget cut effective July 1. In dollars, that's $26 million.

And fewer instructors means fewer classes offered. The data also suggests the loss of 2,750 course sections across the UNC system with a 5 percent cut. With a 10 percent cut, 6,400 class sections would get the axe.

Stay tuned for more.

Gov. Beverly Perdue has unveiled an ambitious plan today to plug the state's massive budget hole through a consolidation of state agencies.

As Rob Christensen reports here, Perdue proposes a hiring freeze while merging 14 state agencies into eight. As part of the move, 100 or more computer service centers across state government would  be shut down, and a private firm would be brought in to help run computer operations.

Perdue's plan makes no mention of the UNC system or any level of public education in North Carolina. It isn't clear whether her plan to freeze hiring would apply to universities and community colleges.

Stay tuned for details as we learn more.

So you think North Carolina is the only state where budget cuts for higher education gets people wound up?

Check this out- The University of Kentucky's board of trustees recently approved a retro-active pay hike for its president, Lee T. Todd, Jr., a $157,000 bump said bring his salary more in line with what his peers earn.

Here's the thing: It came at a time of great budget angst in Kentucky; university faculty and staff haven't gotten raises in several years, and folks there are pretty riled that the president got the big pay hike.

Oh, and it's effective last year, a turn-the-clock-back move that will let Todd draw more when he retires.

It's not a raise, trustees insist. It's a "reclassification."

He now earns more than $511,000. By comparison, Chancellors Holden Thorp at UNC-Chapel Hill and Randy Woodson at N.C. State earn $420,000.

So here's where it gets good. Some enterprising soul in Kentucky put the whole raise, er, reclassification issue into perspective, youtube style.

Enjoy.