It looks, like for now, the Wake County school board will sign off on staff's recommendation to use $28.8 million out of the $33.9 million in the rainy-day fund.

As noted in today's article, staff made two pitches for using most of the money in the undesignated fund balance. One, staff said it's needed to avoid layoffs. Two, staff said they can replenish much of the fund balance for one more year in 2013.

"Long term, for the health of the school system, we do need to get away from using a significant amount of the fund balance toward recurring expenditures," Chief Business Officer David Neter told the school board. "That is not fiscally ideal. But again as I shared with you when I presented the budget a couple of weeks ago, we’re in survival mode at this point."

UNC Chapel Hill has bailed on a plan to expand a troubled animal research facility in Orange County.

In doing so, it will forfeit $14.5 million in federal stimulus grant funding.

The university had planned to use the money to expand the Bingham Facility, which is west of Carrboro and used for hemophilia research.

But the university says now the $20 million in funding required along with the federal grant makes the project too difficult.

Mark Schultz has the story.

The N.C. Energy Office is urging residents to start preparing now to tap the remaining $1 million available in incentives for energy-efficient appliances.

On Tuesday morning, the Energy Office will activate a web link and phone number (1-877-379-7323) for residents to reserve their incentives.

The rebates range from $75 for an Energy Star-rated freezer and dishwasher to $300 for an Energy Star-raged central AC unit and natural gas furnace. The appliances and equipment must replace older units to qualify for the incentives.

North Carolina plans to create more than 200 internships and fellowships for students and recent grads with $2 million in federal stimulus funds. The programs must promote green-energy careers in energy efficiency, renewable resources and conservation.

The State Energy Office today said its seeking applications from organizations interested in offering the internships. The state would provide between $30,000 and $500,000 to the groups that create the internships, including nonprofits, public and private educational institutions, and state and local government agencies.

For the organizations, it's an opportunity to get some quality labor at a cheap price. For the student interns and fellows, it's an opportunity to gain work experience that could lead to job offers.

The City of Raleigh is the state's only recipient of federal grants to promote geothermal energy.

Raleigh this week won a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The money will be used to build a geothermal air conditioning and heating system at a municipal solid waste facility planned to be built by 2011.

"Because we're getting this grant, it'll pay for itself in two years," said Frederick Battle, Raleigh's director of solid waste services. "After that it's all savings to us."

Raleigh will pitch in the rest of the cost to build the $2.6 million high-efficiency system that will cut energy costs by more than 30 percent.

RTI International won a $3.1 million contract from the Department of Energy to help develop a biomass fuel that could be used as a direct replacement for petroleum.

The Research Triangle Park thinktank will work on the project with Archer Daniels Midland, ConocoPhillips and Albermarle.

"This project will help address our nation’s energy challenges by developing a one-step process to convert biomass materials into usable fuels," said David Dayton, director of Biofuels Research at RTI International, in a prepared statement.

RTI's project is one of 37 that received funding to study alternative energy sources under the Department of Energy's recently-formed Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. ARPA-E is receiving a total of $400 million in federal stimulus money.

Capital Bank’s discount mortgage program, which was established with federal stimulus money, has generated 60 new mortgages totaling more than $20 million during the past two months.

The Raleigh-based bank has another 60 houses that it still wants to sell under its "Buyer's Program," CEO Grant Yarber said. The sales prices of the remaining homes range from $150,000 to $2 million.

The program offers 30-year, 3.95 percent fixed-rate mortgages. The houses in the program were either erected by builders and developers that are Capital Bank clients, or are houses that the bank has foreclosed on or foreclosure is imminent.

Capital Bank loses money on each mortgage under the program, Yarber said. But it is worth it to help its builder/developer customers and to get bad loans off its books.
“We believe it is our duty and our responsibility as a community bank to assist our customers in good times and bad times,” he said.

A California company has applied for a $48 million federal grant to build a wireless broadband network in eastern and coastal North Carolina.

Cleartalk plans to bring the high-speed network to about 2 million people in 38 counties, reports the Daily Reflector in Greenville. The company expects to hear next month if it receive the federal stimulus funding.

If it does, the company will need 392 tower sites to roll out the service. That includes some towers already up but Cleartalk expects to build new towers in some rural areas. The company will hire about 200 people during the next 12 to 18 months if its request is approved.

Here's the quick recap of today's HR/finance commitee meeting.

Wake has rehired 911 of the 1,496 temporary-contract employees who were let go when their contracts expired June 30. More will be brought back.

Wake is still dealing with a $35 million state funding cut.

School officials are trying to downplay public expectations about stimulus money saving the day. They point out it's only guaranteed for two years.

It looks like Wake may have made the right call playing it conservatively with state budget projections.

As noted in today's article, Wake school officials feel they're in good shape to deal with the state budget adopted last week. The state's approximately 4.8 percent funding cut for K-12 education falls in line with the 5 percent figure Wake principals were working on for this upcoming school year.

At this point, Wake isn't expecting to lay off teachers.