Following the Money

 
 
 
In what may have been a well staged “dog-and-pony show,” the NC House of Representative Appropriations Committees held a well publicized public meeting on Monday, September 24, 2010, at the McKinnon Center, in Raleigh, NC.  Where representatives of various groups spoke for two minutes before a panel of Appropriations Committee chairpersons. Issues raised by speakers at the Monday Public Hearing, may have been pitched before a more receptive audience if they had lobbied with Action Greensboro on Wednesday, May 26, 2010, allowing them to speak and luncheon with elected officials and staff members, as published in the media. In the 2009 appropriations year, when an estimated 5,000+ teachers across the state  lost their jobs, the General Assembly appropriated  more than $3,000,000  to support Master  and Ph.D. degree programs in Nanoscience, a new 100,000 Sq. Ft. Classroom & Research Building, and 8 million dollars for equipment at Gateway when no such degree programs existed.
 
 
 
Office of Governor
Office of Governor

Responding to your question about State funds for the joint Graduate School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering at NC A&T and UNC-G's Millennium Campus.
The legislature has appropriated $6.4 million in operating funds to the school, beginning with a $1.4 m appropriation in FY 2007-08. These appropriations are summarized below.

FY 2007-08

$1,400,000

Recurring

FY 2008-09

$1,500,000

Recurring

 

$1,500,000

Non-Recurring

FY 2009-10

$1,000,000

Recurring

FY 2010-11

$1,000,000

Recurring

TOTAL

$6,400,000

 
The UNC System has stated that it intends to request an additional $1 million in FY 2011-12 and an additional $1 million in FY 2012-13; those are expected to be the last operating funding requests.

In addition, the legislature has authorized the following capital funding for the project:

·         In FY 2004-05, the legislature authorized $3.8 million in self-liquidating bonds (that is, bonds whose interest and principal is intended to be fully paid with the revenue that the project generates. In this case, the revenue was from a private gift.).

·          In FY 2007-08, the legislature provided $53 million of authorization for COPS; this amount was reduced to $49,274,294 in the FY 2009-10 budget because interests rates had been lower than expected.

·         Also in FY 2007-08, the budget included $5 million in cash for capital costs associated with the project; typically, case appropriations such as this are for expenses such as planning and site development, but I cannot say with certainty that that was the intent.
Fiscal Research Division  North Carolina General Assembly

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