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RALEIGH - Gov. Bev Perdue is unhappy with a list of $634.2 million in possible spending cuts proposed by state agencies, telling Cabinet secretaries to go back and look again for more significant changes.

Some budget cutting will be needed to bridge what's now projected to be a $2 billion to $3 billion gap in North Carolina's $21.1 billion state budget, which expires June 30.

With his term winding down at the end of 2008, former Gov. Mike Easley ordered state agencies to look for spending cuts of up to 7 percent. Those suggestions were boiled down from extensive briefing documents to a four-page summary given this week to Perdue, who took the oath of office Jan. 10.

"She wants them to go a little bit deeper," said Chrissy Pearson, a Perdue spokeswoman. "We're talking about making government more efficient rather than just not buying a box of paper clips."

Pearson said that some of the suggestions on the current list of cuts "might be reasonable."

But Perdue wants her own newly appointed Cabinet secretaries to look over their agencies and come up with their own list of budget cuts.

Those instructions came on the same day the General Assembly gaveled into session, with much of the chatter focused on how to fix the state's ailing budget. Legislators will have to craft a spending plan that will take effect July 1.

House Speaker Joe Hackney noted that it was the governor's job to ensure the current budget is balanced.

"The way our constitution works: We budget and if the revenues don't come in, the governor cuts to make us balanced. That's what's happening," Hackney said.

The cuts Perdue was handed this week cover almost every state agency, except the Department of Public Instruction, community college and university systems - areas that Easley and Perdue vowed to protect from the worst of the budget cutting. The proposed cuts would affect programs that serve everyone from newborns to the elderly.

In one line item, for example, the state's Smart Start program that provides education to children under 5 years old would trim $14.6 million of its $210 million budget.

Administrators at the state level did not pick out ways to recoup that money, said Cyndie Bennett, director of child development for Health and Human Services.

"We have local (Smart Start) boards with local decision making authority," she said. Those local boards would be asked to chose which programs to cut.

The Highway Patrol would end up cutting $5.8 million of its $172 million budget, said Capt. Everett Clendenin, a patrol spokesman with the Department of Public Safety.

"We do not believe we'll have to freeze or reduce positions," he said.

Rather, the patrol is already taking steps to make its

cars last longer and delaying the purchase of new cars. Troopers also have cut their budget for all but essential travel.

Other suggested cuts included closing a prison hospital, cutting salary budgets in the governor's office and reducing funding for a number of health programs, such as HIV and STD prevention.

It's unclear how quickly Perdue will get a new list of cuts, but Pearson said the new Cabinet secretaries are expected to work quickly.

"I know that she's not going to be extending them a huge amount of time," Pearson said.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker @news-record.com