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RALEIGH — When Gov. Bev Perdue  was asked whether her plans for her first year in office had been “derailed” by fiscal crises, she objected to the term but acknowledged 2009 had not gone according to script.

“It was hard for me to do many new programs when I was having trouble figuring out how to keep teachers and teachers’ assistants in the classroom,” Perdue told reporters Tuesday.

Following through on ambitious campaign pledges — such as helping students graduate from college debt-free — was impossible when the new governor needed to furlough employees and raid trust funds just to keep the state afloat.

“So, if that’s a derailment, call it what you want,” she said.

Perdue, a Democrat, went into office just as an economic maelstrom ripped through the country, spiking the state’s unemployment rate and depressing tax collections.

North Carolina balanced its budget this year by raising tax rates, leaning on federal stimulus payments and cutting services — not exactly the record Perdue had hoped to write during her first year.

In an interview with several media outlets at the Executive Mansion in Raleigh, Perdue said there was reason for optimism on the economy.

“I’ve got a little good news in my back pocket that we’ll dribble out the first of the year,” Perdue said, adding that the state could avoid further drastic cuts to human service funding if nothing unexpected happens to the national economy during the next six months.

She also hinted that she was ready to start rolling out new programs.

“You’ll see me come out with an education incentive called 'Ready, Set, Go.’ We’ll talk more about that the first of the year. But there will be a way that North Carolina will continue to be a pre-eminent educational leader.”

Still, while Perdue talked up how the state was poised to ride the wave of recovery, much of her time Tuesday was spent talking about frustrations she has encountered:

* Plans to give functional control of North Carolina’s public schools to her appointed state school board chairman  were thrown out by a judge who said that Superintendent June Atkinson  had that responsibility.

* An effort she backed to remake the state’s tax code  ran out of time and appears to
be losing favor among lawmakers even though Perdue said it remains a “personal priority.”

* She continues to tussle with the courts over whether certain inmates convicted of violent crimes during the 1970s should be released because of a quirk in the sentencing laws.

“I think the economy so rattled her,” said Rep. Paul “Skip” Stam , the Republican minority leader in the House. He gave Perdue high marks for being a more visible governor than her predecessor, Gov. Mike Easley .

“I like the idea of her getting out in public,” Stam said. “She gets out and talks to people, and that’s good.”

That travel didn’t start until the second half of the year, after lawmakers had passed a budget.

“I didn’t travel much until the General Assembly went home,” Perdue said. “I stayed right here and argued with them almost constantly.”

On the budget, Stam gives Perdue low marks. At one point in late summer, Perdue blew apart a deal reached by House and Senate negotiators because she said it would hurt working families and education.

“But what did she come up with?” Stam said. “What she came up with was 80 percent of her tax increase was on working families through the sales tax.”

Stam also took issue with Perdue’s handling of news that inmates given “life” sentences in the 1970s could soon be released.

He said that Perdue’s own Department of Correction created the problem and that the governor was wrong to criticize the courts for their rulings.

“She’s just been wrong on that from Day 1,” Stam said. “It’s wrong for a chief executive to talk about defying the courts.”

Sen. Phil Berger , an Eden Republican and his party’s leader in the Senate, has often called Perdue’s decisions “erratic” and said her criminal justice policy is a good example. At the same time Perdue decried the potential release of one group of inmates, she signed bills that would mean shorter prison terms for others convicted of similar crimes going forward.

Perdue argues that those future inmates would be released under the proper supervision, a notion Berger disputes.

Perdue may agree with one thing both Republicans said: Without a looming fiscal crises bearing down on the state, she’ll have a better chance to put forward her ideas.

That was not the case in April last year as state tax collections couldn’t keep up with the demands for services.

“Two months last year, two months, I would sit up at night trying to figure out how I was going to pay the bills.

There were times we were so close to the edge,” Perdue said. “I didn’t go out and steal every pot of money I could find in North Carolina or furlough teachers and state employees because I thought it was cute to do. I did it to pay the bills.”
 

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