House budget writers don't want newly-released pedophiles, rapists and other sex offenders staying temporarily in hotels at public expense.

Last night, the House Appropriations Committee changed a provision in the House budget bill that allows the Correction Department to pay for temporary housing for felons released from prison who are on parole, probation or some other form of post-release supervision, Dan Kane reports. The department can use its budget to place felons in a homeless shelter, halfway house, or other housing provider that is under contract with the federal government to provide housing for offenders.

The provision specifically bars the department from sending felons to "a hotel, motel, nursing home, adult care facility, group home containing the physically or developmentally disabled, or residential facility where minors are housed."

Lawmakers also said that the temporary housing can last no more than 30 days, and ordered a study into the feasibility of setting up temporary housing for released felons who can't find a place to stay.

The Correction Department sought the provision after finding it difficult to place sex offenders. New laws that prevent them from being within 1,000 feet of a school or child care center and local ordinances that have banned them from parks have given sex offenders limited. In some cases, they have opted to stay in prison to serve out their maximum sentences, which correction officials say is much more costly than paying for temporary housing until a permanent residence is found.

The original provision would have allowed the department to place felons in hotels, which correction officials said they would do if other options such as homeless shelters were unavailable.

Lawmakers tried to sort out their own conflicting signals on money for fighting crime Wednesday, the same day that the state Senate unanimously approved anti-gang legislation.

As the Senate swept two gang bills to passage, lawmakers were trying to resolve complaints by the state's court system that their funding was being slashed in separate talks over the state budget.

"We can't do that," said Sen. Malcolm Graham, a Charlotte Democrat who ushered the gang bills through the Senate. "We can't say we're going to spend $10 million for gangs on the right hand and cut $9 million on the left hand."

Legislators on the budget committee initially asked for $9 million in possible cuts out of a $430 million budget. On Wednesday, key lawmakers agreed on $4.3 million in cuts that court officials called reasonable.

"We're getting pieces of the puzzle and the (courts funding) target is one of those puzzle pieces, but in the end there may be money from somewhere else that may be used to fill in those gaps," said Sen. Linda Garrou, a Democrat from Winston-Salem and co-chair of the full appropriations committee.

How effective was Beverly Perdue in the legislature?

One measure is the biannual effectiveness ranking by the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research, which has been ranking legislators since 1977.

Of the five gubernatorial candidates, the lieutenant governor has the longest legislative resume, having served two terms in the state House and four terms in the state Senate.

In that time, her ranking shot from 70 in the House her freshman year to sixth most effective in the Senate in 1999, the year before she was elected lieutenant governor.

During her last three terms in the Senate, she was within the top six.

Her ranking was boosted by her role as co-chairwoman of the Senate's powerful Appropriations committee from 1995 to 2000.

Full results after the jump.

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