State legislators have now asked for $577.5 million.

Twenty-four more bills filed since Dome last checked have added another $282.6 million in requested spending, even as the state faces a $2 billion shortfall.

The largest request of the most recent batch is $93.9 million set aside for ABC bonuses to be used instead for teacher salary increases. A second bill does the same thing with more restrictions.

The smallest request is $97,000 to provide medicine to low-income women that would reduce premature births.

Other spending bills would increase technical education at community colleges, build a guest house at a Winston-Salem hospital, hire three workers to lead a behavioral program at state schools, provide scholarships for rural social workers, provide mentoring and tutoring to gang members, open a dentistry school at East Carolina University, fund community theatres, give community economic development grants, buy vans for an after school program in Charlotte, fund various public health programs, provide grants for Boys and Girls Clubs and promote awareness of SIDS.

Nine other bills are companions to bills already filed.

In all, the requests amount to 29 percent of the estimated shortfall.

The requests also add another $49.6 million in spending next year, for a total of $188.8 million in 2010-11 requests.

Ongoing coverage of spending bills is available here.

State legislators have now asked for $120.7 million.

Nine more bills filed since Dome last checked have added another $26 million in spending, even as the state faces a $2 billion shortfall.

The largest request of the most recent batch is for $20 million to provide grants through the Rural Economic Development Center to help rural communities. The smallest is $50,000 to study the feasability of offering financial incentives to students to get good grades.

Other spending bills would create a No Adult Left Behind initiative to train adult workers, help the Ahoskie Boys and Girls Club build a new facility, help renovate the historic Barker House in Edenton, repair the historic Hope Plantation, help build a new public library in Ahoskie, pay for an employee to run the N.C. Troopers Association's Caisson Unit, and fund the N.C. Science Olympiad.

The bills also call for $5.3 million in spending next year.

Ongoing coverage of spending bills is available here.