Natural and economic resources includes the state's agricultural and environmental agencies as well as the departments of labor and commerce.

All agencies within this category will see vacant positions eliminated.

The budget proposal would also:

* Increase the annual fee to register pesticides administered by the Department of Agriculture from $100 to $150 to raise $500,000.

* Require the Labor Department to charge enough fees for an apprenticeship program to raise $450,000. The figure would offset a 25 percent reduction in funding for the program.

* Eliminate 70 vacant positions in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to save $3.4 million.

* Reduce by $50 million each year for two years the appropriation to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund.

* Require the Department of Commerce to sell the state's King Air plane and reduce all costs associated with operating it, including a pilot position, to save $148,000 this year and $296,000 next year.

The Senate approved a bill Monday meant to ensure better enforcement of the state's child labor laws.

The bill requires the state Labor Commissioner to report by Feb. 1 on her agency's enforcement actions and efforts related to child labor. The bill would require the department to report details including the number and types of complaints it received, the number and scope of investigations into those complaints and the identify of employers cited for violations.

The bill began in the House and must return to that chamber for another vote since the Senate made changes to the bill.

Stories in The Charlotte Observer last year that chronicled how thousands of American youths are injured working jobs deemed unsafe for young workers.

The Senate budget would preserve an apprenticeship program that Gov. Beverly Perdue proposed ending.

The program is housed in the Department of Labor and costs about $1.6 million a year. It provides federally recognized certification  for employees in a variety of trades such as heating and air or plumbing. 

Perdue's budget proposed eliminated the program on the theory that the rest of the labor department's work is focused on employment safety.

The Senate budget proposes keeping the program, but cutting $450,000. The program would have to raise fees to make up for the lost money. 

Few state politicians get as much free publicity as Cherie Berry.

As the state's Labor Commissioner, the Newton Republican's name, photograph and signature appear on the Certificates of Operation in every one of the state's 20,000 or so public elevators. (Those in homes or other private areas are not inspected.)

The department's Elevator and Amusement Device Bureau also inspects escalators, moving sidewalks, dumbwaiters and Ferris wheels, but those certificates are not as visible as ones in elevators.

The Department of Labor, which was created in the 1890s, has regularly inspected elevators since 1938. Its current inspections are governed by a general statute written in 1985.

Because public elevators are inspected once a year, it took until 2002 for Cherie Berry's name to make its way into every one in North Carolina — and until this summer to get on the radio.

One of Bob Orr's favorite opinions was a dissent.

The former state Supreme Court justice — and candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination — told Dome that he is proud of his dissent in Stone v. N.C. Department of Labor.

That 1998 case is better known for its majority opinion, which prevented survivors and victims' relatives of a deadly chicken plant fire in Hamlet from suing the state for negligence.

In a blistering dissent, then-Justice Orr wrote that the decision would "effectively eviscerate" the 1951 law that makes the state liable to civil lawsuits.

After the jump, a short primer on the decision.

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