State Auditor Beth Wood is not out to get you.

That was the message Wood brought Friday to a meeting of the UNC system’s Board of Governors, Eric Ferreri reports. Wood, who was elected last year, presides over an office that conducts routine and special audits of all state agencies including public university campuses.

"I want this to not be an 'I got you' office," Wood told board members. "I want to provide you information to make this university system the best it can be. While we’re not your buddy, we still want to make this a good working relationship."

Erskine Bowles, the UNC system’s president, said he appreciated Wood’s straight-forward, candid approach. "That is what we need," he said. "She tells you it’s either gonna get fixed, or there’s gonna be big trouble."

BOOMERANG: As stunts go, the Republican Party's "Conservative Voter Survey" ranks right up there with some of Evel Knievel's work. A wheelbarrow full of surveys was meant to show how many people don't like Gov. Beverly Perdue, a Democrat. Over at Perdue's office, staff members sifted through the surveys and found plenty of irate voters upset with Republicans as well as a campaign contribution that was intended for the Republican Party.

I LOVE YOU, MAN: Republican Sen. Richard Burr's economic development summit in Durham will be remembered as a great moment in political reconciliation. Burr and the man he beat almost six years ago, UNC system President and Democrat Erskine Bowles, traded fawning, appreciative comments about each other. Whoever wins the Democratic nomination next year to challenge Burr will surely be seeing lots of Bowles' comments in TV ads.

PRO, CON: In Washington, Burr decried the stimulus package. In North Carolina, at a fire station that was getting a grant from stimulus funds, Burr celebrated it.

IN OTHER NEWS: Sen. Kay Hagan and U.S. Rep. Brad Miller are pushing for a coin to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro civil rights sit-ins. Perdue says a 20-year old affair by the head of the highway patrol is irrelevant to his job qualifications. The Gallup Poll has found that John Edwards’ standing in the minds of Americans has dropped further than Sammy Sosa's image after the slugger was discovered corking his bat.

Former Gov. Jim Hunt will probably hear a lot about his initiatives on education and school-readiness when people with big titles gather Friday to celebrate the ceremonial groundbreaking of the James B. Hunt Jr. Library on N.C. State University's Centennial Campus.

The library, set to open in 2012, will house the Institute for Emerging Issues, a Raleigh think-tank Hunt created.

Scheduled to attend the ceremony are UNC President Erskine Bowles, Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, and U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge.

Not a place for the kids to flip through the latest issue of Highlights, but the library will include an interactive policy gallery for the grown-ups with big ideas.

The parking sign outside the meeting Monday morning called it the "Burr-Bowles Summit" but it could just have easily called it a "love fest."

Republican Sen. Richard Burr and the man he defeated in 2004, Democrat Erskine Bowles, now president of the University of North Carolina, were the stars of the North Carolina Economic Development Summit, Rob Christensen reports.

"I've had a chance to work with this guy for four full years and nobody works harder or smarter for North Carolina than Richard Burr does," Bowles told about 200 people at N.C. Central University. "His focus on this state is truly unbelievable."

In introducing Bowles, Burr said: "Erskine Bowles is the best president of the university system we had the pleasure of having."

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Sen. Richard Burr, who is seeking to raise his visibility across North Carolina, is planning to hold a state-wide economic development summit later this month in Durham.

Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, is holding an event that will focus on partnerships between the education and business sectors on Oct. 19th, Rob Christensen reports.

Among those scheduled to attend are Scott Ralls, president of the N.C. Community College System and Erskine Bowles, the president of the University of North Carolina system.

Burr and Bowles have developed a friendship since Burr defeated Bowles in the 2004 Senate race.

The event will be held at 9:30 a.m. at N.C. Central University's H.M. Michaux  Jr. School of Education.

Gov. Beverly Perdue and school leaders met today to discuss their roles in making state students better prepared for higher education and careers.

With a high school dropout rate hovering around 30 percent and about 60 percent of students entering community college students not up to speed on high school work, Perdue is looking to her Education Cabinet to have all layers of the state education system work together on remedies.

"If you make headway on this, you will be a great governor," UNC system President Erskine Bowles told Perdue.

The universities have a role in public schools because they educate most of the state's teachers, he said. "We have to produce better teachers," he said.

He suggested education leaders get a list of 4 or 5 things each had to do to realize the goal of creating a unified education system.

More after the jump

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BOWLED OVER: UNC system President Erskine Bowles says the system's top board members first supported, then flip-flopped on a deal to pay a healthy severance to outgoing N.C. State University Chancellor James Oblinger. Bowles made that revelation in a visit to The News & Observer’s editorial board. Bowles also said former Gov. Mike Easley wasn’t bothered by the newspaper "picking on" him, but had a real problem with the paper picking on his wife. What really got Dome’s attention was that apparently, the most powerful man in state higher education, eats Chick-Fil-A twice a day. No word on whether he prefers Barbecue or Polynesian sauce.

IN A PERFECT WORLD: The state School Board did some dreaming at its retreat this week. Dome expects an army of four-foot high protesters, armed with spitballs, to protest the board's pipe dream of lengthening the school year.

LOST IN TRANSLATION: Gov. Beverly Perdue is headed to China and Japan to drum up business for the state. Let’s all give a collective cross of the fingers that a mis-translated malaprop won’t accidentally lead to an international incident. Sure would love to see some video of the governor performing at a Karaoke bar, though.

IN OTHER NEWS: Bill Hefner, the one-time dean of the state’s Congressional delegation, died this week. U.S. Sens. John McCain and Mitch McConnell joined Sen. Richard Burr for a health care forum at an invitation-only event. District Attorney Rex Gore has recused himself from deciding whether to prosecute state Sen. R.C. Soles in an incident in which Soles shot a would-be intruder.

UNC system President Erskine Bowles says he's a big believer in transparency.

But he but won't recommend openness when it comes to finding the next leader for N.C. State. That, he said, could discourage top candidates from seeking the chancellor's job.

Bowles, who has been open about recent troubles the university, said this week, "It's my responsibility to make sure we get the best candidates possible to run N.C. State, or any of the campuses."

During the last search for a UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor, Bowles said, several candidates would not have participated if their identities had been released."One is today still running a major university and had that person's name been made public, they would not have allowed us to consider them as a candidate," he told reporters and editors at The News & Observer.

"My job is to get the best field, and to try to make the best decision from that field, and I think if we have to make their names public it would reduce the quality of the field," he said.

UNC board leaders originally agreed to a lucrative exit package for departing N.C. State University Chancellor James Oblinger.

Then, they flip-flopped.

During the weekend that he accepted Oblinger's resignation, UNC system President Erskine Bowles cut a deal that would have allowed the former chancellor to keep his $420,000 salary for six months before he settled back into a faculty salary and teaching position.

But last month, the UNC Board of Governors rewrote the terms, cutting Oblinger to a $173,000 salary immediately. Bowles said that the board chairwoman, Hannah Gage, and vice-chairman, Peter Hans, were consulted on the original deal, reports Steve Riley.

"Peter and Hannah did change their minds," Bowles said. "They had their own rationale for doing that. They did what they thought was right. I gave my word, and that's it for me. I did what I felt was right."

At the board's meeting last month, Gage said that the board "acknowledged [Oblinger's] enormous contributions but felt there needed to be consequences for some things that went terribly wrong."

When the UNC Board of Governors was vetting the details of Mary Easley's new job and big raise at N.C. State last year, UNC system President Erskine Bowles had conversations with both the first lady and her husband.

Bowles, who met Wednesday with News & Observer editors and reporters, said he had been skeptical of the new job, which has since become entangled in a federal investigation into Mike Easley, the former governor, reports Steve Riley. Bowles said he told James Oblinger, then the N.C. State chancellor, that he would have to "justify every single dollar or we would not approve it."

At one point during the process, Bowles said that Oblinger had given up trying to persuade Bowles and the board to approve the deal. But the chancellor later made another run at it, only to have Mrs. Easley balk at one of Bowles' conditions: That all the documents supporting the $170,000 salary be made public.

"I called her and told her that," Bowles said. "She said she'd get back to me." She did, and the board approved the deal with Bowles' blessing.

Bowles said he had also talked to the former governor at the time. "I told Governor Easley the same thing I just told you: That we were going to treat Mary Easley the same way we would treat everybody else."

More after the jump.

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