A report out this afternoon from the U.S. Department of Education shows North Carolina saved or created 22,398 government jobs through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Barb Barrett reports.

The state legislature has used nearly three-fourths of the $1.2 billion grant it received from the federal government to plug the state budget holes for this year’s and next year’s budgets. The rest has yet to be spent.

As a result, the state says it has saved or created 8,916 jobs mainstream education jobs for teachers, principals, counselors, transportation workers and custodians.

Another 1,461 jobs were created or saved in lower-income Title I schools, along with 1,670 jobs created or saved in special education.

Most of the jobs saved -- 10,343 – were in government services. Those included jobs in prison custody; food service; medical, education and administrative staff; probation and parole officers; and substance abuse counselors.

Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory joined the crew of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" for a few minutes this morning to talk about federal stimulus money and McCrory's flight yesterday with the "Miracle on the Hudson" crew from US Airways.

McCrory, the Republican nominee for governor last year, said the stimulus money was sold as building the nation's infrastructure but only a fraction of it has been used that way.

"Roosevelt built dams. Eisenhower built highways," McCrory said during his 7:30 a.m. appearance. "We're filling potholes."

The US Airways crew that safely landed their crippled aircraft in the Hudson River in January reunited for the same New York to Charlotte flight Thursday and McCrory was among the passengers.

North Carolina, along with the rest of the states, is prepping for the Oct. 10 deadline for reporting how the state used federal stimulus money and what the results were.

The states must report to the White House Recovery Board on, among other details, how many jobs were saved or created through each program. The data will be posted to the web and immediately descended upon by the media and public.

"That's what everyone's going to be comparing themselves to each other on," said Chris Whatley, Washington director of the Council of State Governments.

Administration officials, particularly Vice President Joe Biden, have warned that they'll be scrutinizing the data.

President Barack Obama's recovery act adviser said today that states that already slogged through budget cuts could face more tough choices when stimulus money runs out.

"It's going to stop at some point," said Ed DeSeve, special adviser to the president for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act implementation, reports Mark Johnson.

He estimated another 12 to 18 months of "activity" under the plan. It would take a rapid recovery for state revenue to replace the $288 billion in stimulus funding to the states. If Congress doesn't pass another round of stimulus, "states will have hard choices," DeSeve said.

He said the administration has not yet decided whether to recommend another round of recovery funds.

Buncombe County Schools will raise class size in higher grades to cope with state-mandated budget cuts to education.

The system lost 42 teaching positions because of a $15 million budget cut, the Asheville Citizen-Times reports.

The school system was able to rehire almost all of the teachers who were laid off at the end of last school year, but it wasn't able to fill all vacant positions. In most cases, students will see two or three extra students in their classrooms. Class sizes vary by grade and course, from 17 to 21 students per class.

The state's school system must each decide how to cut spending.

As part of the final state budget deal, lawmakers and Gov. Beverly Perdue mandated $225 million in cuts to local school systems. Lawmakers scrapped language that would have required increased class sizes in grades 4-12. Instead the budget gave school administrators increased flexibility to move money and to spend federal stimulus dollars while encouraging officials to leave class rooms alone.

The state's teacher lobby, Perdue and certain lawmakers said they believe such cuts can be made without increasing class size, which is necessary when schools have fewer teachers. Administrators in Wake say they believe paying teachers with stimulus money, which runs out in two years, would create more problems than it solves.

The higher number of students in class and the cut in teacher assistants will make up $21.7 million in discretionary cuts out of a $35.1 million overall reduction in state funding to Wake, the state's largest school district.

School officials accuse state leaders of dumping responsibility for the cuts on local districts to make them take the blame for unpopular choices.

"They knew class sizes had to go up," said school board member Lori Millberg. "They're passing the buck."

The recently adopted state budget has $225 million in cuts in K-12 education funding, leaving the specific cuts up to local school districts.

But Wake school leaders complained that those cuts weren't as discretionary as legislators have made it appear.

David Neter, Wake's chief business officer, said that until a few weeks ago, state budget writers were calling for raising class sizes in grades 4 through 12 by two students and reducing money for teacher assistants. He told school board members that while those specific details are not in the final budget, the same amount of money is being eliminated and forcing local school systems to raise class sizes and eliminate teacher assistants anyway.

Lawmakers and the state teacher lobby say school systems can tap into millions of federal stimulus dollars — $43 million in Wake's case — to avoid classroom cuts. 

Though school officials are using federal stimulus money to save some existing positions, much of it is being used to create new jobs such as math coaches at elementary schools and additional pre-kindergarten teachers that officials say they can afford to lose when the stimulus money runs out in two years. (N&O)

The state's teacher lobby is claiming victory in the budget battle. In an e-mail message to members, the N.C. Association of Educators praised the current budget plan, which they said protected K-12 classrooms.

In a bold move by a first-term governor and General Assembly facing an economic downturn unseen since the Great Depression, class size in all grades are protected from increases in the 2009-2010 budget bill being considered this evening by the General Assembly.

Under the final version of the budget released publicly this morning, thousands of teachers, teacher assistants and support personnel are expected to return to work for the 2009-2010 school year. (Early media reports that class size was only protected in grades K-3 were based on an earlier version of the budget that is not under consideration today by the General Assembly.)

Uh, which budget are you reading, NCAE?

From the budget the legislature approved Tuesday:

"Local school administrative units shall have the maximum flexibility to use allotted teacher positions to maximize student achievement in grades 4-12. Allocation requirements in grades K-3 shall remain unchanged."

Here's what that means: Local school boards will be cut a total of $225 million. The state will allow local officials to move money around and best decide how to make those cuts while protecting the classroom.

But $225 million is a big hit. Rep. Ray Rapp, a Mars Hill Democrat and education co-chairman told the House Tuesday, that despite the flexibility granted to school officials in the budget, some class sizes will increase.

"There will have to be probably some expansion of classroom sizes in grades four to 12," Rapp said.

More after the jump.

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While discussions have been raging for months among lawmakers about how to fill the state's deficit, another debate has emerged: how much money is the state really short?

The size of the deficit has become a political issue, not a mathematical one. Democrats say the deficit is $4.5 billion and that's the shortfall they had to overcome. Speaker Joe Hackney said this morning that 40 percent of the shortfall will be made up through cuts, 30 percent through federal recovery funds, 22 percent through taxes and 8 percent through fees.

But Republicans say that the Democrats have inflated the deficit by a factor of four by not properly accounting for the stimulus money and by measuring the deficit against the what they had hoped to spend next year.

"These numbers are projected spending that we have never seen in the history of the republic," said Paul Stam, an Apex Republican and the party's House leader.

Democrats said the Republicans are not factoring into their math necessary increases in services, including increased public school enrollment, more people in prison and more people on Medicare.

"Our political opponents seek to start from a different place," Hackney said. "They seek to minimize the cuts that are needed by seeking to exclude items that are mandatory in the continuation budget."

More after the jump.

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