As if a political wormhole has opened up between Raleigh and Jefferson City, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt has been sued over his administration's alleged deletion of e-mail backup tapes to avoid releasing messages concerning the wholesale destruction of public records and the firing of a whistle-blowing state employee.

The story should sound vaguely familiar to North Carolinians who have seen a flap over e-mail destruction arise in the wake of the firing of a state employee, Michael Biesecker reports. Here, it was a group of newspapers that sued the Gov. Mike Easley, and not a special investigative team that sued Missouri's governor, according to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The suit was filed in Cole County Circuit Court by the special investigation team set up by Attorney General Jay Nixon last November to probe allegations that Blunt's staff were destroying office e-mails in violating of state laws governing open-records requests and preservation of public documents.

The suit is filed against Blunt and Dan Ross, the state's custodian of records who works in the Office of Administration and oversees the computer system that handles and preserves e-mails for most of state government.

The suit says the order to delete was made on Oct. 31, less than a week after news broke about the firing a month earlier of Blunt's former deputy counsel, Scott Eckersley. The lawyer maintained that he was fired after raising concerns that the governor's staff was intentionally destroying e-mails that should be preserved as public records.

Blunt has maintained that Eckersley was fired for unrelated reasons.

Gov. Mike Easley's budget proposal includes $40.4 million for a new capital visitor's center. 

The existing visitor's center, isn't a center at all, David Bracken reports. It's a reception desk hidden in a corner of the N.C. Museum of History's lobby.

"It's been so embarrassing for us when people walk in and say, 'Is this the visitor center?'" said Jackie Parrish, the center's acting director. "First they have to find us, and then they have to find a parking space. They are fit to be tied when they get in here."

Easley's proposal is for a new 55,000-square-foot visitors center by 2011, which would feature a stand-alone center and a two-level underground parking garage.

The new center would be the second large development project undertaken by the state downtown.

The $109 million Green Square project calls for construction of a Department of Environment and Natural Resources building, an expansion of the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences and an underground parking facility.

The visitors center would be directly east of the Museum of History on what is now a paved parking lot for state workers. Among its amenities would be an outdoor plaza, classroom space, a drop-off point for school buses, and designated parking.

Dan Gerlach, Gov. Mike Easley's senior policy adviser, called it a "a cash-flow issue" after The News & Observer found out about the deferral last month and began asking questions, Pat Stith reports.

"They're not saying, 'We're not going to pay,'" Gerlach said. "They're just saying, 'We need some questions answered about this.'"

But eight days later, Dempsey Benton, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, was singing a different song. In a letter to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Benton said "a deferral of this magnitude is financially disastrous to the citizens of NC and any additional deferment threatens the sustainability of the entire N.C. Medicaid program."

Benton said his letter was "our first step in offering clarification" leading to release of the money.

"We are confident that we have effectively managed this program such that there is no unusual risk for abuse present today as mentioned in the deferral letter," Benton wrote.

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A panel appointed by Gov. Mike Easley to review his administration's deletion of e-mail messages unanimously approved recommendations Thursday aimed at ensuring that state employees know the public records law and have the technology needed to comply.

But the panel's suggestions, if implemented, will do nothing to prevent employees from knowingly circumventing the law — the very accusation that triggered the group's creation.

"They treated the symptoms, but the disease rages on," surmised Beth Grace, the executive director of the N.C. Press Association, after the panel's vote.

The panel recommended that Easley start a new training program that would require state employees who handle public records to complete a one-hour online tutorial about what the law requires. Similar training has been available previously, but was voluntary.

The panel also recommended extending the automatic back-up of e-mail on state servers from 30 days to five years. (N&O)

State lawmakers showed little interest today in avoiding another big prison construction bill this session.

In fact, they laughed when Rep. Ronnie Sutton, a Pembroke Democrat, asked whether they would look at legislation that spends more on prevention and less on incarceration, reports Dan Kane.

"Is there anyone that thinks we're going to change our mode of operation?" Sutton asked, after lawmakers listened to a report of options to deal with a rapidly growing prison population.

Today, the state prison system is again out of space. Prisons Director Boyd Bennett said he has sent notice to county jails that they will have to hold convicted and sentenced inmates until a new 1,500 bed prison opens up in Columbus County at the end of summer.

The prison, though, is only a temporary fix. Projections show that the system could be 1,800 inmates over capacity by 2012.

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The N.C. Alliance for Health says 20 cents is not enough.

The nonprofit coalition of health care associations argues that Gov. Mike Easley's proposed increase in the cigarette tax from 35 to 55 cents a pack will not stop people from smoking.

In a press release, the group argues that tax increases of 20 cents per pack or less "provide no significant smoking reductions" or related savings in health care costs.

Instead, using the slogan "75 Saves Lives!," it argues that the state should raise the tax 75 cents.

The group argues that would preent nearly 95,000 pre-teens and teen-agers from starting to smoke while causing a 16 percent decrease in youth smoking. It would also raise $347 million, as opposed to the $111.4 million the lower increase would generate.

North Carolina currently as the seventh-lowest cigarette tax in the country. The tax has been raised only three times in the past 17 years, and legislators are skeptical about the latest proposal.

State Sen. Phil Berger thinks teachers should be paid differently.

Speaking at the North Carolina Chamber luncheon this afternoon, the Senate Republican leader said that teachers should be paid more for working in challenging environments or for taking jobs that school systems are having trouble filling, such as those in math, science and special education.

"More money, blindly spent, by adding to existing strategies is not the right answer in public education," he said.

He criticized Gov. Mike Easley's proposed budget for cutting a pilot program that used pay as an incentive to hire math and science teachers.

Berger also called for the state to make "a serious commitment" to career, vocational and technical education, saying that today's graduates are not skilled enough for jobs in automotive repair or other fields. 

He also called for reining in government spending in order to reduce taxes. 

"We've been growing government at rates that cannot be sustained," he said. 

Gov. Mike Easley wants a judge to throw out a public records lawsuit.

In a motion filed Tuesday in Superior Court, Easley's attorneys argued that the N&O, the Charlotte Observer and nine other news organizations are improperly asking a judge to make sweeping declarations about policies and behavior.

Hugh Stevens, an attorney for the newspapers, said in a statement that the governor's complaint argues that the courts are virtually powerless to enforce the public records law.

"It appears that the governor is taking the position that if he has a public record and refuses to permit its inspection and copying, the courts can act; otherwise, he can ignore the public records law with impunity, even to the extent of destroying public records," Stevens wrote.

The filing Tuesday means the case is likely headed to a courtroom. (N&O)

The state cigarette tax has gone up only three times in the past 17 years.

According to research by the N.C. Department of Revenue, the state's cigarette excise tax increased from 2 cents a pack to 5 cents a pack on Aug. 1, 1991.

It increased to 30 cents a pack effective Sept. 1, 2005.

And it increased again to 35 cents a pack effective July 1, 2006.

Those last two increases occurred during Gov. Mike Easley's watch. Easley has proposed raising the cigarette tax another time to 55 cents a pack in his 2008-09 budget in order to pay for raises for public school teachers.

The state currently has the seventh-lowest cigarette tax in the country.

Rep. Grier Martin is focused on raising state workers' salaries.

The Raleigh Democrat said that his biggest budget-related goal this session will be to bring teachers' salaries closer to the national average and give state workers a pay raise.

He does not think Gov. Mike Easley's proposed 7 percent pay raise for teachers and 1.5 percent raise for state employees is enough, though he declined to give a specific percentage that he would like to see.

"We need more," he said, "but we've got to figure out how we're going to pay for that too."

Apart from the budget, Martin said he hopes the legislature does not rush a comprehensive transportation fix. He said that it's too big of an issue to solve in a short session, though he hopes the legislature will make progress on finishing Interstate 540 and providing light rail in the Triangle.

"We do not need to be solving the transportation issue (in the short session) because that is a problem that requires careful, well-informed thought and doesn't lend itself to a quick and dirty solution," he said. "We'll just screw it up."

Clarification: Martin said he supports a transportation bond this fall, but not an overhaul of the entire system in the short session.