Gov. Bev Perdue told the first meeting of the Energy Policy Council on Wednesday that she wanted her advisors to come up with a plan make the state more energy efficient and environmentally friendly by April in time for the short session of the legislature.

The governor said she wanted the council to look at what taxes should be changed, whether utility regulations should be altered and whether the work force is being properly trained for new green jobs, Rob Christensen reports.

"I am urging you all to make some decisions very quickly on how we can push North Carolina into a national leadership position in green around the green economy," Perdue told a meeting held on the Centennial Campus at N.C. State University.

The council is headed by Tim Toben of Chapel Hill, developer of Greenbridge Development and includes executives from Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, the Environmental Defense Fund, a biofuels company, a solar fuels company, legislators and others.

The Mary Easley job and its ensuing fallout is following former N.C. State University Chancellor James Oblinger across the country.

Oblinger resigned his post amid shifting stories about the severance package given to former provost Larry Nielsen. Both Oblinger and Nielsen are key figures in unravelling how Mary Easley, wife of former Gov. Mike Easley, got a $170,000 job at the university.

Oblinger is one of five finalists for the job of president of New Mexico State University. Another finalist is former University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman, who admitted to arranging admissions to the university for under-qualified family members of politicians and their donors, according to a report in the Round Up, a student newspaper at at New Mexico State.

At least one NMSU faculty member seems less than optimistic about the announcement of Herman and Oblinger.

"I think it is completely ridiculous that the search committee would even entertain the thought of recommending [Herman and Oblinger]," said Kevin McNelis, associate professor of accounting. "I am disgusted the search committee would even think of such candidates."

Administrators who selected the finalists defended the picks to Las Cruces Sun-News.

Del Archuleta, chairman of the committee, said the panel knew of the allegations against the two, and did its due diligence in considering the candidates.

"Even with the situation, the committee felt these two should be considered," Archuleta said. "Why? Because they are outstanding. All five of the candidates are really stellar."

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.

HAPPY THREESOME: Lotteries in most states recently reported a downturn in revenue, though North Carolina has bucked the trend partly because of the surprise performance of the Pick 3 game. Sales have been strong despite the recession. Players spent more than $200 million on the game last year. (N&O)

LEARNING THE BIZ: North Carolina must be more earnest in creating specialty high schools and drawing up courses that match the needs of growing businesses in regions of the state, Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton said Monday in kicking off a new state commission. (AP)

ALUMNI SHUFFLE: N.C. State University's interim chancellor has fired the head of the alumni association, saying the group was struggling financially and its membership had been stagnant for years. (N&O)

* Public universities in the Triangle will eliminate about 430 positions this year as part of a massive UNC system budget cut.

N.C. State University is eliminating 205 administrative jobs, and UNC-Chapel Hill is cutting 202 positions, according to a report released Thursday that gave the most detail to date on how the system will slash its operating budget 10 percent. N.C. Central University in Durham is cutting 21.5, including four at its law school.

UNC system President Erskine Bowles had said he expected administrative positions to account for 75 to 80 percent of the cuts. That number has subsequently risen to 96 percent, officials now say — an acknowledgment that administrative job growth swelled out of control over the last several years. Few cuts have been made to academics. (N&O)

* A law recently signed by Gov. Beverly Perdue imposes new regulations on the industry that provides human-resources services to businesses -- in exchange for the repeal of a controversial ban.

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 President Erskine Bowles turns 65 next August, but he was vague about exactly when he would step down. UNC presidents have traditionally retired at 65.

Bowles says he's not focused on retirement. Not that he's in love with the job right now, he told editors, reporters and editorial writers today at The News & Observer, Jane Stancill reports.

"All things being equal, I want to go home. God knows I love Chapel Hill, but living in that great big museum by myself, eating Chick-Fil-A twice a day, that is my life."

But, he said, there are big issues to contend with, including the fallout from Mary Easley's hiring at N.C. State University and the elimination of costly layers of campus middle managers. He also says he'll demand more accountability from the UNC campuses on their performance of graduating and preparing students.

"We have some issues we need to deal with and I think the buck stops with me," he said.

After working for nearly a decade to close Dorothea Dix Hospital, state mental health administrators now intend to keep a sizable number of staff and patients at the aging Raleigh facility for years.

Lanier Cansler, secretary for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said this week that he plans to move about half of Dix's more than 200 patients to Central Regional Hospital in Butner when it opens fully in October.

But he said Dix will remain open as a stand-alone psychiatric hospital, with its own director and administrative staff. It will no longer serve as a satellite campus for the new Butner facility.

State legislators affirmed that decision earlier this month when they approved a state budget that restored $6 million in funding for operations at Dix for the next year. That move came as legislators made $155 million in spending cuts for other mental health programs in the 2010 budget.

The move to continue operating Dix as a state mental hospital will hamper efforts to turn the more than 300 acres between downtown Raleigh and N.C. State University into a major park operated by the City of Raleigh or a nonprofit foundation.

It also offers evidence that the sweeping 2001 mental health reform plan has failed. A centerpiece of that effort, which was passed by the legislature and carried out by the administration of former Gov. Mike Easley, was a plan to reduce the need for beds at mental hospitals. Instead, there would be more private, community-based treatment. (N&O)

State Auditor Beth Wood today released a January audit that said the salary N.C. State University paid to then-First Lady Mary Easley was excessive and should have been reduced by nearly $90,000.

But Wood, in a follow-up "interim report" said the January audit was incomplete and that more investigation was needed, reports Dan Kane. She noted that NCSU had provided additional information to justify the $170,000 salary. The January audit recommended that the salary be reduced to $79,000 and that Easley's five-year contract should be replaced by a two-year contract.

Mary Easley's salary, and her hiring at NCSU, have become part of wide-ranging state and federal investigations into perks given to former Gov. Mike Easley and his family.

State Auditor Beth Wood testified today before the federal grand jury investigating former Gov. Mike Easley.

Most of the questions revolved around an unreleased audit reviewing the $170,000 salary paid to Mary Easley at N.C. State University before she was fired in June, according to Dennis Patterson, a spokesman for Wood.

Wood, a Democrat, had acknowledged in a previous interview that she had told her staff that one reason for not releasing the salary audit was that state Sen. Tony Rand, a powerful Democrat from Fayetteville and a long-time Easley supporter, would poke holes in it.

Rand had represented Mary Easley when Wood's predecessor, Les Merritt, audited her European travels paid by tax dollars. Merritt found that some expenses were questionable.

Wood was worried whether the salary audit would stand up to close scrutiny, Patterson said.

"She told them Tony Rand is a good lawyer, and if he punched holes in the travel audit, he'd rip up this one," Patterson said.

More after the jump.

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