The N.C. Board of Funeral Service didn't keep minutes of its closed sessions, as required by state law.

The State Auditor's office, acting on a tip, reviewed five years of board minutes and found that typed minutes were not kept for closed sessions, in violation of the state's open meetings law. The board regulates the funeral business.

Executive Director Paul Harris told auditors that he was aware that typed minutes were required to be kept for closed meetings. The current and previous three secretaries took notes of closed sessions, but those notes had never been turned into minutes and could not be located, according to the auditor's office.

Board President Larry Andrews promised to create minutes for future meetings and to keep notes taken during those meetings in a special file.

Gov. Beverly Perdue has sent a letter to her appointees on state boards and commissions reminding them that they must comply with the Open Meetings law.

The letter was sent just days after news stories concerning whether the Wildlife Resources Commission is obligated to hold its meetings in public, Rob Christensen reports.

Perdue writes that she has promised to operate her administration "under the umbrella of openness."

"I expect every state board and commission to set the same standard of openness and transparency and to fully comply with North Carolina's Open Meetings Act," Perdue said in a letter dated April 16th.

Included with the letter is a question and answer sheet on the Open Meetings Law prepared by the office of Attorney General Roy Cooper.

Perdue issued the letter just days after the N.C. Bowhunters Association complained about its lack of access to meetings of the wildlife commission, which governs hunting and fishing in the state.

Members of the state Wildlife Resources Commission discussed closing committee meetings to the public because they did not like what a bowhunting group was saying about the meetings.

Commission chairman Wes Seegars said Tuesday that the commission has always been committed to openness. But members did not appreciate what the N.C. Bowhunters Association had told its members about a proposal to alter the rules of deer hunting season.

"Our concern has just always been disseminate the correct information," Seegars said. "We don't have a problem with anybody sitting in and being a part of it."

The commission regulates hunting and fishing. Seegars said the state has some 800,000 licensed sportsmen and sportswomen.

Committee meetings, Seegars said, allow an open exchange, and discussion at a meeting doesn't necessarily mean an idea will become a change to the rules.

"Committee meetings are where we thrash around a lot of ideas," Seegars said.

After members of one of the commission's committees discussed extending gun hunting season into what had traditionally been bow hunting season, bowhunters flooded the commission with comments.

Seegars said that episode prompted commisison members to discuss closing committee meetings off to invited guests only. The discussion died down, Seegars said.

More after the jump.

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The N.C. Bowhunters Association and members of the state Wildlife Resources Commission have been in a feud about access to meetings.

The bowhunters group, which has about 1,400 members, wants to be assured of access to the commission's committee meetings. Commission members and staff have previously said that those committee meetings are not covered by the state open meetings law and that committee chairmen have the discretion to invite visitors.

But the commission has apparently now reversed itself. A person who has submitted public comments to the commission forwarded an e-mail message sent Thursday to "Wildlife Stakeholders," in which commission chairman Wes Seegars said that all committee meetings will be announced publicly.

It's at those committee meetings, said Ramon Bell, president of the bowhunters association, where the decisions are really made.

"When they have these committee of the whole meetings and commission meetings, generally, they just have a show of hands. It's not really a meeting," Bell said. "It's already pretty much engraved in stone at that point."

Earlier this week, Seegars told The Insider, a state government news service, that he only tried to make association members understand that some of their tactics damaged their credibility. "Anytime we had a disagreement with them, they would take it personally," Seegars told The Insider. "They have been incensed over this stuff and I don't know why."

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State lawmakers may have $70 million less to spend in the upcoming fiscal year after they learned today that sales and income tax collections are not meeting previous estimates.

Fiscal experts for the legislature and the governor's office had estimated that they would have $151 million in sales and tax collections from the current year that could be made available for next year's budget.

But since then revenues have slowed, causing them to lower the estimate to roughly $80 million, reports Dan Kane.

It's not a lot in a budget expected to exceed $21 billion, but House and Senate budget writers were already struggling to reach an agreement on a spending plan, and the possible loss of $70 million doesn't make the negotiations easier.

House and Senate budget negotiators heard the report on the projected revenue decline in a closed door meeting this morning. Senate leaders did not allow a News & Observer reporter to attend, and afterward, Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand said the meeting wasn't open because it did not involve budget negotiations.

N.C. House and Senate budget negotiators have repeatedly said that joint meetings are public.

They had such a joint meeting this morning. But when a News & Observer reporter tried to enter, they kicked him out.

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, could not cite a reason under the public meetings law as to why a reporter would be excluded. But he said the meeting had nothing to do with the budget, reports Dan Kane.

"Because we were just hearing a report from staff," Rand said. "It had nothing to do with negotiations."

He said the report was an "economic briefing."

What did it say?

"We're not sure."

Why can't a reporter listen to that?

"Because we're trying to determine if there's something we want to do," Rand said. "I mean, that was just a staff thing."

Related to the budget?

"Related to anything."

Budget negotiators were the only ones attending. A brief glimpse into the meeting showed Dan Gerlach, senior budget adviser to Gov. Mike Easley, and legislative fiscal staff addressing the lawmakers.

Gerlach left several minutes later.

What were they meeting about?

"Talking about the budget," Gerlach said as he walked away.

After the meeting broke up, Rep. Mickey Michaux, a Durham Democrat and the House's chief budget writer, said his team had nothing to do with the decision to close the meeting.

"They ran you out of there," he said of the Senate budget negotiators. "That was their meeting. It wasn't mine."

Bob Orr sounded briefly like the attorney for the N.C. Press Association.

At a debate at UNC-Charlotte Saturday, the Republican gubernatorial candidate argued that Gov. Mike Easley and his successors should follow the state's public records laws.

Orr, a former Supreme Court justice, noted recent news reports that the governor's staff may have ordered public affairs directors to delete their e-mails, a violation of the records law.

He also attacked a recent meeting of the 21st Century Transportation Committee which was held on Figure Eight Island without press access.

"If we're truly going to have openness, it has to begin at the top," he said. "It has to begin with the governor. The governor has to be committed to obeying the open meeting laws, the public records law, of being able to fight for openness."

Orr said that public agencies should pay attorney's fees when they have been found by a judge to have improperly withheld public records.

A high-profile panel on transportation was scheduled to meet last night at the home of a member.

The dinner, featuring a catered buffet and a flamenco band, was to be held on private Figure Eight Island near Wilmington. 

It was not open to the public because of an exception in the Open Meetings Law that allows government bodies to have a "social meeting" where no business is discussed.

"We're not having a meeting. We're having dinner," said Brad Wilson, chair of the 21st Century Transportation Committee. "It's a social event."

But First Amendment lawyer Hugh Stevens said the loophole means the public has only the word of the officials to rely on.

"It invites people to skirt the law, even though they'll be well-meaning and well-intentioned," he said. (Char-O)

Dome came close to ferreting out secret information this morning.

Okay, it wasn't any super-sleuthing on Dome's part. A member of the state Ethics Commission almost spilled the beans about an ethics case involving a senator.

By law, the commission has to consider ethics matters in closed session and even the names of people involved are secret.

But early in Friday's meeting, when commissioners received their standard reminder about conflicts of interest, member Jerry Blackmon raised his hand. He said he may have a potential conflict of interest when it comes to the matter of "Senator..."

That's when Commission chairman Robert Farmer and Executive Director Perry Newson stopped him. They would discuss the potential conflict in closed session, Newson said.

Trying to divine who Blackmon was talking about could be tough. Blackmon was a Mecklenburg County Commissioner in the 1980s and was a state senator through much of the 1990s. He was appointed upon the recommendation of senate leader Marc Basnight and has served on various boards.

After the ethics commission concluded and before the closed session began, Farmer suggested to reporters that they lobby the legislature to open up ethics proceedings.