Gov. Beverly Perdue signed another batch of bills Friday afternoon leaving five remaining unsigned bills on her desk.

The six remaining are:

HB 104: Clarifies which documents produced by lawmakers are exempt from the public records law. Would make requests by lawmakers sent to state agencies exempt from the public records law.

HB 945: The Studies Act of 2009 catalogues a host of items and issues to be studied while the legislature is out of session.

HB 1166: Insurance Law Changes. Makes several changes including a new requirement that to get a license, insurance agents must submit fingerprints for a criminal background check.

SB 947: Provides more opportunity for a homeowner to halt foreclosure if he or she can demonstrate they can pay what is owed.

HB 836: Makes technical corrections to the state budget.

HB 1329: Consolidates various state stautes regulating criminal record expunctions. 

Among the 40-plus Perdue signed Friday are:

SB 167: Prohibits tobacco products and cell phones in prisons. Makes it a crime to provide tobacco or cell phones to inmates.

HB 667: Allows wineries to sell wine during business hours.

SB 138: Bans the recreational use of salvia divinorum, an hallucinogenic herb. Still allows the mint-like plant to be used in landscaping.

SB 786: Authorizes capital projects on University of North Carolina system campuses. The projects have a funding stream to repay debt for the projects. List includes $21.8 million for a parking deck at N.C. State University, a $10 million renovation of the Carolina Inn at UNC-Chapel Hill, $35 million for a Partnership, Outreach and Research for Accelerated Learning Building at UNC-Charlotte.

SB 464: Requires statistics on race to be kept to help identify and prevent racial profiling by law enforcement. Also requires that a law enforcement officer ensure a child is in safe hands if the child's parent gets arrested. The last provision would have prevented a case last year in which three children were stranded on Interstate 85 in the middle of the night for eight hours when a sheriff's deputy arrested the children's mother, an illegal immigrant.

Correction: Perdue had six bills to sign, not five as we previously reported. Dome regrets the oversight. 

A bill that would ban the possession and use of tobacco products and cell phones in state prisons received final legislative approval today and is on its way to the governor's desk.

The prison smoking ban comes at the request of the N.C. Sheriffs' Association, which asked that a statewide smoking ban in some public areas be extended to prisons.

The cell phone component grew out of a story in The News & Observer that highlighted problems that have occurred in North Carolina and other states when inmates have used cell phones to set up attacks on each other, coordinate escapes and continue to run illegal enterprises outside of prison.

The ban passed the House on Wednesday despite objections that it was another blow to the tobacco industry, which has taken major hits this year with the statewide ban in bars and restaurants and a tax increase in the state budget.

* Game on: Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee puts out first Web video targeting U.S. Sen. Richard Burr; hits ATM comments.

* Burr's consultant, Paul Shumaker, estimates the race may end up costing a total of $60 million, says Burr is ready for fight. 

* Bicycles may soon be required to have lights on both the front and the back under a Senate bill that passed committee.

* Conservative blogger Joe Guarino thinks U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan should not sign onto a study of the nation's criminal justice system.

Gov. Beverly Perdue has proposed cutting prison beds.

To help deal with the state's budget crisis, Perdue this week proposed closing five prisons, a prison hospital and a halfway house for women that are inefficient.

The cuts would save $25 million over the next two years, but they would also eliminate space for 1,031 inmates at a time when the system could see an additional 2,300 inmates.

Prison officials say they'll double up cells and put beds in day rooms. But the closures will put a crunch on a system with 40,644 inmates, slightly above capacity.

Some legislators are calling for reducing sentences, but Perdue said she's not ready.

"I would like a discussion some time about what other states are doing," she said. "I know after a decade there needs to be a very open public discussion about whether we invest more in community placement and education opportunities." (N&O)

Gov. Beverly Perdue's budget is not as drastic as some feared.

Her initial $21 billion proposal would raise taxes on smoking and drinking, cut as many as 268 state employees and shuffle more than 1,000 more, eliminate 20 smaller programs, close seven prisons and increase per-pupil spending. (N&O)

It also expands the Earned Income Tax Credit, makes bonuses to veterans tax-free, extends some business tax deductions and increases licensing and vital records fees. (N&O)

Legislative leaders say the plan is a good starting point, though they cautioned that tobacco and alcohol taxes as well as an accounting change may be a tough sell to lawmakers.

"I don't think you'll see a lot of differences with what she's proposed," said Senate leader Marc Basnight. (GN-R)

State employees are relieved the proposal avoids furloughs, pay cuts and massive layoffs. (Times-News) But tobacco and alcohol interests say the taxes would hurt their industries and put jobs at risk. (Times-News)

Politicians from the rural areas served by the seven prisons also object. (AP)

Gov. Beverly Perdue would cut prison spending, but keep the same number of beds.

At a presentation this morning, Budget Director Charlie Perusse said that proposed cuts would mainly be in closing older, less efficient prisons.

He singled out McCain Correctional Hospital, a minimum custody health care center for adult male inmates that was built in 1908.

"Is it worth putting repair and renovation money into facilities that are 80 or 90 years old?" he said. "It's going to cost more to repair them ... then to transition (prisoners) to a new site somewhere else."

He said that the per-day costs at older prisons are often much greater than at newer facilities. Recent prison designs in Pamlico, Nash and Warren counties have also allowed for double-celling of inmates. 

Perusse said that the state would still have the number of beds projected to be needed by the state Sentencing Commission projections.

Bob Lewis, the new state prisons director, will be making $111,570 a year, according to a Department of Correction spokesman.

The DOC announced Lewis' appointment on Tuesday. He had been the deputy director for prison support services for the past eight years, Dan Kane reports.

He replaces Boyd Bennett, who is retiring at the end of the month.

The inmate who sought to escape from Scotland Correctional Institution last month had successfully escaped from another North Carolina prison nearly five years earlier, a Correction spokesman said.

In 2004, Jeffery Allen Manchester, 37, was serving a 45-year sentence when he broke out of the Brown Creek Correctional Institution near Polkton by clinging to the underside of a delivery truck as it left the prison. His escape won him attention on the "America's Most Wanted" TV show, reports Dan Kane.

He was captured seven months later in Charlotte, where he had been hiding out in a vacant electronics store and raiding the Toys R Us next door.

At Scotland last month, correction spokesman Keith Acree said, Manchester had left a dummy in his cell that fooled correction officers performing head counts. But Manchester did not get past the prison fence; he was spotted on the grounds. He is now being held in a maximum security facility at Polk Correctional Institution in Butner.

The escape attempt irked newly appointed Correction Secretary Alvin Keller, because a preliminary investigation showed staff were not properly performing head counts. The Scotland prison's superintendent, Frederick Hubbard, has been temporarily transferred from the prison pending the outcome of the investigation.

Robert "Bob" Lewis has been named the state's new prisons director, the Correction Department announced this morning.

Lewis, 58, has been deputy director for prison support services for the past eight years.

As prisons director, Lewis will be in charge of 79 prisons that confine 40,000 inmates. The division has more than 17,000 employees, and an annual budget of $1.1 billion.

Correction Secretary Al Keller appointed Lewis to the post effective March 1, when he will succeed the retiring Boyd Bennett.

Lewis started his career as a correctional officer in 1973 at Triangle Correctional Center in Raleigh and rose through the ranks in custody, programs, security and management. He lives in Raleigh and is a graduate of St. Augustine's College.

Boyd Bennett, the state's prisons director, is retiring at the end of the month after more than 36 years working in the Correction Department.

Bennett, 59, has been the director of a system that has 79 prisons and roughly 40,000 inmates for eight years, Dan Kane reports.

He started out in the department as a probation officer, switched over to the prison division six years later, and rose through the administrative ranks to the top spot. A successor has not been named.

"It's just a good time for me financially," Bennett said of his retirement plans. "When you get as much time in as I've had with the state it doesn't pay as much to be working as it does to be in retirement."

More after the jump.

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