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N.C. Republican Party Chairman Tom Fetzer said state residents should be outraged that the administration of Gov. Bev Perdue hasn't filled probation officer jobs.

Fetzer was speaking at a rally in Pittsboro on Thursday, the same day a memorial garden was dedicated to Eve Carson, the slain UNC-Chapel Hill student body president. The men accused of killing her were on probation at the time and received scant, if any supervision.

When Perdue, a Democrat, took office, she promised to improve the probation system, Fetzer noted.

In December 2008, just before Perdue took office, there were 109 unfilled probation officer jobs. Officials have been hiring but there are still 118 vacant probation officer positions, an N&O story noted this week. Hiring has been slow in part because the jobs require a minimum of two years of related experience such as law enforcement, social work or military. 

Fetzer said in a state where unemployment is 11.2 percent, there is no reason why the jobs should be unfilled.

"This is an abomination and every citizen in North Carolina should be outraged about this," Fetzer said.

APPLICANTS WANTED: The state's crippled probation system is now hiring. But it hasn't done much to get out the word about open positions, and nearly all jobs require two years of experience in social work, the military or law enforcement, limiting the applicant pool. (N&O)

FOCUS ON KISSELL: As President Obama and Congressional Democrats prepare their final push on health care overhaul, House leaders scrambling for votes are expected to turn up the pressure on members like Larry Kissell.

But the Montgomery County Democrat, who bucked his leadership in November, is poised to do it again. (Charlotte Observer)

NO BENEFITS: State Sen. R.C. Soles Jr. didn't receive any favors in a plea deal reached last week for a shooting at his home in August 2009, a special prosecutor said Wednesday.

If fact, Soles may have only been charged because of his job at the legislature, James Coman, a special prosecutor said.

"In fact, the position he holds caused the state to dig in its heels and move forward," Coman said. "In light of everything, the best resolution was that he was going to have to be responsible. He owned up to that fact." (Fayetteville Observer)

IT'S A PRIORITY: Gov. Bev Perdue said that fixing the state's probation system remains high on her to-do list. Perdue was responding to a report in the N&O that showed that a year after the paper highlighted problems with the system, many jobs are still unfilled. (N&O)

SPARE A MILLION DIMES? The campaign committee of former Gov. Mike Easley is broke, according to a report filed late Friday.

The campaign spent $170,000 in the last half of 2009, mostly on lawyers who advised and defended the former two-term Democratic governor as the State Board of Elections investigated his activities.

Easley's campaign started 2009 with $427,700 in its account. It ended the year with just $4,465 on hand - and now lists more than $114,000 in debt to law firms. (N&O)

GLUTEN PATROL: When state officials sought to shut down a Durham food company last month for marketing bread as gluten-free that tested positive for gluten, cheers went up across the country among those suffering from celiac disease. (N&O)

KEEP 'EM COMING: A fervent customer base is driving sales at the top lottery retailers. Players have made the lottery a daily or even twice-daily habit. And stores have adapted their operations to serve them. No one surveys the lottery's customer base, so it has been difficult to say who is buying $1.4 billion worth of lottery tickets a year. (N&O)

BETTER RAP SHEETS: A handful of Wake County law enforcement and court officials are testing a new database for searching criminal histories. The system is a direct response to the 2008 shooting death of Eve Carson, the UNC-Chapel Hill student body president. The men accused of her killing were on probation. (N&O)

TAKE IT OUTSIDE: Nonsmokers cheered and smokers groused as the state's new smoking ban took effect over the weekend. (N&O)

Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger fires off the traditional Republican criticisms of the Democrats running the state as taxing too much, spending too much and holding office too long.

But he adds to that: messing up too much. Berger, who sat down with N&O editors Tuesday, rolled out his list of Democratic bumbling, such as a string of state officials, including a speaker of the House, sent to prison for corruption.

He highlights the state health plan's financial crisis that required a bailout, deaths and neglect in the mental health system, a probation system that lost track of parolees who went on to kill and what he sees as a history of budget mismanagement that has contributed to the state's current debacle.

"The Democrats have been given a pass on competence," Berger said. "They've not done a very good job over the past 10 or 12 years."

Berger acknowledged that, given that backdrop, Republicans fail to capitalize on those failings and win elections. He attributes that to a fundraising disparity, Democrats nominating solid candidates and national momentum behind Democrats in recent elections.

A bill that would give probation officers access to juvenile court records and broader leeway in doing warrantless searches sailed through the state Senate with little discussion.

The proposed bill, part of a probation system reform package recommended by Gov. Beverly Perdue, still must clear the House, Anne Blythe reports.

The proposal, introduced by Sen. Tony Rand, a Democrat from Fayetteville, comes after a series of articles in The News & Observer detailed a probation system rife with supervision problems.

High vacancies forced officers to carry perilously high caseloads, resulting in botched oversight of many cases and 13,000 missing offenders. Since 2000, 580 probationers killed while under state supervision. Since then, Perdue has made management changes. She also has recommended spending nearly $24.2 million over the next two years to hire 175 more officers.

Gov. Beverly Perdue has given a taste of her budget.

In the past week, Perdue has declared she will increase per-pupil spending, boost pro-business initiatives, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and spend more on parole and probation, among other things.

By far the largest promise so far was on education, though even there Perdue shied away from specifics. At a minimum, the governor could spend the same amount as this year and see per-pupil spending rise, thanks to an expected drop in the number of kindergarteners.

(That is a one-year quirk, however, caused by a change in state law that will push back at what age students start school.)

A rough estimate of the minimum spending on students Perdue has promised, then, would be about $8.1 billion, or about 38 percent of the current $21.5 billion budget.

The other spending she has promised so far totals $155.2 million, or less than one percent of the current budget.

After the jump, the math.

* Cigar-smoking restaurateur says he has no regrets about opening two smoke-free places in Fayetteville, though one customer wanted to fight.

* WUNC reporter Laura Leslie notes that Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton's daughter, Elizabeth, has been a registered lobbyist for eight years.

* Republican consultant Carter Wrenn gives some more advice to Senate Republicans about how to hold the governor's feet to the fire on probation problems.

* Liberal commentator Chris Fitzsimon notices a "puzzling" entry on a list of politicians who should be considered for the U.S. Supreme Court: Mike Easley.

Overcrowding at state prisons could lead to lighter sentences for some crimes.

The latest projections show that in the fiscal year that begins July 1, the state will not have space for nearly 2,300 inmates — the equivalent of two new prisons.

But state legislators do not have the time or money to build more cells. They already face a $2 billion budget deficit, and it takes more than a year to build a prison.

The state has 79 prisons with 40,00 inmates. Lawmakers have approved new projects that would add space for roughly 2,250 more inmates by 2012.

Problems with the state's probation system could also cause problems, if it means that probationers end up spending more time in prison. (N&O)

House and Senate Republicans touted a bill Tuesday that would allow all law enforcement officers to conduct a warrantless search on any probationer.

The bill is in response to a series in The News & Observer that found that the state's probation system frequently lost track of its charges. One story reported that a probation officer was disciplined for conducting a search on a probationer who was living in another county.

The bill, which is still in the drafting stages, would require judges to place all supervised probationers on a restriction that requires them to submit to warrantless searches. Currently, that restriction is not mandatory.

The bill would also allow any sworn officer or any probation officer to conduct those searches. The idea, said Republican Senate Leader Phil Berger is to make it easier to keep an eye on probationers. It would also seek to correct instituational failings, such as restrictions on probation officers who want to find violators.

"I think the first thing that needs to be done is we need to get bureaucracy cleaned up," Berger said.

Berger also said he is asking the state's probation officials to post on its Web site the names and photos of some 14,000 probationers that have been "lost" in the system.

The bill would also require drug testing for all probationers. Drug testing is currently ordered only in certain cases.