Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand was in no mood to argue the merits of a budget "technical corrections" bill that raced through the legislature today as the session comes to a close.

State Sen. Richard Stevens, a Cary Republican, raised questions about a provision that hands another $1 million to Gov. Mike Easley's Learn and Earn initiative. It provides a means for high school students to obtain a four-year college degree tuition free, Dan Kane reports.

Easley had sought the money as part of negotiations that eventually persuaded him to sign the $21.4 billion state budget on Thursday.

The legislation allows the Office of State Budget and Management to take the money from any agency. Stevens said the money should come from the Department of Public Instruction, which oversees Learn and Earn.

"This could come out of prisons; it could come out of universities," Stevens said. "Why don't we take it out of DPI?"

"Because we're going to adjourn in a few minutes, and that's what it says," Rand responded.

State lawmakers will not try to bail out the health plan that serves roughly 650,000 state workers, teachers, retirees and their families before the 2008 session ends today.

House and Senate leaders could not reach an agreement on how to fix the plan, which they say is paying out more than it is taking in. The House voted Thursday to set aside $100 million from the rainy day fund to cover deficits, but the Senate won't take up the legislation, Dan Kane reports.

Senate leaders wanted to raise co-pays for brand-name prescription drugs and on doctor visits, but House leaders said it was unfair to place that burden on plan members at a time when gas, food and other costs are rising rapidly.

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand and House Minority Leader Hugh Holliman said if the plan heads deeply into the red, a special legislative session could be called to work out a fix.

"We'll just deal with it on a week-to-week, month-to-month basis," said Holliman, a Lexington Democrat. "If we get into real trouble we'll just have a special session."

The plan currently has about $140 million in it, Holliman said, but he added that the plan spends roughly $50 million a week. The plan's interim administrator, Jack Walker, said it should have more than $200 million in it by early next year to stabilize it.

The plan's troubles only surfaced recently, and led to the abrupt firing of executive administrator George C. Stokes. He said he has steered the plan from serious deficits, and expects it to perform well in the current fiscal year that ends June 30, 2009.

Lawmakers are planning to adjourn this afternoon.

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand has no regrets.

The Fayetteville Democrat said he does not think it was a problem that the legislature didn't consider a number of Republican-sponsored measures, such as constitutional amendments on eminent domain and gay marriage, during the short session.

"The Republican Party has existed for 148 years," he said. "I suspect it can wait until January for anything we didn't do."

Abraham Lincoln was unavailable for comment. 

N.C. Rep. Russell Tucker said he has some magic words that allowed him to pull off an unusual feat: getting money slipped into the state budget bill that had not appeared in either the House or Senate spending plans.

Tucker, a Duplin County Democrat, persuaded House legislative leaders to include $500,000 for a proposed Museum of the Marine in Jacksonville, which is home to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. Tucker's district includes a small portion of Onslow County, Dan Kane reports.

The money is to help the nonprofit seeking to build the museum complete an architectural plan.Tucker said the museum has a $35 million price tag. He said the state put in roughly $1 million in planning money about two years ago.

This year, Tucker filed a bill seeking $5 million from the state for the museum. The bill went nowhere. So, he embarked on a lobbying campaign that went all the way up to House Speaker Joe Hackney.

"I think I spoke to them all," Tucker said. "I left no stone unturned."

More after the jump.

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Legislation that would require state and local governments to pay reasonable legal fees when they lose a public records lawsuit cleared a Senate judiciary committee today after an attempt to gut the bill.

State law currently gives the courts limited discretion to not award legal fees to people and businesses who win public records lawsuits if the governmental agency showed substantial justification to deny records. Open government advocates say judges have largely used that discretion to prevent or limit the awarding of legal fees, reports Dan Kane.

"It hasn't operated as people thought it should and it has cost some of the smaller papers in the state a lot of money to protect their rights," said Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat.

State Sen. Dan Clodfelter, a Charlotte Democrat, offered an amendment that would have left that standard in place. He said the current law, passed in 2005, had not been given a chance to prove its effectiveness.

"It was negotiated in good faith," Clodfelter said. "What I don't like about the bill is that is going to be thrown out the window."

Representatives of county and municipal governments and public hospitals supported the amendment, while representatives of the N.C. Press Association and N.C. Association of Broadcasters urged its defeat.

A majority of senators voted the amendment down in a voice vote and then gave the legislation a favorable report. It now goes to the Senate Finance Committee.

The legislation, filed by state Sen. David Hoyle, a Gaston County Democrat, also creates an open government section within the state Attorney General's office to educate public officials about the state's open records and open meetings laws. The unit would also mediate disputes.

The State Health Plan's executive administrator was abruptly fired Tuesday after lawmakers discovered a $115 million loss in the fund that provides health care for roughly 650,000 employees' and retirees' health care.

House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman, a Lexington Democrat, and Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, sent a letter to state Insurance Commissioner Jim Long "requesting a change in leadership," which led to the dismissal of George Stokes. He had led the plan for roughly three years.

"We just felt that we were not informed in the way we should," said Holliman.

Holliman said lawmakers had expected a $50 million surplus in the plan, but discovered last week that there was a $65 million deficit. He said it would not affect the state budget for the current fiscal year that began on Monday, but would need to be dealt with in next year's state budget.

He said the prior administrator, Jack Walker, has been asked to lead the health plan on an interim basis.

The letter sent to Long said that "we very much appreciate Mr. Stoke's service to the state and regret that this action is necessary, but believe it to be essential."

Chrissy Pearson, a spokeswoman for the state Insurance Department, said Long and other staff had no idea there were problems with the fund or with Stokes' management.

"It has caught us by surprise," she said.

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."

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand said he won't pursue this session legislation that would require students attending public and private colleges in North Carolina to spend at least 20 hours a semester tutoring or mentoring public school students.

Rand said he would try to rework his bill for next year after hearing a lot of concern from college officials. He said he wants it to be more "volunteer oriented" and not something that creates a new bureaucracy for volunteerism.

"It would require a great deal of planning," said Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat.

Rand filed his bill after two college students were recently killed by gunfire in the Triangle: UNC-Chapel Hill student body president Eve Carson and Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato. The community service program would be named after them.

It would have required most students entering UNC system schools and private colleges in the fall to begin volunteering. Private colleges would have had to participate or lose out on two state financial aid programs.

By Jan. 1, 2012, all bachelor's degree recipients would have had to have completed the community service requirement.