Major budget cuts are on the way.
Gov. Beverly Perdue will propose significant cuts in public services next week, as she faces the biggest drop in tax revenue in recent memory, her chief budget advisor said Wednesday.
"The decisions the governor has to make are some the toughest that have had to be made in the last 80 years," said Charlie Perusse, her budget director said at a briefing for the news media, Rob Christensen reports.
There was no hint of how Perdue will balance the budget — whether agencies or programs will be eliminated, prisons closed, state employees laid off, or taxes raised.
"She has charged my office to look line by line at the agency's budget to focus on protecting core services: education, health care, public safety," Perusse said. "There are going to be substantial reductions in our budget."
Perusse said the governor had asked his office to make "strategic cuts," not just across the board reductions, looking whether the taxpayers were benefiting from the program.
Perdue's recommendations are scheduled to be made Tuesday. But aides said she will make a speech Monday outlining her some of recommendations on education.
In her State of the State speech to a joint session of the legislature Monday night, Perdue said she would increase per pupil spending in the public schools.
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