Report calls for ban on certain NC government work contracts (AP) — The General Assembly should ban personal services contracts from state government, a legislative watchdog agency recommended Monday, saying lax oversight has caused the agreements with temporary workers to be "misused and abused." More than 14,600 such personal service contracts were in force across agencies during the 2012-13 fiscal year, valued at $58 million, the legislature's Program Evaluation Division wrote in a report.
http://www.reflector.com/ap/staten/report-calls-ban-certain-nc-government-work-contracts-2789983

LEGISLATURE 2015
FactCheck: Talking about Medicaid 'On the Record' (WRAL-TV) -- Reps. Skip Stam and Grier Martin debated the proposals from Gov. McCrory's State of the State speech in this week's "On the Record." We fact check a couple of Stam’s claims. … "Most of the people who would be in any kind of Medicaid expansion are already getting large subsidies on the federal exchange, several hundred thousand probably," Stam said. He also added, "The other thing is to realize every dollar that's spent by the federal government for Medicaid expansion is being borrowed from the Chinese." The two claims came within a minute of one another, both overstate their points and leave out important context, and taken together they receive a red light on our fact-checking scale.
http://www.wral.com/fact-check-talking-about-medicaid-on-the-record-/14428311/

Wade's plan dilutes power of voters (Greensboro News & Record editorial) -- Greensboro’s one-woman Nanny State revealed her plan for changing the City Council on Tuesday. As expected, it mutes the voices of the people but creates greater opportunities for the powerful. State Sen. Trudy Wade’s bill would replace the 5-3-1 plan with a 7-1 scheme. THE WHOLE STORY

http://www.news-record.com/news/wade-s-plan-dilutes-power-of-voters/article_3877ba56-acde-11e4-a8d4-...

F.C.C. Chief Wants to Override N.C. Laws Curbing Community Net Services (New York Times) -- Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, will propose an order to pre-empt state laws that limit the build-out of municipal broadband Internet services, senior F.C.C. officials said on Monday. The proposal focuses on laws in two states, North Carolina and Tennessee, but it would create a policy framework for other states. The chairman’s plan to invalidate the two state laws comes in response to petitions from two municipal Internet service providers: the Electric Power Board in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Greenlight, a community-owned broadband service in Wilson, N.C. THE WHOLE STORY

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/f-c-c-chief-wants-to-override-state-laws-curbing-community-...

Are NC tax cuts a race to the bottom? (Hendersonville Times-News) -- The 2013 N.C. tax reform Gov. Pat McCrory praised when he signed it into law provided the overwhelming benefits to higher-income taxpayers and increased sales taxes on consumers. A family with a taxable income of $50,000, which is above the median income, received a tax cut of $388. A family with a taxable income of $200,000 received a tax cut of $2,938. While families with higher taxable incomes benefited significantly, the vast majority of taxpayers who have much lower taxable incomes received a very small cut in their income taxes. Who ends up paying most of the sales taxes? Those with taxable incomes below $50,000. Did this tax reform really put more money in most families’ budgets?

THE WHOLE STORY http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20150201/ARTICLES/502011009