Laurels to Gov. Beverly Perdue for expanding a state worker gift ban to cover all executive branch employees, not just those who directly deal with state contracts or inspections, as existing ethics laws require.
The order signed by Perdue prohibits all employees in her administration from accepting gifts or favors, including meals, from contractors who work with the employee’s agency. Perdue’s action follows disclosures that dozens of Division of Motor Vehicles staff received restaurant meals and tickets from Verizon Business, which has a $50 million contract with DMV for its vehicle inspections program. The SBI is investigating the propriety of those gifts. These and other recent disclosures of possible ethical lapses, including former Gov. Easley’s sweet-heart land deals and a string of sex scandals involving state troopers, threaten to further erode confidence in public servants among an increasingly cynical electorate.
Perdue’s action is a step toward strengthening this area of ethics regulation. The legislature should follow suit by expanding the current state law to cover all employees and adding criminal penalties.
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Dart to a decline in the income of N.C. households, as documented in new census data. Median household income in North Carolina has declined more than $3,500 during the past eight years. As a result, the percentage of households below the poverty line increased by 2.3 percent. More than 12 percent of North Carolina residents are now living in poverty, the figures show ó a number that is almost certain to be even higher when recent job layoffs and wage declines are factored in. This is bad news on several fronts ó from the well-being of children to the health of the state’s revenue stream. The data also underscores the point that, even before the worst of the recession hit, an increasing number of households were already struggling to survive.
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Laurels to progress on the search for a site to expand the county jail, with officials putting a Heilig Road location at the top of the list. The good news is that the county already owns the property, along with the two other locations deemed less desirable. That removes the complication of selecting and bidding on public land, and should help keep the project within the construction budget limit of $6 million. Of course, picking a site for an annex to the detention center is really the easy part. The challenge will be convincing voters to approve a November referendum that would increase the local sales tax to pay for the much-needed project, which would relieve overcrowding and the threat of state sanctions.