Closing the gaps

Lawmakers took several important steps during the session just completed toward bringing together two North Carolinas

Purely in terms of promoting economic progress, 2006 was a vintage year for the General Assembly. Some of the chains holding back North Carolina's poorest counties were cut. Those counties will benefit, too, from steps taken to raise the standard of living across the state.

The heaviest burden has long been public schools' lack of the resources they need to help children from poor families learn at the same pace as their more fortunate peers. Uncompetitive salaries and unfavorable working conditions often put the best teachers beyond the reach of poor counties. Facilities may be substandard. Results are predictable: high dropout rates and a low-skill work force, completing a vicious cycle of economic stagnation.

This year poor school districts, at last, will receive additional state dollars to catch up to the statewide average for public school support. By adding $41.9 million to a fund for them, lawmakers made good on a decade-old promise.

The money comes from a $2.4 billion revenue surplus produced by a welcome improvement in the state economy. That also made it possible for legislators to give teachers the biggest single pay raise in years. All North Carolina school systems should fare better in the national competition for teachers, but the 8 percent pay raise is a particularly helpful antidote to recruitment problems in poor districts.

With a high school diploma, young people can go on to college or the kind of specialized training that is sought after by today's knowledge-based industries. Lawmakers wisely opened more opportunity. The state's universities will be receiving more money to accommodate more students, and $22 million more for financial aid will help them enroll.

To hold onto these well-trained North Carolinians, the state must encourage economic growth. Fortunately, legislators this time didn't try to accomplish that through pork-barrel projects slipped into the state budget without debate.

On momentum of their own, North Carolina's urban counties have long been creating jobs at a healthy clip. By contrast, poor rural counties have suffered disproportionately from job losses as traditional manufacturers left in search of cheap foreign labor.

State economic development incentives might have been used to help them out. Instead, the Bill Lee Act's tax breaks typically have ended up going to companies that likely were headed to urban counties with or without incentives.

That has made little sense, and thanks to revisions in the law this year, it might change. The system for doling out tax credits was simplified to give the most weight, and the most potential benefit, to the 40 poorest counties among the state's 100 counties overall.

Another change that stands to help poor counties is the $1 minimum-wage increase taking effect in January. The extra dollars are likely to be spent by wage-earners, possibly to the advantage of a grocer or two.

Granted, despite the "One North Carolina" goal that leaders in the capital like to talk about, this legislation won't put the whole state on a high and even plane in terms of opportunity and wealth right away. Still, those legislators who contributed to a solid effort have done well by the people they represent.