Governor Beverly Perdue spoke Monday night about about the State of North Carolina and it’s economic atmosphere, and announced she will propose a new state budget later this week.

According to Perdue, North Carolina’s state of affairs is much different from two years earlier when the State of North Carolina stood at the edge of an economic disaster.

“The stock market was in tatters. Construction in North Carolina had come to a screeching halt. Business profits were down, and companies were closing their doors,” Perdue said.  “Workers were losing their jobs, and families were losing their homes.”

Perdue said that two years later North Carolina is in a completely different place.

“Two years later, we are winning the game,” Perdue said. 

Throughout the State of the State address, Perdue referred to the release of the budget for 2012, which will be released later this week.

Perdue said she is planning to consolidate 14 state agencies into 8. and some state services are expected to be privatized. Perdue also plans to offer an early retirement package to some employees to further try to reduce the size of the state government.

“The budget that I deliver to you later this week is $2.2 billion less than the budget that I inherited in 2009.  It spends 11 percent less per capita and sheds thousands of state positions,” Perdue said.  “North Carolina must be more agile, more responsive to citizens – less bureaucratic – as we focus our limited resources on our core missions of jobs and education.”

While Perdue has the budget to focus on, she said she also has to consider how the budget will affect the North Carolina education system. 

“Every single child has a right under North Carolina’s constitution to a basic, quality public education, no matter where he or she lives,” Perdue said.

Perdue said she encouraged the state of North Carolina to be decisive about the decisions they make regarding education.

“We must act decisively, and we must act now to ensure all children in every single school system got the sound education they must have to compete in the workforce of tomorrow and keep our state competitive,” Perdue said. 

Because of the looming cuts in the state, N.C. State students, such as Richard Combs, a junior in human biology, are concerned about what will happen at the University in the coming years.

“I don’t think the University should cut any financial aid because it helps people attend who may not have been able to do so,” Combs said.

Combs said he had several suggestions for ways the University could deal with the budget cuts.

“Find cuts in college specific benefits, like in CALS I have free access to ePack, instead of just CALS, find ways to share this and other things between colleges,” Combs said.

As for the way Perdue is handling the state budget, Combs said he was adamant that she shouldn’t cut anything in the field of education.

“I don’t think she should cut anything with education because we don’t need to be any more behind in that respect,” Combs said. “Also, state employees and education have had the biggest cuts so far, so I’d like to see her look at other places to cut first.”

Nakeya Williams, a graduate student in applied mathematics and a teaching assistant, said she understands the dilemma stemming from the state budget.

“I understand where she is coming from because they won’t have to pay salaries, but that’s taking jobs out of the economy which isn’t good,” Perdue said. “Perdue should cut salaries of upper level positions instead of cutting jobs completely.”