THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 7, 1995 TAG: 9504070655
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
State fisheries officials who went to Raleigh this week trying to save their division budget from the chopping block were only partially successful.
The General Assembly's joint appropriations subcommittee on Natural and Economic Resources did not vote to eliminate the Division of Marine Fisheries or any of its programs, but the panel also could not agree on restoring division programs headed for the chopping block.
But the agency received strong support from several key senators including Senate leader Marc Basnight, a Manteo Democrat, and Sen. Beverly Perdue, a Craven County Democrat who co-chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. They attended the subcommittee's deliberations.
``We're going to wait and give the new director time to bring forward some recommendations,'' Perdue said in an interview after the subcommittee's meeting Wednesday afternoon. ``I'm hoping he'll tell us what he wants done.''
While the subcommittee agreed that its House and Senate members would make separate recommendations on fisheries spending, Perdue assured state fisheries officials that the Senate would likely restore any cuts in the agency's budget made by the House.
Of particular concern to House members of the panel, which consists of budget writers from the Senate and House of Representatives, are $1 million in new fisheries research grants and $233,441 for a crab fisheries research office in Tyrrell County.
Committee members had questioned whether the grants and the research office were needed, and they questioned whether the grants had been awarded properly.
In his first appearance before a legislative panel, fisheries Director Bruce L. Freeman said that although the grants ``got off to a bad start,'' the Marine Fisheries Commission had addressed questions surrounding the program and the Division of Marine Fisheries had already awarded about a fourth of the grant money.
``The irony is these are really innovative programs,'' Freeman said in an interview after the subcommittee's meeting Wednesday afternoon. ``They've just gotten involved in the political process.''
Existing budgets are under close scrutiny by cost-conscious committee members who say they are looking for an added 1 percent in cuts in existing natural and economic resource programs. by CNB