On the heels of Easley’s budget, which, among other things, allocates $864 million for education and “reprograms” $190 million from the General Fund for the lottery, a Wake committee on school growth suggests a raise in property taxes. The two dissenting voices on the committee, John Hood and Bob Luddy, said that cost-cutting measures should preempt tax increases.  This philosophy bled into Joe Coletti‘s assessment of Easley’s budget, which was picked up by Scott Mooneyham from The Insider, North Carolina’s  State Government News Service (adapted from this).