A bill to establish a school of biotechnology and agriscience at the Vernon James Research Center was heard in front of the Senate Standing Committee on Commerce in Raleigh Wednesday.

Lt. Gov Walter Dalton made an appearance and offered his support for the school.

Dalton gave some comments on his appearance in a recent interview to the Washington Daily News.

“I do not know that the bill has passed,” he said. “They did not take a vote in committee so the vote is still pending. I think the reception by the committee was very favorable from what I understand. I did speak to the committee but was not able to stay for the full meeting. I had my staff there and they said that there were a lot of positive comments by people who attended and by some of the committee members there.”

Dalton gave of the details that he outlined to the committee.

“I outlined that this was one of the recommendations of the JOBS Commission which I chair,” he said. “That was established by the Legislature and we’ve been traveling the state. We’ve held meetings in all seven economic regions, including the northeast, and we were trying to find what each region felt its future economy would be, what job skills would be needed and how can we align our educational efforts with those job skills.  We asked for recommendations on what would mean the most educationally in the northeast. The recommendation was an early college in the northeast to be anchored at the Vernon James Research Center in Washington County. It would be a regional concept.”

Dalton said that the JOBS Commission has been very focused on early colleges.

He said he drafted a bill as part of the Innovation in Education Act of 2003 that allowed for the creation of early college programs in North Carolina.

“They have been very successful,” he said. “We have one-third of the early colleges in America today. The New York Times has even said that North Carolina’s early college model is a model for the nation. That is a five-year program. You start in the ninth grade and after five years you have two years of college completed.

“The interesting thing about this regional concept for the northeast is that N.C. State (University) will be the higher-education partner and will help with the curriculum. N.C. State has a huge interest in it, and any time you can partner with one of the foremost science universities in the nation that is a good thing. I said it before the committee that we think this can be a national model.”

Dalton elaborated on how the school would be funded in light of larger budget constraints.

“The majority of the funding would come through the per-student funding that comes out of the educational budget,” he said. “In other words, we fund schools based on the number of students that they have. Depending on the number of students coming to this school that money would follow them. In a sense it is already appropriated there. Whatever the per-pupil funding is, these students would carry that with them.”

Dalton commented on other issues connected to the school that had not been mentioned in earlier reports.

“The local superintendents were concerned that if the students come to this school, they would lose some of their per-pupil funding,” he said. “They wanted a hold-harmless clause where they would be reimbursed. We were supportive of that, but given the budget situation that we have, we are not going to be able to get that. The question was do we go ahead and propose it without the hold harmless. We don’t think it would be that much of a hit. We had four applications for this school. Kannapolis had said they would take it without the hold harmless clause.”

Dalton said that the cost of the school has not been determined.

“It depends on how many students come,” he said. “But the funding is automatic. We have close to 1.2 million students in North Carolina. They will do the appropriation and the per-pupil funding will be divided. Traditionally an early college has received some extra funding of about $300,000. But we do not anticipate that being available.”

The bill for the school has to have a majority vote of the Commerce Committee before it would have to face a majority vote before the Senate and House.