RALEIGH – As I was reading the Carolina Journal Online summary of the Monday morning news headlines, I found much that sounded strikingly familiar.

One story described Gov. Beverly Perdue’s plan to reorganize state government. By merging 13 state agencies and departments into eight Cabinet departments and eliminating hundreds of middle-management positions, the administration expects to save nearly $50 million next year and $80 million in 2012-13. Perdue is using a little-known provision of the state constitution allowing governors to file reorganization plans that automatically go into effect unless the General Assembly vetoes it.

Readers of the John Locke Foundation’s fiscal research, however, have already heard of the provision. In fact, they’ve already read about several of the agency-consolidation ideas that Perdue is now proposing to implement. In its latest briefing book, in fact, JLF projected a savings of $54 million in the first year of such a reorganization, a figure that seems remarkably prescient.

The General Assembly is also considering budget-savings proposals that JLF has long championed. One is to downsize or eliminate the state’s Alcohol Law Enforcement division, located in the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety. Our analysis suggests that ALE costs too much for the marginal benefit it brings in the enforcement of state alcohol laws The function is better performed at the local level, where its cost would be lower and its value weighed against law-enforcement priorities.

Another idea currently making the rounds in the state legislature is to rethink how North Carolina’s lottery revenue is allocated. Most of us at JLF would have preferred that the state not get into the gambling business in the first place. If repeal proves difficult, however, we’ve argued that at least the proceeds ought to be devoted to a discrete purpose, such as school construction, so that the money serves to supplement rather than supplant preexisting state funding streams, as was the stated intention.

Right after the 2010 elections, JLF policy analysts conferred to set their research priorities for the coming year. After agreeing that the two biggest jobs facing the General Assembly during 2011 would be balancing the state budget and redrawing state legislative and congressional districts, the JLF team made a list of 11 other measures that lawmakers should take action on during the first 100 days of the session. Charter schools, budget transparency, property rights, and electoral reform were among the items on the list.

So far, nearly all of JLF’s recommendations have been turned into bills filed in the House or Senate. Some of the bills have already received favorable committee or floor votes.

If you are a longtime reader of JLF’s policy research, Carolina Journal reporting, or policy websites and blogs, you are well prepared to follow and evaluate these and other emerging issues in North Carolina politics and government. But if you are not yet a donor to JLF, there is a valuable benefit you have yet to experience: the personal satisfaction of knowing that you have helped make all of our programs and services possible.

Every year, thousands of individuals, families, companies, and foundations make tax-deductible contributions to support the work of the John Locke Foundation. They either donate to our general operations or designate their gifts to certain programs, such as CJ, our research division, or the North Carolina History Project. Other North Carolinians have decided to include JLF in their estate planning, for which we are most grateful.

Whatever your level of support, we would appreciate it. JLF is funded entirely by voluntary contributions from those who value our work. That’s how we do things – and how we think all public policy groups and nonprofit media should fund their activities.

“Tis the greatest charity to preserve the laws and rights of the nation,” wrote the English philosopher John Locke more than 300 years ago. At JLF, we are working diligently to preserve the founding principles and traditions of our state and nation, and to apply them to the problems of the 21st century.

Please help us.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.