"This money is important to North Carolina. It keeps us from cutting schoolteachers. We're still going to make tremendous cuts. I have said that all along. When I get back tomorrow, I've got to finally make the decision about how I'm going to cut the first billion dollars with a billion of stimulus out of the budget that I have to balance, between now and June 30th," said Perdue after the meeting.
Obama's talk with the governors was part of the the 2009 National Governor Association meeting, which kicked off over the weekend. Some of them have said publicly that they don't want the money.
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford says there are too many strings attached.
"For states that don't want the money, I've said, North Carolina has a truck that will come to the Capitol and will take the money and bring it to our state," Gov. Perdue said.
The stimulus plan could bring $6 billion to the Tar Heel State. According to the Governor's office, about $2 billion of that has strings attached. Perdue said despite the huge amount, it won't fix all of North Carolina's problems.
"I'm very troubled by the fact that North Carolina's unemployment rate continues to rise. Our foreclosure rate continues to rise, and we all know that the other shoe hasn't dropped. So nothing is a given right now," she said.
Perdue office said in a news release Monday that she will announce the first round of infrastructure projects on Tuesday. She will make the announcements in Lenoir County, Mecklenburg County and Guilford/Alamance County.
