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RALEIGH, N.C. - A proposed budget agreement sets aside $10 million for one-time payments to North Carolina's forced sterilization victims, but the final amount paid to each individual will depend on how many come forward.

Under the terms of the $20.6 billion compromise budget unveiled by the Republican legislative majority on Sunday, each verified victim of the state-sponsored eugenics program that ended in the 1970s will split an equal share of the $10 million.

North Carolina forcibly sterilized about 7,600 people whom the state deemed feeble-minded or otherwise undesirable between 1929 and 1974. Some of the victims were as young as 10 and chosen because they were promiscuous or did not get along with their schoolmates.

N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation, a group created by the state to study the issue, estimated last year that as many as 1,800 victims may still be alive. However, the only 168 living victims had then come forward to have their identities verified against state records.

The legislature has debated for years whether to compensate eugenics victims. A bill to pay each living...