Aggregated News

State money that was allocated during the summer for the benefit of sterilization victims still has not been spent, and no substantive progress has been made on a special foundation that is supposed to be established.

The General Assembly included $250,000 in the 2009-10 state budget to set up the foundation, which eventually could be used to pay financial reparations to surviving victims of a state-sponsored eugenics program that lasted from 1929 into the 1970s.

It's a small amount of money but a historically significant act -- it was the first time that the legislature took a formal step toward reparations for sterilization victims. Two of the state's biggest advocates for such reparations are state Reps. Larry Womble and Earline Parmon, Democrats from Winston-Salem.

Although the legislature authorized the money, it is now midway through the budget year and nothing of substance has been done.

"There's not an office. There's not a hiring. It's all still in progress," said Jill Lucas, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Administration, where the foundation will be housed.

The first step, yet to...