RALEIGH A judge has ruled that the state cannot deny poor children access to the state's prekindergarten program, striking down apparent limits in the recent Republican-authored budget law.

Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. issued an order Monday that the state cannot implement any barrier or regulation that prevents eligible at-risk children from enrolling in the state's prekindergarten program, previously known as More at Four.

Manning cited a part of the new law spelling out a 20 percent cap for at-risk children, which would dramatically reduce the number of slots for them. The budget also cut the program's budget by 20 percent, or $32 million, and specified that families who are not "at risk" would be charged co-payments.

Manning's order opens fresh questions for prekindergarten programs in North Carolina, a state that has built a reputation for its focus on high-quality preschool. The state's educational program for 4-year-olds, previously known as More at Four, is now known as the N.C. Pre-Kindergarten Program under a recent name change.

Republicans said Manning misread their actions.

"This case is about the individual right of every child to have the equal opportunity to obtain a sound basic education," Manning wrote in the order. "The constitutional right belongs to the child, not to the adults. Each at-risk four year old that appears at the doors of the (North Carolina prekindergarten) program this fall is a defenseless, fragile child whose background of poverty or disability places the child at-risk of subsequent academic failure."

A spokeswoman for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools said the district hadn't had time to sort out the ruling's impact. The district serves about 3,000 disadvantaged 4-year-olds through its pre-K program, Bright Beginnings.

The state budget cut seats for 212 children who would have enrolled in other pre-K programs in Mecklenburg, and those children are going on waiting lists, said Julie Babb, director of prekindergarten services for CMS. Also, she said, money for the remaining children in those programs has been cut by 20 percent.

Brett Loftis, executive director of the Council for Children's Rights, said he thinks Manning's ruling paves the way to serve more preschoolers while also reducing the amount of county tax dollars used to support Bright Beginnings. He said the ruling requires the state to pay for a slot for every at-risk child who qualifies for More at Four.

The ruling, Loftis said, "is going so much farther to providing equity than anything else we've seen in a long time."

Ongoing lawsuit

Manning's decision comes after a two-day court hearing in June in which plaintiffs in the long-running Leandro school quality lawsuit - five high-poverty N.C. school districts - challenged the budget cuts enacted by the legislature for the coming year. A major focus was More at Four and the changes that plaintiffs argued would exclude poor children the program was to serve.

Manning's order does not find fault with education budget cuts in general, or the state's level of prekindergarten support.

Nevertheless, Democrats pounced and called for lawmakers to do a budget rewrite.

Republicans insisted that Manning had misinterpreted the intent of the budget bill.

"I am disappointed in today's order from Judge Manning," House Speaker Thom Tillis of Cornelius said in a statement. "The Court's ruling is unclear in key places and may be incorrect as a matter of law."

Senate leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, said the legislative intent was not to limit the program to 20 percent of at-risk participants.

"I'm fairly confident that that is a poorly worded provision in the budget," he said of the language spelling out the limit.

"I think we all ought to kind of take a step back and make sure we understand exactly what he's done and exactly what we're looking at."

Democrats, meantime, applauded Manning's decision.

Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue, whose budget veto was eventually overridden, said it is time for lawmakers to start over.

"I call upon our legislative leaders to act swiftly to fix this injustice so these children can start school in the fall, but in doing so they should not inflict further cuts on other educational programs," Perdue said in a statement.

Other Democrats seized on Manning's ruling, repeating their message that the Republican education budget was a setback for North Carolina.

House Minority Leader Joe Hackney, in a statement, said: "Judge Manning's order may at least help correct one of the many poor decisions to come out of this ill-conceived budget."

Melanie Dubis, attorney for the Leandro plaintiffs, pointed out that testimony in the hearing indicated that the state has more than 65,000 four-year-olds who could be deemed "at risk," but fewer than half of them are currently served.

So Manning's order could be read to mean that all of those children have a right to prekindergarten, she said.

"This is a great ruling for the at-risk 4-year-olds in the state of North Carolina," she said. "I think Judge Manning got it right."

Observer Staff Writer April Bethea contributed.