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NC House unveils $60M Hurricane Helene business relief plan

House leaders’ latest Hurricane Helene relief bill includes a $60 million set-aside to establish and fund a “business recovery” grant program within the state’s Department of Commerce. If approved, the program would offer one-time grants to businesses that suffered economic losses of $25,000 or more because of Helene and that have been...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2025

Boliek: I’m going to investigate Charlotte

State Auditor Dave Boliek has notified Charlotte officials that his office is going to investigate its rumored “settlement” with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings. “The Office of the State Auditor will be asking how much money has reportedly been paid, whether a payment exists, where did money for a payment...

By Ray Gronberg

May 21, 2025

UNC and ECU discord threatens NC Care

Back in 2023, legislative leaders touted their desire to use part of the state’s Medicaid-expansion bonus to fund a new healthcare collaboration between UNC Health and ECU Health. That year’s budget bill authorized spending up to $420 million on the so-called NC Care initiative, and actually appropriated the bulk of...

By Ray Gronberg

May 21, 2025

House Republicans question $2B children’s hospital subsidy

House Republicans aren’t exactly sold on the idea of massively subsidizing UNC Health and Duke Health’s plan to build a new children’s hospital somewhere in the Triangle, two of their leaders say. “We have an information deficit,” said Rep. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth. “Our caucus is saying, ‘With tight economic times, can...

By Ray Gronberg

May 21, 2025

The House budget, now fully rolled out

The full House budget emerged Monday afternoon, and with it the full scope of the chamber GOP caucus’ disagreements with the Senate’s first draft of the spending plan for the 2025-27 biennium. These start with across-the-board salary increases for most state employees of 2.5% in fiscal 2025-26, versus the Senate’s 1.25%. In...

By Ray Gronberg

May 20, 2025

Stein’s Helene request

Gov. Josh Stein has asked legislators to allot $845.2 million more to Hurricane Helene recovery, and to re-channel $45.6 million in spending previously earmarked to the effort. Other than setting aside money to match federal aid, the biggest line item in Stein’s request calls for sending $70 million to the Office of...

By Ray Gronberg

May 20, 2025

Duke’s ties with China questioned

The leaders of two U.S. House committees have urged Duke University to terminate its relationship with a partner campus in China. Duke’s joint venture with Wuhan University, Duke Kunshan University, has been up and running since 2018 but by facilitating technology transfer is a threat to U.S. national security, the...

By Ray Gronberg

May 19, 2025

Berger optimistic about Charlotte transit bill

Neither the Senate nor the House has taken up their almost-parallel bills that would authorize another transit-tax referendum in Mecklenburg County, but that doesn’t mean the bills are dead, Senate leader Phil Berger says. “It’s still something that folks are interested in getting across the finish line,” Berger said. “We’ve...

By Ray Gronberg

May 19, 2025

Bicameral disagreement

NCInnovation and the children’s hospital are not the only major budgetary and policy differences emerging between the Senate and House appropriators. The House plan, for example, agrees with the Senate’s that the governor’s choice to serve as adjutant general of the N.C. National Guard should receive legislative confirmation. But the...

By Ray Gronberg

May 19, 2025

House, Senate split over NCInnovation funding and children’s hospital investment

It appears the Senate and the House have very different ideas about how to wind down the state’s involvement with NCInnovation — and about how to spin up its involvement in a new children’s hospital. The first pieces of the House’s budget counterproposal for the 2025-27 biennium emerged in appropriations subcommittees on...

By Ray Gronberg

May 19, 2025

Helene and FEMA

The N.C. Leadership Conference’s remaining panel, with Rep. Eric Ager, D-Buncombe and Biltmore Farms Vice President Ben Teague, focused on Hurricane Helene’s effect on western North Carolina. Ager had a lot to say about FEMA that, as it happened, dovetailed with some thoughts Gov. Josh Stein relayed to the feds the day before....

By Ray Gronberg

May 19, 2025

Business North Carolina’s annual Leadership Conference

The AI panel was one of four, and the others likewise offered some interesting tidbits. Morning’s opener featured UNC Chapel Hill Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham and his counterparts from Wake Forest and East Carolina. The imminent House settlement’s financial impact on college athletics was Topic No. 1, there being general agreement that it’s...

By Ray Gronberg

May 19, 2025

AI sparks debate at Business NC Leadership Conference

Business North Carolina’s and the Trib’s annual Leadership Conference happened Friday, and it only took the morning’s final panel a few moments to get radical. How radical did the discussion of artificial intelligence get? Well, judge for yourself: “Does anybody like the way that social media is operating today? From a...

By Ray Gronberg

May 19, 2025

The race for supersonic dominance

Growing up in California in the 1960s, my family’s house was about seven miles from Disneyland and seven miles from the beach. It was also about 15 miles from MCAS El Toro — which made sonic booms a feature of daily life. The Marines based there, you see, flew F-4 Phantoms. SOP was...

By Ray Gronberg

May 15, 2025

NCInnovation announces new set of grant awards

NCInnovation’s $500 million endowment might go away as soon as legislators pass a budget, but for now the nonprofit is still pumping money into research efforts in the UNC System. On Wednesday, it announced a group of 17 awards to projects that it sees as having “commercial promise.” Combined, they’re...

By Ray Gronberg

May 15, 2025