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Pay increases pressuring city and county budgets

Now that the calendar has turned to June, it’s about time for cities and counties across to start passing their budgets. Along with those, in many places, will come raises for police, firefighters and other local-government workers. In some way, shape or form, personnel costs are invariably one of the...

By Ray Gronberg

June 5, 2026

Community Colleges struggles to fill nursing posts

North Carolina has a nursing shortage, but the N.C. Community Colleges has its own problems when it comes to hiring instructors in the field to train people who could close the gap. State Auditor Dave Boliek’s recent report on the 136 long-term vacancies in the Community Colleges system found that...

By Ray Gronberg

June 5, 2026

DOT: New I-77 plan gets graded like any other

The N.C. Department of Transportation isn’t going to treat a new Interstate 77 project in Charlotte differently from any other highway project local governments across the state ask it to take on. That means it’ll have to go through the prioritization process legislators and DOT formalized in the 2010s early...

By Ray Gronberg

June 1, 2026

OBX beer-store chain speaks up for canned cocktails

It’s all well and good that the state House wants to legalize the sale of canned cocktails outside of ABC stores, but the Senate needs to get in the act too, the co-owner of a chain of beer and wine stores on the Outer Banks says. The Senate is advancing...

By Ray Gronberg

June 1, 2026

Senate bill funds Khan Academy AI tutors

Legislators returning to Raleigh this week from their Memorial Day holiday will find a docket that includes an omnibus reform bill for the state’s K-12 schools. Senate Bill 1006 is scheduled to receive its first committee review on Wednesday. Its lead sponsor is Senate Majority Leader Michael Lee, R-New Hanover,...

By Ray Gronberg

June 1, 2026

Counties: Inmate medical costs breaking jail budgets

Inmate medical-care costs are busting the budgets of jails all around the state, thanks in no small part to low-bid service contracts, a new white paper for the N.C. Association of County Commissioners says. Surveys that boiled down to 35 of the state’s 100 counties found that many experienced cost...

By Ray Gronberg

June 1, 2026

BorgWarner plans addition in Hendersonville

A Michigan-based car-parts supplier is looking to branch out and will invest $100 million to add 378 jobs over the next four years to its existing plant in Hendersonville. BorgWarner, which also has operations in the Buncombe County town of Arden, will add 140,000 square feet to its current 220,000-square-foot...

By Ray Gronberg

May 28, 2026

State Supreme Court sides with Currituck Co.

There’s nothing wrong with Currituck County’s decision to use some of its hotel-tax revenue to bankroll police, EMS and fire services, the N.C. Supreme Court says. County leaders have the discretion under state law to decide the summer tourist season in northeast North Carolina — when Currituck’s population basically doubles...

By Ray Gronberg

May 28, 2026

China hawks unhappy with Bank of America

U.S. House China hawks say Charlotte-headquartered Bank of America’sunderwriting of an IPO on the Hong Kong stock exchange exposes big gaps in this country’s sanctions regime. The bank’s involvement underscores doubts about “whether existing guardrails are sufficient to prevent U.S. institutions from enabling activities that undermine American national security interests,”...

By Ray Gronberg

May 28, 2026

Ross criticizes Trump’s Carolina Long Bay buyout

U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, D-2nd, and some of her West Coast colleagues are scrutinizing the big-money settlement the Trump administration paid out in April to a French company to get it to abandon its offshore wind leases. Their objections during a recent U.S. House oversight hearing focused on the administration’s...

By Ray Gronberg

May 28, 2026

REBIC opposes longer moratorium on water-transfer permits

A Charlotte business group is asking members to “reach out” to legislators to stand up for the city’s ability to get another 30 million gallons of water a day from the Catawba River. The Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition is targeting the 17-month extension some House members are proposing...

By Ray Gronberg

May 28, 2026

DOT shuts down I-77 “engagement” center

State Department of Transportation officials have pulled the plug on a “community engagement center” in Charlotte they opened in late March to answer questions about the Interstate 77 widening project. The move comes because project’s dead following this week’s vote by the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization to rescind its...

By Ray Gronberg

May 26, 2026

Supreme Court upholds Duke Energy 2023-25 rates

The N.C. Supreme Court has rejected challenges from manufacturers, electric co-ops and Attorney General Jeff Jackson to Duke Energy’s 2023-25 rate-increase packages. Justice Trey Allen’s opinion held that held the N.C. Utilities Commission on all of the key issues had the discretion to act as it did in setting rates...

By Ray Gronberg

May 26, 2026

Saine strikes out on own, leaves Southern Group

Lobbyist and former state Rep. Jason Saine, R-Lincoln, has left The Southern Group and is in the process of launching his own firm. Saine parted ways with Florida-based Southern Group on May 11 and on May 20 registered Saine Strategies Inc. as a new business with Secretary of State Elaine...

By Ray Gronberg

May 26, 2026

State sues VinFast, claims breach of deal

The state Commerce Department is suing VinFast to take control of the Chatham County land the Vietnamese company had promised would become the site of an automobile factory. Filed on Thursday, the company contends that work has stalled and it’s now impossible for the company to have a factory up...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026