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Budget & Taxes

Legislators want to clamp down on occupancy-tax diversions

House members aren’t about to let the ink dry on a recent state Supreme Court ruling without acting to stop Currituck County and other places from using motel-tax money to fund police, EMS and fire services. On Tuesday the House Finance and Rules committees gutted Senate Bill 484and replaced it...

By Ray Gronberg

June 5, 2026

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

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

State fiscal forecast improves

Fiscal forecasters now think the state government will bring in $1.3 billion more in the 2025-27 biennium to support its general fund than they were estimating just two months ago. A joint estimate from the Office of State Budget and Management and the legislature’s Fiscal Research Division attributes the change,...

By Ray Gronberg

May 18, 2026

ElectriCities speaks out against Barnes’ Rocky Mount bill

ElectriCities of North Carolina opposes state Sen. Lisa Barnes’ push to impose additional restrictions on how Rocky Mount’s government uses the revenue from its power and gas utilities. Barnes’ Senate Bill 1076 “undermines a system that is already lawful, limited and overseen,” says Rhian Ray, ElectriCities’ government affairs manager. The...

By Ray Gronberg

May 14, 2026

GOP leaders agree to tax, worker-raise budget framework

House Speaker Destin Hall and Senate leader Phil Berger have a deal on state-employee salaries and tax policy that clears the way for legislators to finally finish their work on the state’s 2025-27 budget. Teachers and law enforcement are in line for big raises, with most everyone else  on the...

By Ray Gronberg

May 13, 2026

Boliek frets about Charlotte airport, stadium, water-project borrowing

State Auditor Dave Boliek thinks Charlotte’s government is borrowing entirely too much money. The latest such request, reviewed and approved by the Local Government Commission on Tuesday, involves money to pay for upgrades to Charlotte Douglas International Airport. These include the construction of a new, fourth north-south runway and the...

By Ray Gronberg

May 12, 2026

Barnes: Rocky Mount “not a good steward”

Nash County’s only state senator says she filed a bill that would forbid Rocky Mount from using electric-utility revenue to shore up its general fund because the city “has proven that it’s not a good steward of taxpayer funds.” It’s thus necessary to “ensure every penny our rural neighbors outside Rocky...

By Ray Gronberg

May 12, 2026

Zenger on Meta

Meta’s lobbyists “introduced us” to the idea of adding app stores to the list of online platforms that will have age restrictions if House Bill 301 passes, lead sponsor Rep. Jeff Zenger says. Zenger also isn’t too worried about the possibility that the social-media giant — the parent company of...

By Ray Gronberg

May 11, 2026

Republicans suggest revamp of fuel-price riders

A trio of House Republicans wants legislators to revamp North Carolina’s power-pricing system, to give Duke Energy and other utilities more incentive to find ways to save money on fuel. Reps. Mike Schietzelt, Erin Paré and Ben Moss joined forces to introduce House Bill 1192, which would require Duke and...

By Ray Gronberg

May 11, 2026

Senate advances moratorium on property tax-value changes

Senate leaders have begun pushing through committee a bill that would freeze property value assessments for a year in a handful of the state’s counties, they say to buy time for a broader rethink of property tax policy. Senate Bill 889 — sponsored by among others Senate leader Phil Berger...

By Ray Gronberg

May 1, 2026

Batch backtracks on Medicaid rebase

Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch, D-Wake, has walked back her caucus’s support of the Medicaid rebase bill that it has already voted in favor of passing. She put out a letter on Friday asking the Senate’s Republican leaders to pull back the bill and rewrite it to drop three of...

By Ray Gronberg

April 27, 2026

Duke paid no federal income tax in 2025

Duke Energy and three other large, North Carolina-headquartered corporations paid no federal income tax in 2025, a Washington-based advocacy group says. A common thread linking them and 84 other prominent companies, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says, is that many rely on depreciation-related tax breaks. Congress expanded these last...

By Ray Gronberg

April 22, 2026

House panel shelves hospital-taxation proposals

The House’s property tax committee wrapped up its pre-session work on Wednesday without offering any endorsement of the idea of reeling in some of the tax breaks the state gives hospitals. Members endorsed the idea of putting a constitutional amendment on the fall ballot that, if voter-approved, would require the...

By Ray Gronberg

April 22, 2026

Pew frets about state reserves

North Carolina’s primary rainy-day fund had $3.6 billion as of last summer, which would fund about 42 days’ worth of state spending, a drop-off in reserves that parallels national trends, the Pew Charitable Trusts say. The state is two years — and a devastating hurricane — down the road from...

By Ray Gronberg

April 15, 2026

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