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Budget & Taxes

State pension returns in double digits

North Carolina’s state pension system had a 13% annual return in 2025, the N.C. Investment Authority reported this week. When excluding fees, that performance ranked in the 54th percentile of U.S. public pension funds with assets topping $20 billion, according to a report filed by State Treasurer Brad Briner. (Lower percentiles reflect...

By Ray Gronberg

March 2, 2026

Speed victimized by scam, auditor says

Town officials in a tiny Edgecombe County community fell victim to “a common foreign scam” in the course of losing their grip on the use of the town’s bank accounts, State Auditor Dave Boliek and his aides say. Leaders of the town of Speed failed to notice for several months...

By Ray Gronberg

February 25, 2026

Nonprofit hospitals get $215M in local taxes breaks a year

The House’s property-tax committee is scrutinizing the tax breaks North Carolina gives its nonprofit hospitals, but a couple of its rank-and-file members are speaking up against the idea of making major changes. Legislative staffers on Wednesday told the panel the property and sales-tax breaks the hospitals receive cost city and county...

By Ray Gronberg

February 19, 2026

Highway Patrol pay lags neighbors, country

State Highway Patrol pay is at the bottom of the barrel nationally and isn’t even all that competitive with other North Carolina law-enforcement agencies, Highway Patrol Col. Freddy Johnson says. As of fall 2025, North Carolina’s starting pay for troopers ($55,000) ranked 49th out of the 50 states and its...

By Ray Gronberg

February 15, 2026

NCI keeps investments cautious pending state budget decisions

The General Assembly’s budget impasse has left NCInnovation in limbo, at least when it comes to handling the $500 million endowment provided by legislators in 2023. Directors of the Durham-based nonprofit agreed Wednesday to hold off until April on deciding whether to give investment managers at Wells Fargo the green...

By Ray Gronberg

February 12, 2026

Rep. Paré criticizes Wake property tax decisions

Rep. Erin Paré, R-Wake, a co-chair of the House select committee on property taxes, has been hammering local governments in her county for letting their tax burdens rise. Recent Twitter posts from Paré have singled out tax increases affecting residents of Zebulon and Wendell, eastern Wake suburbs that aren’t in...

By Ray Gronberg

February 5, 2026

State-pension investment returns improve

North Carolina’s public retirement-system investments earned an estimated 13.3% return in calendar 2025, just under the average for well-stocked peer investment funds. It “was a very strong year,” said Kevin SigRist, chief investment officer in State Treasurer Brad Briner’s office and such the head of the new N.C. Investment Authority....

By Ray Gronberg

February 3, 2026

State pension fund sets request for legislative support

Trustees of the state’s largest public-employee pension plan have confirmed that they’ll ask legislators for a 2026-27 employer contribution equivalent to 17.49% of covered salaries. The decision in effect means that the state would contribute just under $3.5 billion to the Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement System — TSERS —...

By Ray Gronberg

February 3, 2026

Trustees want $25M in admin cuts at UNC Chapel Hill

Trustees at UNC Chapel Hill have given Chancellor Lee Roberts and his team orders to find $25 million in administrative spending cuts and a green light to start laying off people if necessary to meet that. The move comes at the urging of the board’s Budget committee and its chairman,...

By Ray Gronberg

January 26, 2026

Agencies point out errors in auditor’s lapsed-salary report

State agencies say N.C. Auditor Dave Boliek’s lapsed-salary report is riddled with errors that exaggerate how much money is actually available for legislators to reallocate. These include but go beyond the report’s inclusion of 619 unfunded slots in the state Commerce Department. As previously reported here, many of those are...

By Ray Gronberg

January 20, 2026

Senate negotiators reduce ask for NC Children’s

N.C. Senate budget negotiators appear to have given up on securing $638 million for the proposed NC Children’s Hospital in southern Wake County. Instead, their focus is now on securing $103.5 million for the project’s financing, part of a previous authorisation in 2023 to spend approximately $320 million. UNC Health...

By Ray Gronberg

January 19, 2026

Loophole in property tax exemption costing counties

House Speaker Destin Hall’s property tax committee may embark on a side quest, as it’s hearing complaints about a court-opened loophole that can allow some apartment-complex owners to claim an exemption from local taxation. The concern comes from the N.C. Association of County Commissioners and the Self-Help Credit Union and...

By Ray Gronberg

January 15, 2026

State property tax exemptions costing $2.1B a year

State law already exempts about 12% of all real estate in North Carolina from property taxes, legislative staffers told House Speaker Destin Hall’s tax-reform panel on Wednesday. That amounts to $222 billion in assessed value, out of $1.8 trillion total. All told, the exemptions cost local governments around the state...

By Ray Gronberg

January 15, 2026

Roxboro: Praised for raising property taxes

The Local Government Commission has given Roxboro’s government permission to borrow $922,542 to buy five police cars, a fire truck, a garbage truck and an asphalt roller for street repair. Now, this would ordinarily be newsworthy only in Roxboro, but the LGC sign-off comes amid House Speaker Destin Hall’s push...

By Ray Gronberg

January 7, 2026

Boliek briefs legislators on lapse-salary report

State Auditor Dave Boliek has promised legislators they’ll have his office’s full report on state-agency lapsed salaries next week, after his aides incorporate the responses from each of the departments and programs it covers. Appearing before a joint oversight panel on Tuesday, Boliek also urged them to use the data...

By Ray Gronberg

January 7, 2026

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