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Budget & Taxes

Is Cabarrus County a property-tax outlier?

It was a bit eye-catching earlier this month when the Locke Foundation, advocating for a levy limit on property taxes, said the biggest increase in the local tax burden over the past decade occurred in ruby-red Cabarrus County. As this is not what people generally think happens in Republican-run counties,...

By Ray Gronberg

March 31, 2026

State fiscal forecast: cloudy

Legislative and executive-branch fiscal forecasters say they anticipate the state will collect $34.7 billion in general-fund revenues in fiscal 2026-27, about 1% less than what they think the state’s likely to collect by this summer. In dollar terms, that’d be $360 million less than in fiscal 2025-26, which nonetheless is...

By Ray Gronberg

March 25, 2026

Justices allow class-action challenge to Raleigh fee

tate Supreme Court justices have rejected Raleigh’s bid to avoid a class-action lawsuit from real-estate developers who want compensation for what they allege was an illegal water and sewer fee. Speaking for a 6-0 court, Justice Anita Earls rejected the city’s contention that the case didn’t merit class-action status because...

By Ray Gronberg

March 23, 2026

House panel set to vote in April on bills reducing hospital tax breaks

House leaders seem serious about the idea of cutting back on two key tax breaks for North Carolina’s nonprofit hospitals. Bills pending in the chamber’s Select Committee on Property Tax Reduction and Reform could combine to cost hospitals about $200 million a year, legislative staffers say. One of these would...

By Ray Gronberg

March 19, 2026

State Health Plan still battling deficit projections

New estimates are once again predicting that the State Health Plan faces a deficit in the not-too-distant future. Plan executive administrator Tom Friedman’s briefing of trustees on Tuesday shows its cash balance dropping into negative numbers by the middle of 2027. “We’re candidly never going to be done having to...

By Ray Gronberg

March 18, 2026

Mayor defending Rocky Mount casino-site deal, despite audit

Rocky Mount’s mayor is defending the city’s acquisition of a prospective casino site in 2023, even though State Auditor Dave Boliek’s staff says the purchase helped put the city in a financial hole. “This land makes a big difference in terms of creating live, work [and] play environments within the...

By Ray Gronberg

March 16, 2026

Legislative quandary: Paying for the ferry system

Among the many questions that’s hanging fire amid the House-Senate budget deadlock is the future of North Carolina’s coastal ferry system. The chambers roughly settled on a package of capital aid for the system, the Fiscal Research Division’s Aaron Cornell told members of the Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight committee earlier...

By Ray Gronberg

March 9, 2026

Berger proposes freezing tax values for a year

Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, says he’s going to file a bill in April that would “halt all property tax revaluation changes for 12 months” while legislators study broader changes to local-government tax law. Announced on Friday, the proposal would interrupt the property valuation cycles of Guilford County and other...

By Ray Gronberg

March 2, 2026

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

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