_
Facebook-f Twitter Linkedin-in

Independent. Informative. Intelligent.

Budget & Taxes

Buncombe jail in arrears to former inmates

Buncombe County jail inmates haven’t always gotten back from the county Sheriff’s Office the money they arrived with, or the money friends and relatives provided for them to use while they were in custody. A probe by State Auditor Dave Boliek’s office found that the jail hadn’t returned, all told, $19,272 to...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2025

A housing compromise in the works?

One of the co-sponsors of the House’s omnibus housing-development bill says he worked out a deal to scale back the proposal to set statewide by-right residential density minimums. House Deputy Majority Whip Jake Johnson, R-Polk, said House Bill 765’s density minimums would now “only apply to the counties with populations...

By Ray Gronberg

May 12, 2025

Tales from the crypto

House members have approved and sent to the Senate a bill that would allow North Carolina’s treasurer to place up to 5% of the state’s investments into cryptocurrency-based exchange-traded funds. Wednesday’s 71-44 vote on a scaled-back version of House Bill 92 followed a 24-minute floor debate that saw opponents maintain...

By Ray Gronberg

May 1, 2025

The push to crossover has begun

But it remains to be seen whether one of the session’s potentially most significant and controversial pieces of legislation, House Bill 765, will make it through the chamber by the (nominal) May 8 deadline. This is the bill that would revamp the state’s land-use laws, to address housing shortages by...

By Ray Gronberg

May 1, 2025

N.C.’s investment kitty, checked

State Auditor Dave Boliek reports that the state treasurer’s office was managing $172.8 billion in cash and investments for the state at the end of 2024, just as Brad Briner was taking over from former Treasurer Dale Folwell. This is the fruit of a statutorily mandated check whenever the treasurer’s...

By Ray Gronberg

May 1, 2025

Poll finds opposition to part of Senate energy bill

A Michigan-based interest group says a poll it commissioned found widespread opposition to the idea of allowing companies like Duke Energy to bill customers for the cost of new power plants while they’re still under construction. Opposition to “construction work in progress” provisions like the one embedded in Senate Bill...

By Ray Gronberg

May 1, 2025

The Senate’s budget, unveiled

The Senate’s budget proposal for the 2025-27 biennium is going to include $638 million in additional funding for the new children’s hospital UNC Health and Duke Health intend to build, Senate leader Phil Berger says. Counting prior appropriations, that would raise the state’s total contribution to the project to $855...

By Ray Gronberg

April 17, 2025

Berger and the budget

The Senate will release its draft of the budget for the 2025-27 biennium Monday night, Senate leader Phil Berger says. Leadership in the Senate and the House has agreed that the budget can grow by 2.75% in fiscal 2025-26 and 2.25% above that in fiscal 2026-27, Berger said. For reference,...

By Ray Gronberg

April 11, 2025

Stein and the legislature

Gov. Josh Stein’s approach to dealing with legislators is winning praise from the top Republicans in both chambers of the General Assembly. Both House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, and Senate leader Phil Berger both say Stein’s doing more outreach than his predecessor, former Gov. Roy Cooper. Stein “has communicated more...

By Ray Gronberg

April 4, 2025

All about DAVE

For Senate leaders, Wednesday was all about Dave — Boliek, the state auditor, and DAVE, the legislation President Pro Tem Phil Berger is personally sponsoring to further task the auditor. Given Berger’s involvement, it was no surprise that the Senate’s new Regulatory Reform committee quickly endorsed the so-called DAVE Act,...

By Ray Gronberg

April 3, 2025

Senate bill filings and housing

This week’s Senate bill-filing deadline brought forth hundreds of new or recycled legislative proposals, including quite a few that address the shortfall of housing that business groups like the NC Chamber have called out. In the interests of brevity, let’s look at just a couple of the housing-related bills. Sens....

By Ray Gronberg

March 28, 2025

Treasurer’s investment revamp filed

State Treasurer Brad Briner’s said on numerous occasions that he thinks the state needs to move away from the “single fiduciary” model for managing its investments. Now, there are bills pending to operationalize this. House Bill 506 and Senate Bill 709 are substantively identical, and may even be literally so...

By Ray Gronberg

March 27, 2025

Stein seeks money for DMV staff, office additions

Gov. Josh Stein is asking legislators to take a stab at addressing the Division of Motors Vehicles’ problems by hiring more license examiners and opening a few more license bureaus. His budget request for the 2025-27 biennium seeks a recurring appropriation of $2.6 million over the next two years to...

By Ray Gronberg

March 21, 2025

Pensions

State Treasurer Brad Briner’s and Gov. Josh Stein’s aides are at odds about the governor’s 2025-27 biennium budget request, which Briner’s team sees as shortchanging the state’s pension system. Via a news release, Briner said he was “disappointed the governor is proposing for only the second time in 83 years to not fully...

By Ray Gronberg

March 21, 2025

Stein’s budget

Gov. Josh Stein’s suggested budget for the 2025-27 biennium is out, and even though it’s dead on arrival in the GOP-dominated legislature, there are still things to learn from it. These start with its economic outlook, which posits that wage growth and consumer spending in North Carolina are both going...

By Ray Gronberg

March 20, 2025

Facebook-f Twitter Linkedin