“Ideally, you’d like to keep [increases] as close to zero as possible, but you have to look at the reality.”

Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey, on an Oct. 7 hearing on a new proposed homeowners’ insurance rate increase. (The News & Observer, 9/16/24)

Insurance Rates

Chantal Allam, The News & Observer, 9/16/24

State Sen. Natasha Marcus has launched an attack website to spotlight her opponent’s record on rising homeowners’ insurance rates. And it comes with a special feature: it’s searchable. On RateHikeMike.com, the site paid for by Marcus’ campaign, users can see how much rates have increased by county under Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey since 2017. It also shows how much they could rise under a proposed rate increase; the percentage of homeowners subject to “consent-to-rate” notices; and how much Causey’s campaign has received in donations from insurance industry sources.

Two-term Republican commissioner Causey is up for reelection. His challenger, Marcus, a Democrat, is a three-term state senator from Mecklenburg County.

“We wanted to provide voters with the information they deserve, and why their insurance bills have jumped so much, ” Marcus told The News & Observer in a phone conversation.

For his part, Causey hasn’t viewed the website and doesn’t plan to, he told The N&O in a phone call on Monday. Under his watch, he also maintains that he’s worked to ensure that any proposed increases are “reasonable and actuarially sound.”

“Ideally, you’d like to keep [increases] as close to zero as possible, but you have to look at the reality,” he said. “The insurance commissioner doesn’t set insurance rates.”

The site’s launch comes less than a month from a scheduled Oct. 7 hearing on a new proposed rate increase and less than 49 days until the Nov. 5 election — a signal the campaign has entered a more aggressive phase. After a filings moratorium lifted on homeowners’ insurance in January, the N.C. Rate Bureau, which represents companies that write insurance policies, asked for a 42.2% average increase across the state.

It’s called for even steeper increases for storm-prone areas along the coast.

It’s been three years since the last rate increase — in November 2020, when the Rate Bureau asked for an overall rise of 24.5% and ultimately received 7.9%. On Feb. 6, Causey rejected the latest request, calling it “excessive and discriminatory.” He closed public comments and promised a “thorough review.”

Since then, the department’s actuaries, attorneys and consultants have been working to negotiate a new rate.

On May 15, The N&O filed a public records request seeking more information. The request is still undergoing “legal review,” said Barry Smith, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Insurance.

Seven months on, however, it appears talks have hit an impasse. Last week, Causey said his team met with the Rate Bureau, and they couldn’t agree on a new rate. “We’re so far apart,” he said. “We asked that they come back with another proposal. The door is still open, but so far that hasn’t happened.” At this point, he called an Oct. 7 hearing the “best solution.”

“That’s where we’re headed,” he said.

State law gives the insurance commissioner 45 days to issue an order once the hearing concludes.

The Rate Bureau declined to comment. [Source]

---

School Vacancies

Liz Schlemmer, WUNC Radio, 9/16/24

New data collected from public school superintendents show the number of teaching vacancies and total school employee vacancies across the state has improved this school year. For the past four years, the North Carolina School Superintendents’ Association (NCSSA) has surveyed its members on how many teaching and staff vacancies their district has at the start of each school year.

This fall, superintendents reported 8,335 total school employee vacancies statewide. That figure includes 3,142 vacant teaching positions, of which 787 positions are in special education. Read the report here.

“The fact that many districts are still struggling with vacancies highlights the need for continued efforts to address these shortages,” said the association’s Executive Director Jack Hoke, adding his group will continue to advocate for raises to educator pay and school funding.

This was the first year all school districts in the state reported their vacancies to NCSSA, although Hoke said that the largest school districts have responded every year. Missing data from more than a dozen smaller school districts in past years makes it difficult to make direct comparisons over time.

But one thing is certain: even with more school districts reporting this fall than last year, vacancies for K-12 classroom teachers decreased across elementary, middle and high schools.

Compared to last year’s report, the total number of vacancies for special education teachers and bus drivers has increased. Superintendents reported 1,315 vacant bus driver positions, which is one more than last year.

NCSSA’s count of the number of teachers who are not fully licensed to teach in North Carolina long term has also more than doubled since four years ago. Residency license teachers are typically career changers who have a bachelor’s degree in another area and who still need to complete college courses and pass licensing exams to earn a renewable teaching license in North Carolina.

The rise in residency license teachers is supported by data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI), although NCSSA’s tracking of “residency license” teachers appears to have been an undercount in prior years when compared to state data. NCSSA called its report “one of the most cumulative annual reports on school vacancies in North Carolina.”

The most comprehensive statewide report on teacher turnover and vacancies is the NC State of the Teaching Profession Report published by DPI officials. However, the most recent publicly available version of that report draws on data that is nearly two years old; it covers the 2022-2023 school year. [Source]

---

Vaping Policy

Matthew Sasser, State Affairs Pro, 9/16/24

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services held a virtual town hall Thursday to discuss evolving methods of preventing student vaping and tobacco use.

Raising the age for buying tobacco products to 21 would allow the state to track retailers that sell tobacco products, said Teresa Beardsley of Albemarle Regional Health Services. North Carolina is one of seven states that allow people under 21 to buy tobacco products. 

In 2019, Congress passed federal legislation that increased the age of sale for tobacco products to 21. 

“It’s very important that North Carolina passes a strong Tobacco 21 law that includes a tobacco retailer permitting system [to mitigate underage tobacco use],” Beardsley said. 

A recent initiative from statewide tobacco coordinators works with county and municipal governments to create zoning ordinances to decrease the density of tobacco shops near schools, churches and community centers. Beardsley said three counties and 19 municipalities have adopted ordinances in North Carolina as of last month.

According to data shared at the town hall, more than 12% of high school students use tobacco and more than 9% vape. One in four students vape daily. 

Chanda Battle, director of student support services for Edgecombe County Public Schools, said her district is shifting how it handles students who violate school tobacco rules. 

“We are now not suspending students with first, second or third offenses of possessing a vape at school,” Battle said. “Our response previously was to confiscate the device and suspend the student.”

Now the district handles a vaping infraction as an addiction issue. School staff notify parents and have conversations with the student about ways to handle vaping. Battle said this change stemmed from schools having to suspend the same students over and over again. 

After a second offense, students will be referred to substance abuse counseling or school support resources such as Catch My Breath and QuitlineNC A third offense will result in a disciplinary consequence, such as in-school suspension, that doesn’t completely remove the student from the learning environment. 

Many school districts have received funding for vaping prevention. 

Nnenne Asi, youth and young adult tobacco cessation coordinator for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, recommended as an alternative to suspension that school districts build capacity toward hiring counselors to directly support students or start clubs aimed at vaping prevention. Asi said one common recommendation schools should avoid is purchasing vape detectors, as they “encourage discrimination” and don’t align with a restorative justice model.

---

Coastal Flooding

Martha Quillin, The News & Observer, 9/16/24

Much of the towns of Carolina Beach and Kure Beach were underwater Monday as a still-unnamed coastal storm dumped as much as 15 inches of rain in the southeastern corner of North Carolina over a 12-hour period.

Over 72 hours, Carolina and Kure had officially received more than a foot of rain, and the National Weather Service said some residents’ rain gauges showed more than 18 inches near 2 p.m.

Gov. Roy Cooper’s office confirmed that Ocean Boulevard in Carolina Beach had received at least 18.32 inches of rain since midnight, according to a 6 p.m. news release. The southeastern region is under flash flood and tropical storm warnings through Tuesday morning.

More rain is expected across North Carolina overnight into Tuesday with an estimated 3 to 5 inches falling in the southeastern part of the state. Numerous roads are closed.

The State Emergency Response Team is monitoring conditions along the coast and has moved the State Emergency Operations Center to “Enhanced Watch Activation,” according to Cooper’s office.

The town of Southport, slightly further south, also had received more than a foot of rain in 72 hours by Monday afternoon, leaving roads there impassable. [Source]

---

DEI Reaction

Korie Dean, The News & Observer, 9/16/24

About four months after the UNC System Board of Governors repealed the public university system’s diversity, equity and inclusion policy, we got our first look last week at the changes colleges have made to comply with the new version of the policy. By Sept. 1, chancellors at each of the 17 campuses were required to submit a report to system President Peter Hans detailing the changes undertaken by their universities to comply with the new restrictions.

System officials did not make the reports public until 10 days after that deadline, despite requests from reporters. Instead, they posted the 17 documents online as a Board of Governors committee discussed them in a committee meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 11.

In all, campuses reported more than $17 million in “savings” from implementing the new policy. That money, per the policy, should be redirected toward student-success initiatives. “Our focus here, from the beginning, has been to get back to basics, which is our student success,” Hans told reporters last week.

Perhaps the biggest question that remains unanswered is whether any employees lost their jobs or were laid off from their respective universities as a result of the changes.

In some cases, jobs that universities eliminated were vacant at the time of the change, meaning no employees were terminated when the job was cut. That was the case at Western Carolina, for instance, where the now-eliminated chief diversity officer position had not been filled for more than a year. But the fate of other eliminated positions and the employees who held them are less clear.

For instance, UNC-Chapel Hill closed the School of Medicine’s Office of Rural Initiatives and eliminated several positions in the department, including its director role. That position, which appears to have been filled prior to the DEI changes, is not listed in the university’s report as a job that was “realigned” — making it unclear what became of the employee who held the role.

Asked last week why the office was closed and what might happen to its employees, UNC Vice Provost Leah Cox — who formerly served as the university’s chief diversity officer prior to these changes — said “it doesn’t look like it was closed yet, and some of the programs that you may see in the report may be being reworked, refocused, reallocated in different ways or moved to different reporting structures.”

Such changes to the Office of Rural Initiatives, if they are happening, were not detailed in the university’s report.

Other university leaders, including Hans, have generally characterized job changes resulting from the policy by saying that “most” affected employees were offered new jobs at their campuses.

Still, it remains unclear how many employees accepted those positions or how many were not offered new positions. “I can’t speak to individuals, and I don’t know that one would be allowed to do so under various employment laws,” Hans said Thursday when asked if any employees were laid off. “But most of the people most directly affected here were reassigned to open student-success positions.” Asked if he anticipated more positions to be eliminated as campuses continue to implement the new policy, Hans did not directly address the question, instead directing reporters to read the reports from campuses, which he said have “a great deal of detail in there.” [Source]

---

Prison Copays

Rachel Crumpler, NC Health News, 9/16/24

Prisons are constitutionally mandated to provide health care to incarcerated people, but that doesn’t mean it has to be provided for free.

And in North Carolina — along with almost 40 other states — the costs can add up when prison systems charge incarcerated people a copay for select health care services. 

The N.C. Department of Adult Correction charges $5 for medical and dental services that are initiated by an incarcerated person and $7 for a self-declared emergency visit, according to the prison system’s copay policy. The fee is not charged if staff determine that an actual emergency occurred.

While these fees may seem small, advocates say they can be a financial barrier in the context of low prison wages, leading some people to delay or even avoid care. 

In fiscal year 2022-23, 90 percent of incarcerated people assigned to work programs, worked inside prisons facilities, earning 40 cents to $1 per day. Those who worked in Corrections Enterprises earned up to $3 per day.

“I know a lot of people don’t want to call [for medical help] because of the copay,” said Kayla Dillard, executive director of NC-CURE, a prison reform advocacy group. “They’re limited with so much money they get each month, and if they have to do a copay, they have even less. You can work all week to get $5.”

Research shows that can be a problem for the health of incarcerated people and people who are trying to reenter society after incarceration — not just in North Carolina, but across the country. And some states are having second thoughts about the policy.

Some prison health care visits do not require a copay, including medical care initiated by prison facilities, such as initial screenings, physicals and emergency care, according to the N.C. Department of Adult Correction’s copay policy.

Dillard and other advocates would like this to be true of all medical care. “There’s already a struggle to get medical help in certain facilities,” Dillard said. “Copays just make it worse.”

Brad Deen, a N.C. Department of Adult Correction spokesperson, said in a statement to NC Health News that there is “no formal discussion surrounding copay policy at this time.” He explained that the intent of copays is to prevent overuse and abuse of health care resources. “We’re short-staffed in our health care positions, and we need to ensure their time is used efficiently and effectively,” Deen said.

Regardless of ability to pay, the N.C. Department of Adult Correction states that it does not deny medical care. If someone has insufficient funds for a copay at the time of medical care, a lien will be applied to their account and any funds later added will be automatically deducted to satisfy outstanding copay expenses. [Source]

---

Burnsville Campaigning

Asheville Citizen Times, 9/16/24

The heavy beats of “Believer” by Imagine Dragons, boomed as Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson walked to the stage to address the cheering crowd in the Burnsville Town Square for roughly 20 minutes. Billed as a “Faith, Family and Fun Night” was Robinson’s first appearance in Burnsville since becoming lieutenant governor in 2020. The crowd of about 250 people included all ages, from children to parents and grandparents.

The Republican candidate for North Carolina governor, Robinson made the stop the evening of Sept. 14 as a campaign rally ahead of the Nov. 5 general election. He faces Democratic gubernatorial candidate Attorney General Josh Stein.

Just more than a minute into his speech, Robinson called out Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who he called “a despicable individual.”

“What this election boils down to is just simple right and wrong,” Robinson said to the crowd of attendees gathered at the Burnsville Town Square, next to the Yancey County Courthouse. “We’re called The Right because we are right, folks. We’re right about everything.”

Throughout his term as lieutenant governor, Robinson has made headlines for what rival Democrats feel to be extreme viewpoints, citing Facebook posts dating back as far as 2014.

John Anglin organized the event. Anglin said the increase in home prices is one of the most important issues in his view.

Anglin serves as chair of the Reentry Council for Freedom Life, a Christian-based organization serving Avery, McDowell and Yancey County justice-involved individuals and their families with programs designed to help its clients begin a journey to a new life, according to its website.

Still, Anglin, who works as a contractor, said while the campaign appearances may be “fun,” the real work begins once a candidate is elected. [Source]

---

Weatherman Event

Chris Day, The (Elizabeth City) Daily Advance, 9/16/24

Republican candidate Hal Weatherman believes the federal government is the key perpetrator and advocate of ideologies that threaten to destroy the United States.

“It pains me to say that because I believe government at all levels is ordained by God,” said Weatherman, who is running against Democrat Rachel Hunt for lieutenant governor in the November general election.

Examples of those ideologies include the controversial hiring practice known as diversity, equity and inclusion, plus critical race theory and social-emotional learning, he said. Weatherman was speaking last week at a meeting of the Pasquotank Political Action Committee at Journey Christian Church in Elizabeth City.

The Wake County resident has spent the election cycle traveling in an RV to all 100 counties in the state because he says it’s important to meet and speak with voters. According to Weatherman, his campaign broke records for fundraising but didn’t spend any of that money on political advertising.

“I didn’t one spend one dime on TV,” he said. “I didn’t spend one dime on radio. I didn’t spend one dime on direct mail. We did exactly what we felt called to do: fuel the travel around the state meeting people one on one. That’s it and we chronicled it on social media.”

Weatherman earned his way to the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor by coming in first in an 11-candidate field in the March 5 GOP primary. More than a month later, he defeated fellow Republican Jim O’Neill in a GOP runoff election.

Weatherman previously served as chief of staff for Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest and before that worked several years for Forest’s mother, Republican Congresswoman Sue Myrick of Charlotte.

Hunt, Weatherman’s Nov. 5 challenger, is a lawyer and state senator representing Mecklenburg County. She also is the daughter of former four-term governor Jim Hunt. [Source]

---

Arts Education

Laura Browne, Education NC, 9/16/24

Arts educators from across the state gathered at Meredith College on Sept. 7 for the Comprehensive Arts Education Conference to discuss best practices and resources associated with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction’s (DPI) updated standards for the arts disciplines. During the conference, educators participated in various sessions regarding ideas for lesson planning, arts integration across subjects, teaching resources, and more.

“As an arts educator, you shape well-rounded individuals who are not only academically capable, but also emotionally and socially aware, creative, and culturally literate,” said state Superintendent Catherine Truitt in a video message played at the event.

Many conference sessions allowed arts educators to participate in interactive lesson plans demonstrating how the new standards could be implemented in the classroom. Some sessions focused on interdisciplinary arts integration in subjects like math or history.

In July, the State Board of Education approved the new art standard courses of study for music, dance, visual arts, and theater. The current standards, approved in 2010, will remain in effect during the 2024-25 school year. The updated standards are expected to start being implemented during the 2025-26 school year, according to DPI, with full implementation taking place during the 2026-27 school year.

Lori Carlin, DPI section chief for social studies and arts education, said the updated standards provide minimum content guidelines for what educators should teach in the classroom.

DPI has identified three components of comprehensive instruction for all four arts disciplines, which include arts education, arts integration, and arts exposure. [Source]

---

Uninsured Survey

Sharryse Piggott, WUNC Radio, 9/16/24

There are more than 10 million North Carolina residents. According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 9.2% of the population were without health insurance last year, compared to 9.3% in 2022. But one year from now, the survey is expected to show a dramatic increase for people who are insured due to Medicaid expansion. In July, the State Department of Health and Human Services reported that over 500,000 people received health insurance in 2024 by enrolling in the state’s Medicaid expansion program, since it went live in December. Meanwhile, those living in poverty have remained unchanged for the population, but increased by about 15,000 for children 18 and under in 2023, compared to 2022. [Source]

---

Save the Date

Please plan to be our guest as NC Insider / State Affairs Pro welcomes subscribers to Caffe Luna once more for delicious food and drink, great company and an interesting political conversation. Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024, from 5:30-7 p.m. Caffe Luna, 136 E. Hargett St., Raleigh. Registration details to follow.

---

ENC Wildfires

Jack Igelman, Carolina Public Press, 9/16/24

On Wednesday, April 19, 2023, a campfire may have sparked a wildfire in a pine forest in the core of the 160,000-acre Croatan National Forest, about 20 miles southwest of New Bern. Known as the Great Lakes Fire, the blaze spread from its source to several dozen acres. Then it began expanding with fury. In just two days the fire rushed 16 miles towards the southern boundary of New Bern as smoke darkened skies and blanketed nearby housing developments.

The massive wildfire highlighted the challenges of protecting communities in North Carolina’s rapidly developing areas where the built environment intermingles with nature, known as the wildland-urban interface, or WUI. The Great Lakes Fire is a good place to see how all of North Carolina, not just the coast, is adjusting to wildfire and development in the WUI and offers a look at some of the efforts to address the problem.

By April 20, the sprawling Great Lakes Fire blossomed to thousands of acres and would eventually require more than 200 firefighters to battle and contain the threat. Public agencies mounted an effective response, however, they also had a bit of good luck. Rain showers and a shift in wind came just in time to stall the massive fire in which no structures or lives were lost.

“We don’t know what the outcome would have been if we had one more day of the same fire behavior and weather parameters,” Croatan National Forest fire management officer David Nelson told Carolina Public Press. While the Croatan fire was distinguished by its intensity and size, it also drew attention to the spillover of housing to the edges of wildlands, demonstrating the threat and cost of forest fires on the Carolina coast.

The location of the 32,156-acre Great Lakes Fire, however, wasn’t a fluke. Pocosin-fueled fires occur historically in five- to 20-year intervals. In the past, large wildfires have seared the Croatan National Forest, including the Pocosin Fire of 1955, which burned 73,000 acres; the Fish Day Fire, which consumed 25,000 acres in 1994; and the Dad Fire which covered 22,000 acres in 2012.

The next major coastal forest blaze will likely happen within the next two decades. But it could also flare up tomorrow. “We have 80,000 acres of pocosins, 30,000 just burned, but we have 50,000 that are available to go right now,” Nelson said.

One of four national forests in North Carolina, the 160,000-acre Croatan National Forest south of New Bern is bordered by the Neuse and White Oak rivers and Bogue Sound on the Atlantic Ocean along its southern boundary. The Croatan’s inland landscape includes native and restored longleaf pine habitat, hardwood forests, saltwater estuaries, Carolina bays and pocosins.

The Coastal Plain also includes a large swath of commercial timberland. Timber company Weyerhaeuser, for example, manages 118,000 acres in Craven, Carteret, and Jones counties, spokesperson Nancy Thompson said.

The areas in between these forested acres and protected lands, particularly near the coast, rivers, and sounds, are experiencing rapid development. Between July 2022 and 2023, North Carolina added more people than any other state except Florida and Texas, according to the US Census Bureau.

Unlike the state’s two largest national forests in the mountains, the Pisgah and Nantahala, Croatan isn’t as much a focus of recreational users. Hunting, freshwater angling, off-road vehicle driving, wildlife viewing, and illegal shooting ranges are among the draws in the forest interior.

The estimated cost of the Great Lakes Fire was $12 million. Had it spread to neighboring communities, the impact could have been far greater.

While the fire remains under investigation, the U.S. Forest Service alleges that the wildfire was human-caused, which, according to the North Carolina Forest Service, is the state’s leading cause of wildfires. Warmer summers and more persistent droughts may also contribute to longer fire seasons in the future that could include bigger and more frequent blazes.  The threat poses a problem if wildfire flares near a growing population that isn’t expecting it. [Source]

---

Charter Embezzlement

T. Keung Hui, The News & Observer, 9/16/24

Two employees of a now-defunct North Carolina charter school have pleaded guilty to embezzlement charges that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Bridges Academy in Wilkes County closed in 2021 amid what it called “insurmountable financial challenges.”

Federal court records show Shannon Pruitt Caudill, the school’s executive director, and Kimberly Nicole White, the school’s finance officer, have agreed to plead guilty to theft of government property and to each pay $112,500 in restitution. The plea deals were reached earlier this summer and first reported last week by The Wilkes Record. Bridges Academy, located about 150 miles west of Raleigh, was one of the first charter schools to open in North Carolina in 1997.

Bridges closed amid investigations by the State Bureau of Investigation and the State Auditor’s Office. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also joined the investigation.

According to court records, Caudill and White falsified student enrollment records for the 2020-21 school year to report more than 60 students the school didn’t have. Court records say the duo kept the inflated figures secret from other school employees by keeping two separate systems for recording enrollment.

The falsified figures allowed Bridges Academy to receive an additional $404,971 in state funds and more than $80,000 in federal funds. The State Auditor’s Office also found Bridges misused $78,576 of charter school funding to support a preschool it wanted to open. Court records say White and Caudill used the inflated enrollment figures as documentation to help Bridges get a $2.6 million loan from Surrey Bank and Trust to build the new preschool. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development guaranteed 90% of the loan. The planned preschool died when Bridges closed. Surrey reported losing $121,000 and USDA reported losing $1.1 million after the foreclosure.

Caudill and White will be sentenced in federal court in February. [Source]

---

Also See

Legislative Report | Calendar Report | Committee Transcripts (Pro) | Legislative Tracking (Pro)

---

Mecklenburg Renters

Desiree Mathurin and Gavin Off, The Charlotte Observer, 9/16/24

While the number of people calling the Charlotte region home continues to rise, many current residents can’t afford those homes. About 102,000 households that rent in Mecklenburg County pay more than 30% of their income toward housing costs, according to recently released U.S. Census Bureau data. This leaves renters with less money for other needs.

What’s more, nearly 52,000 renters pay more than half their earnings toward housing. That’s about 1 out of every 4 households that rent in the county. In total, 47% of the estimated 215,400 households that rent in Mecklenburg are struggling to do so, a Charlotte Observer analysis of the census data found.

If people in a household spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs — which includes rent, mortgages, insurance and utilities — they are considered cost-burdened, per the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. If a household spends more than 50%, they’re considered severely cost-burdened.

The 30% threshold is based on the idea that a household needs to have a certain amount of money left over for other necessities such as food, clothing, medical needs and transportation.

There are additional ways to looks at how people in Mecklenburg and its neighboring counties are dealing with rent problems, the Observer analysis of the census data found. Between those who identify as White-only, Black-only and Hispanic, the Hispanic population rents the least amount of units, at a little over 29,700 households. Yet Hispanic renters pay the largest portion of their paychecks toward housing, data shows.

In the county, more than 16,600 Hispanic households pay more than 30% of their income towards housing. That’s about 56% of Hispanic renters. Black renters in the county are close behind. There are about 87,000 renter households who identify as Black and about 46,000 renters are considered cost-burdened, the data shows.

In comparison, households that identify as white rent about 80,962 units. About 42% and 20% are either cost-burdened or severely cost-burdened, respectively. [Source]

---

Retail Crime

Chloe Collins, The Gaston Gazette, 9/16/24

Federal, state, and local criminal justice organizations are coming together to launch a large-scale crackdown on organized retail crime. At a press conference Thursday, Gastonia Police Chief Trent Conard, Gaston County District Attorney Travis Page, and Assistant Special Homeland Security agent at the Charlotte office Ben Horton took to the podium to define ORC and operation, “Fed-Up.”

According to the speakers, ORC is not your average shoplifting. It is defined by the National Retail Federation as, “the large-scale theft of retail merchandise with the intent to resell the items for financial gain,” according to a press release from the Gastonia Police Department.

Information from the department said ORC cost retailers an estimated $100 billion in 2019, and that number has grown in subsequent years.

Along with a special focus on breaking up ORC rings, Page said the operation will come with harsher punishments for those involved, including seizure and liquidation of personal goods used in the crime to benefit public sectors of the community and prison time. [Source]

---

Food Manufacturer

Kevin Ellis, NC Health News, 9/16/24

Veetee Foods will invest $35.7 million and plans to eventually create 200 jobs at a new plant in the Johnston County town of Selma, company officials said Monday. Rochester, England-based Veetee Food Group was founded in 1986 with operations in India and the U.K., selling dry rice and ready-to-heat rice. It has since expanded into pasta, noodles and macaroni and cheese.

Veetee Foods’ project will be aided by a $996,750 Job Development Investment Grant, spread over 12 years. It was approved by the state’s Economic Investment Committee on Monday. State payments only occur following the company meets job creation and investment targets.

Johnston County agreed to provide $2.28 million in incentives for the project. Veetee had narrowed its site search to locations in Selma and Chester County, South Carolina.

The project’s projected return on investment of public dollars is 90%, meaning for every dollar of potential cost, the state receives $1.90 in state revenue. [Source]

---

Latino Festival

Dan Kane, The News & Observer, 9/16/24

When El Pueblo held its first cultural festival 30 years ago in Chapel Hill, the state’s Hispanic population had yet to reach six figures. Now it’s more than 1 million, making up 11% of the state’s population. And on Sunday, as La Fiesta del Pueblo attracted thousands to downtown Raleigh with music, food, dancing and crafts.

A new voter-registration campaign sought to help them increase their clout with the government.  “Grita. Canta. Vota.” is a nonpartisan campaign started within the past year by the national nonprofit Includus Fund, which El Pueblo invited to register voters and provide information on voting locations and ballot access.

Their goal was to register 300 to 500 voters at the festival.

“We are the middle people, the ones who are integrating what they care about with the resources directly, so we are not taking stands on issues,” said Monica Sibri, a senior adviser for the Includus Fund.

Sibri said the campaign targets areas with rapidly growing Hispanic populations and will make future stops in Charlotte and Las Vegas.

The voter registration campaign was the festival’s strongest reminder that a major election is ahead in November, from the U.S. presidency on down to local offices. Despite that, there did not appear to be any candidates meeting and greeting people during the six-hour festival, and hardly anyone sported campaign paraphernalia. El Pueblo, like the Includus Fund, is also a nonpartisan nonprofit that can’t advocate for candidates. [Source]

---

Also See

Legislative Report | Calendar Report | Committee Transcripts (Pro) | Legislative Tracking (Pro)

---

NC Insider | State Affairs Pro

5540 Centerview Dr. Ste 204 PMB 92099, Raleigh NC 27606-8012
(919) 246-5437
pro.stateaffairs.com/nc

Clifton Dowell, General Manager – [email protected]
Graham Hoppe, Production Editor – [email protected]
Matthew Sasser, Insider Reporter – [email protected]
Alison Bethel, Editor-in-Chief, State Affairs – [email protected]

Customer Service: To purchase a subscription, make changes to your account or to arrange a payment, please send an email to ([email protected])

Advertising Inquiries: To inquire about sponsorship opportunities, please send an email to ([email protected])

For technical questions, please contact [email protected]

© Copyright 2024 by State Affairs Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission of NC Insider, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and strictly prohibited without permission. All rights reserved.

Meet our team

You received this email because you subscribe to the NC Insider.