Controversy stays close to N.C. Rep. Stephen LaRoque, a Kinston Republican whose unapologetic, aggressive style thrusts him into the spotlight on a regular basis. Now in his third term after a four-year hiatus, LaRoque was named co-chair of the powerful Rules Committee this year by N.C. House Speaker Thom Tillis. With his heightened role in [Continue Reading...]
The USDA’s Intermediary Relending Program works in areas where big banks won’t by using infusions of federal cash to fight rural poverty through small business loans. The program has sent $280 million into the national economy over the last seven years, including $25 million in North Carolina. Officials based in North Carolina, one [Continue Reading...]
Fay Walton wrote out a suicide note last week, letting the thought of being worth more dead than alive step out from where it lurked in the back of her head. “If I just end it, maybe there’s a little insurance money that my husband will have,” she recalled thinking. The 52-year-old Salisbury [Continue Reading...]
Danielle Gordon, 36, a New Hanover County resident and human resources professional, found herself out of work in 2009. She first wrote N.C. Policy Watch on May 10, when she said she had $49 left to her name and no money to pay rent, food or her other necessities without the extended unemployment benefits that [Continue Reading...]
Greg and Elizabeth Rain Georgaras, two of the 37,000 North Carolinians cut off from their employment benefits four weeks ago, can no longer afford to keep their two young children with them. It recently fell to family to take in Roger, 3, and Victoria, 2, while the Concord couple keeps looking for work [Continue Reading...]
Christy Zemcik used her cell phone this week to call up legislators in Raleigh and beg them to restore the unemployment benefits that she and thousands of others depend upon. In between calls, the 41-year-old former teacher was packing her belongings into boxes after getting an eviction notice from her Charlotte apartment complex. [Continue Reading...]
No one really knows what July 1, the first day of the new fiscal year in North Carolina, will be like if state leaders fail to pass a budget all sides can live with. That’s partly because the state has never faced a budget stalemate quite like what this year has the potential [Continue Reading...]
The Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy, a public charter school in Rutherford County, is quick to promote the school’s high SAT test scores and international field trips to China, Europe and South America. But not as widely advertised is the Western North Carolina public school’s connection to John Bryan, a retired Oregon business executive [Continue Reading...]
A group of Rutherford County schoolchildren found themselves recent fodder for legislators’ jokes about the state’s public school system. The jesting began after a number of students from the Western North Carolina county emailed lawmakers about legislation affecting the state’s charter schools and the funding they get from traditional public schools. Some of [Continue Reading...]
The Republican takeover of the N.C. legislature, the first time the GOP has led both houses since 1898, is a huge shift in power that’s brought a lot of new faces, and people new to doing business on Jones Street. In what we hope is a regular feature this session, N.C. Policy Watch [Continue Reading...]
Legislation proposing to open up the floodgates for charter schools in North Carolina is swiftly moving toward passage, despite the lack of a cost estimate for the potentially seismic shift in public education. Senate Bill 8, if it passes both houses, would remove a 100-school cap the state has on charter schools [Continue Reading...]
An informational meeting Tuesday about Smart Start, the state’s nationally recognized early childhood education program, attracted controversy before it even started. That’s because the sole presenter was a policy analyst with the Civitas Institute, the Raleigh-based conservative think-tank that’s made no secret about its desire to see Smart Start eliminated or have its [Continue Reading...]
Want to know if taxpayers are paying for your legislator’s health insurance? Well, you can’t. Staff at the General Assembly will not release the names of the 147 legislators signed up for the State Health Plan, a benefit that state taxpayers cover at a yearly cost of $4,920 per legislator, or $723,000 for [Continue Reading...]
The Republican takeover of the N.C. legislature, the first time the GOP has led both houses since 1898, is a huge shift in power that’s brought a lot of new faces, and people new to doing business on Jones Street. In what we hope is a regular feature this session, N.C. Policy Watch [Continue Reading...]
The Republican takeover of the N.C. legislature, the first time the GOP has led both houses since 1898, is a huge shift in power that’s brought a lot of new faces, and people new to doing business on Jones Street. In what we hope is a regular feature this session, N.C. Policy Watch [Continue Reading...]
