NC Leaders Show Support for Bond Proposal

NC leaders spoke on Tuesday in support of a 2 billion dollar bond package; voters will decide whether or not to approve the bond in the March 15 primary.

Governor Pat McCrory, House Speaker Tim Moore and State Senator Dan Blue all spoke at an event supporting the bond on NC State’s campus. The bond package, known as Connect NC, will fund building and infrastructure needs in 76 counties across the state.

Governor Pat McCrory said the bond package won’t put an extra burden on tax payers.

“With these critical investments, there will be no tax increase for any citizen in North Carolina,” said McCrory.

Almost half of the proposed funds, about 980 million, will go towards the UNC system including a new Medical Education Building at UNC-Chapel Hill. An additional 350 million is allocated for community colleges.

“We’re very excited about the bond package,” UNC Chancellor Carol Folt said. “It’s a huge investment in the state. It’s great for the universities. Ours goes directly to increasing the number of physicians so we can increase the number of lives saved.”

In addition to higher education, bond funds would go towards upgrading water and sewage systems, refurbishing National Guard facilities and improvements in agriculture.

McCrory claimed the bond is a financially responsible move for the state and overtime will help lower the state’s debt through returns on investments.

“The state of North Carolina will actually have less debt in five years with the borrowing of this two billion dollars then we have today,” said McCrory.

He also talked about the skills gap in North Carolina, referring to the need for more science, math and engineering students to fill industry demands.

“So this is strategic where we are putting the money in our universities and community colleges is to help fill the skills gaps that we have in North Carolina,” said McCrory, “So industry can find the talent needed to continue to grow and expand and have economic prosperity”

Democratic State Senator Dan Blue said passing the bond proposal took something extraordinary from the state legislature.

“We did something we rarely do in the general assembly; we put aside partisanship and really thought about what’s best for all of North Carolina,” said Blue.

The two billion dollar proposal would be the first general obligation bond in 15 years with the purpose of improving the state’s infrastructure. Republican House Speaker Tim Moore said that while the bond proposal would fund a wide range of projects, it was difficult for the general assembly to decide which ones.

“When we got the wish list it was probably about 50 billion dollars, so you had to pare that down, and there were a lot of good critical needs around the state,” said Moore.

Other bond measures include 3 million dollars to improve Jordan Lake State Park and about 2.8 million dollars to improve Eno River State Park.

“At the end of the day it’s not up for us as legislature to decide, it’s up to the people to decide,” said Moore.

The bond measure will be on the ballot in the March 15th primaries across the state.