Budgets reveal how NC lawmakers dispatch state dollars to allies
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Lawmakers inserted tens of millions in budget appropriations benefiting allies.
- Examples include dredging, housing, sports centers and company grants tied to aides.
- Federal subpoenas probed some deals; transparency bills aim to disclose budget adds.
Over the past several years, state lawmakers have quietly made tens of millions of dollars in state budget appropriations that benefited allies. In one recently revealed case, legislators picked up a $15 million bill for a new road in Mooresville that a developer had agreed to paid for.
Some appropriations first appeared in budget bills that ran into the hundreds of pages that rank-and-file lawmakers had little time to scrutinize. Republican leaders have faced little resistance to the spending or lack of public disclosure because of their sizable majorities in both chambers, which allows them to hammer out budget decisions in caucus meetings that are not open to the public.
Here are several examples reported by The News & Observer’s ongoing Power & Secrecy series:
2018: $15 million to Dare County to help pay for a dredge to dig navigational channels in the Oregon Inlet. The legislation instructed the county to apply the money to a forgivable loan to a private business that would use the money to purchase a dredge. Shortly after that, Jordan Hennessy, a former legislative aide who had advocated for the legislation, began working for the company. Last year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers briefly suspended the dredging because it was digging outside the areas it had been permitted to operate.
2020: $2.5 million to school districts to pay for an educational video game created by Raleigh-based Plasma Games. The wife of state Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby was among its investors. Lawmakers continued to fund the program despite state reports of infrequent use in the schools and no improvement in learning. So far they’ve spent $9.8 million, but neither the House nor Senate included more funding in their budget proposals this year.
2020: $3.5 million for a newly formed domestic violence prevention program to be set up by Caitlyn’s Courage, a Pitt County nonprofit. The legislation was submitted by Hennessy and Marion Warren, a former director of the Administrative Office of the Courts. It included conditions that favored a company with an official who was a political donor to then House Speaker Tim Moore. The company won the business, and Hennessy subsequently disclosed he is among the investors of a subsidiary.
2021: $35 million to Dare County for affordable housing. Again, the legislation included language that favored the newly formed company Coastal Affordable Housing, which also included Hennessy among its partners. The county returned the money to the legislature after several towns filed suit protesting a separate move by legislators that would have eliminated their ability to influence where the housing would be built.
2021: $25 million to the U.S. Performance Center in Charlotte and two years later $30 million to a related non-profit, the N.C. Sports Legacy Foundation, to help develop the state as a hub for Olympic sports training. The performance center subsequently paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees to two attorneys with close connections to state lawmakers. A state budget department audit later found the center had misspent $6 million, including on alcoholic beverages, fines on payroll back taxes and a donation to a nonprofit political organization.
2022: $6 million to EmitBio, a company developing a blue-light device intended to treat mild COVID-19. A year later, legislators sent the company another $20 million. One of its founders had paid Moore $40,000 for legal work involving another business, KNOW Bio, in 2017. The company’s then CEO had questioned the need for Moore’s legal help
2023: $100 million to a transportation slush fund. Moore took $45 million of it to improve a Charlotte freeway interchange, which was clogging traffic for people from the U.S. congressional district he now represents. He announced the money award hours before his campaign staff confirmed he was running for Congress.
Last year, there was evidence that a federal grand jury was investigating some of the spending, according to subpoenas obtained by News & Observer. Those subpoenas indicated interest in the dredging, affordable housing and domestic violence appropriations. But there have been no public signs of federal grand jury activity since President Donald Trump returned to office in January.
Some state lawmakers filed legislation to provide more transparency of legislative operations this year, including disclosing who adds items like those above to the budget bill.