A $10 million budget appropriation that city of Oxford leaders say is key to a regional water project would be shifted elsewhere under a legislative technical corrections bill, a move Democrats allege is revenge for winning a competitive election in the N.C. House of Representatives.
House Bill 74 would shift that $10 million from Oxford, which is represented by Rep. Bryan Cohn, a freshman Democrat, to four different water projects in places represented by Republicans.
When the General Assembly included the funds in the 2023 budget, Oxford touted the efforts of then-Rep. Frank Sossamon, a Republican, and Sen. Mary Wills Bode, a Democrat, to obtain the money. Then, in 2024, Cohn narrowly defeated Sossaman in one of the state’s most competitive House races.
“It’s retribution for winning House District 32, flipping that seat. That’s all there is to it. There’s nothing more complicated than that,” Cohn told the North Carolina Newsroom, noting that the Oxford language wasn’t included in the bill until it appeared in the House Rules Committee a day before the full chamber voted on it.
Tuesday, the House voted to approve a version of the bill incorporating changes the Senate made last week. The House needs to approve the bill one more time before sending it to Gov. Josh Stein.
The Kerr Lake Regional Water System is jointly owned by the city of Henderson, Oxford and Warren County. Those governments had plans to expand their water treatment plant from 10 million gallons per day to 20 million gallons, but cost increases after the COVID-19 pandemic would have limited the plant’s capacity to 15 million gallons per day.
That’s where the $10 million was supposed to come in.
With that money in hand, the Kerr Lake partnership could build the water plant as planned. Oxford’s allocation would double from 2 million to 4 million gallons per day.
The full cost of the project is slightly higher than $109 million, Oxford City Manager Brent Taylor told the N.C. Newsroom.
Since the 2023 budget allocation to Oxford, Cohn said, construction of the water treatment plant expansion has gone fairly smoothly. There have not been any hitches that could justify recouping the funds, he said.
House Bill 74 would split the $10 million allocation into four parts and send:
- $3 million to the South Granville Water and Sewer Authority
- $3 million to Franklin County
- $3 million to Hertford County
- $1 million to Catawba County
Spending the $10 million
Asked last week about the effort to pull the funds from Oxford and send them to other projects, Speaker of the House Destin Hall said other priorities had come up and that Oxford hadn't spent the money.
"If it had already been spent, like many local governments have spent their funds, we wouldn’t be able to reappropriate it," Hall told reporters.
That's not quite the case, Oxford officials say. The water plant expansion is underway and is expected to be finished in about a year.
Oxford has already spent $10 million as part of that ongoing construction, Taylor said. But the city had not until recently sought reimbursement of those funds from the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, which holds the funds.
"The state of North Carolina committed to us and we committed to contractors and committed to our citizens," Taylor said.
Sen. Terence Everitt, a Democrat who is representing Oxford in the Senate for the first time, tried last week to convince his new colleagues to remove the $10 million clawback from House Bill 74.
“It puts the state at risk legally, financially, reputationally. This isn’t a technical correction. It’s a broken promise,” Everitt said on the Senate floor on April 30.
Everitt, who clashed with then-Speaker Tim Moore while serving three terms in the House, tried to convince his new colleagues the maneuver is indicative of the body in which he formerly served. One of those clashes led to Everitt’s office being moved to the building’s basement.
“This bill from the House is petty, it’s irresponsible, it’s short-sighted,” Everitt said.
Despite Everitt’s efforts, the Senate approved the bill by a margin of 29 in favor to 13 against.
Taylor sounded a similar warning to other city managers in North Carolina who may receive earmarks for infrastructure projects.
"If you get an appropriation from North Carolina, this could happen. Think that through. Have a Plan B," Taylor said.
A potential solution?
Without receiving the $10 million, Taylor said, expenses for the plant expansion would be passed along to the utility's ratepayers.
Cohn and Oxford officials are hopeful they'll receive that money from the state before House Bill 74 becomes law.
“There really isn’t a mechanism for them to be able to claw back something that just isn’t there,” said Cohn, who previously served on the Oxford Board of Commissioners.
To that end, Cohn added, it would be helpful for Gov. Josh Stein to wait the 10 full days he is allowed before either signing House Bill 74 or letting it become law.
“Particularly if the governor gives us a little runway on the signing of the bill, there’s a chance we could come out OK. There’s a chance that we may not,” Cohn said.
