Western North Carolina needs $891 million in additional Hurricane Helene recovery funding from the state, Gov. Josh Stein says.
At a Monday press conference, held at Carolina Domes, a small business in Rutherfordton, Stein spoke alongside North Carolina Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley.
"In the face of so many unmet needs and unanswered prayers, it is time for the state of North Carolina to be bold," Stein said. "We need to commit to the people of Western North Carolina that the state is with them over the long haul."
North Carolina's budget is controlled by the General Assembly. Stein wants legislators to add recovery spending to "tackle the highest priority issues, areas that we cannot afford to wait for an uncertain federal assistance."
A budget proposal from the state senate, presented in April, proposes allocating $700 million over the next two years toward Helene recovery. In April, after passing the $524 million recovery package, Republican leaders said they would take up the issue of additional funding, alongside pushing for more federal support.
Helene is estimated to have caused $60 billion in damage statewide.
The legislature passed a law allocating $524 million to the many aspects of recovery, and Stein signed it into law. That was a little more than half of what Stein asked for in February.
"Of the funds that we have the ability to allocate, about 80% have been spent. That's why I'm coming back to the General Assembly for this additional appropriations request. It's the next phase," Stein said.
In Stein's plan, he recommends reallocating $45 million in so-far unspent funding from the state's first WNC recovery bill. The money was originally allocated for the repair of underground storage tanks, election services and school nutritional programs.
The lion's share of Stein's plan would go towards economic recovery, allocating $260 million for forgivable loans, workforce development, tourism investment, and grants for revenue-strapped local government support.
His plan also calls for the following investments:
- $239 million for infrastructure, including debris clean-up, repair of damaged schools, climate resiliency projects and technical assistance for local government inspection and permitting offices
- $152 million for state match funding that would be used to unlock federal disaster programs
- $113 million for housing recovery, including new affordable housing developments, homelessness investments and rental assistance
- $105 million for the expansion of small and volunteer fire departments, rehabilitation of waterways and wildfire risk mitigation
- $23 million for families and students, including funding for food banks and assistance for community colleges facing enrollment decline.
At the press conference, Stein also spoke briefly about FEMA. He recently signed a letter that suggests several FEMA improvements, largely centered around making emergency funding more rapidly available for storm victims, especially local governments and property owners.
"This storm has shown that FEMA has sort of become a contraption — that it has been built on storm after storm after storm with different kinds of restrictions and requirements, making it very slow to respond," Stein said.
"The talk about eliminating FEMA makes no sense," he added. "We want to improve FEMA, not eliminate it."
