Retail leakage, for our purposes, is the gap between the money spent by local consumers and the revenue generated by local businesses, often due to residents shopping in neighboring areas. Significant retail leakage in an area points to opportunities for new and...

“Employers can no longer afford to overlook America’s escalating child care crisis,” according to a January article in Site Selection magazine. A report from the NC Chamber Foundation indicates that thousands of North Carolinians are leaving the workforce, forgoing...

We’ve updated the original blog post to reflect that Commerce and the EDP and published their program description and model documents. For years people have advocated for North Carolina to establish a program to give local governments another tool to help businesses...

The United States Senate Finance Committee has published a broad list of ideas for tax law changes. Many of the original “Trump Tax Cuts” from 2017 are set to expire this year. Under Congress’s own rules, if those cuts are to be extended, then Congress needs to impose...

Going into a New Year, everyone has an interest rate prediction. We thought we’d look at expectations for construction costs instead. Aided by the 0.5% Federal Reserve cut in the Federal funds rate in November, the second such cut of the year, Q3 of 2024 saw the...

As we get to the start of 2025, we offer this list of items to keep in mind as you plan for new capital projects and manage your existing projects. Here are a few things to think about at least once a year: Do something with unused financing proceeds. Why pay...

Brad Briner will be our new North Carolina State Treasurer starting in January. Naturally (for us) we thought we’d offer some completely unsolicited advice for how the Treasurer’s office, through the Local Government Commission, could make life better for the LGC’s...

Learning about our new State Treasurer – Brad Briner won the election to succeed Dale Folwell, who did not seek re-election.  Briner was the Republican candidate, and he’ll take over in early January.  You can read more about Briner and some thoughts on issues facing...

We now have a schedule for the  2025 meetings of the Local Government Commission. We thought a table might be handy. In addition to the meeting dates, this table shows the application due dates. We’ve also noted the dates 45 days prior to the meeting dates...

Usually people run for county or municipal office because of their interest in government activities or programs – they want to advocate for schools, or parks, or affordable housing. Some have a general sense of wanting to give back or be involved in what’s going on...