by Emily Jessup | May 8, 2025 | Blog
As local governments face budget challenges caused by the slowdown in sales tax collections (and associated hold-harmless funding), the end of ARPA-related funding, and potential instability in Federal aid, a healthy fund balance may be more important than before. But...
by Emily Jessup | Apr 10, 2025 | Blog
We’ve all seen those signature blocks for attorneys at the end of contracts, under the caption “Approved as to Form.” But what does it mean? In Frayda Bluestein’s 2009 blog on this topic she wrote that the caption suggests “ a limited approval – approval as to form...
by Robert Jessup | Mar 26, 2025 | Blog
The State statutes and the tax-exempt bond rules generally provide that borrowed money can only be used to pay “capital costs” of a project. But what is a “capital cost,” or a “capital expenditure,” exactly? Let’s split the question into a few sections. For new...
by Emily Jessup & AJ Jessup | Mar 21, 2025 | Blog
We were among the 800+ folks at the North Carolina Main Street conference March 11-13 in Mooresville. So many interesting sessions and bits of advice, including the following: If you don’t trust the private partner in your public-private...
by Robert Jessup | Mar 19, 2025 | Blog
Just about every community in North Carolina agrees that it has a housing problem. In most cases, it’s a need for housing across the board. There are several recognized ways for local governments to provide direct assistance to undertakings to develop housing for...
by AJ Jessup | Feb 26, 2025 | Blog
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...