The Dive: Nip and Tuck

Every two years during the state budget process, lawmakers tuck policy-related rules into overstuffed financial legislation. It’s a way to fast-track changes that may otherwise face a steeper climb on their own. (Democratic Rep. Deb Butler recently called the budget process a “democratic crisis,” and filed dead-on-arrival bills to reform it earlier this month.)

The Senate’s budget still needs to survive House scrutiny and will certainly undergo revisions before being adopted by both chambers. Still, policy items that made their way into the Senate’s budget could be considered as having a turbo-boost. 

Some of those changes includes reforms to the state’s dentistry rules. As The Assembly reported earlier this month, the death of Wilmington cardiologist Henry Patel during a routine dental procedure in 2020 prompted demands to require dentists administering deep sedation to use a skilled anesthesia provider, as required in most other non-emergency surgeries. 

Republican Sen. Michael Lee, named Senate Majority Leader this month, has championed dentistry sedation reform. The state dental board adopted some increased reporting rules in 2022 but stopped short of requiring a second anesthesia provider–a step the dental industry bucked as being reactionary, expensive, and unnecessary. 

The Senate’s budget includes more enhanced reporting requirements for dentists when something goes wrong in surgeries. It also calls on a state research collaboratory to evaluate whether a second anesthesia provider is needed. The changes are entitled “Ninja’s Law,” Patel’s nickname. 

The dental reforms aren’t Lee’s only cause that made its way into the budget. 

In 2023, Lee filed a bill to eliminate the ability for cities across the state to regulate land uses for properties outside their limits, known as extra-territorial jurisdictions. It didn’t go anywhere, but the state appetite for curbing municipal land-use authority was growing; that summer, the legislature stripped Leland of its annexation authority, a dramatic move town leaders viewed as punitive for its explosive growth. 

Then last summer, the legislature passed Republican Rep. Charlie Miller’s effort to strip Southport of its 1,911-acre extra-territorial jurisdiction (ETJ).

Altogether, the legislature’s moves fit into a larger trend of municipalities’ fear of losing local planning control. New limitations on municipalities’ local zoning control passed last year also have cities scrambling. 

Whether it be through annexations or ETJs–where property owners are subject to certain municipal planning rules but don’t pay taxes or vote in elections–lawmakers and property owners have opposed the tools as a form of regulation without representation. Municipalities see them as useful for shaping town standards and boundaries.

Last month, Miller filed two deannexation bills to remove various properties from Southport and Oak Island limits. Southport leaders were incensed. “This is an avalanche hanging over our heads,” Alderman Karen Mosteller said at the city’s March 13 meeting, calling their recent ETJ removal the elephant in the room. “Our state representatives hold the power to crush us.” 

Alderman Lowe Davis said the proposed deannexations were a slippery slope that would allow more property owners to “chew away” at city limits. Miller’s deannexation bills haven’t yet moved out of committee. 

Southport, Boone, Asheville, Weaverville, and Maggie Valley each lost their ETJ authority through local bills over the past decade. The Senate’s new budget would strip all cities of ETJ authority. 

Scott Mooneyham, spokesperson for the NC League of Municipalities, said he’s concerned about the inclusion of ETJ bans in the budget. He said ETJs are an important growth tool, particularly in tourism communities, to prevent adjoining incompatible land uses. “Of course, those incompatible uses can also damage property values for existing property owners,” he said. 

In an email Tuesday, Southport spokesperson ChyAnn Ketchum said the city is sympathetic to other municipalities whose ETJ authority now appears on the chopping block. “As a municipality that was stripped of their ETJ last year, Southport has seen the adverse effects of that action and hopes that fellow municipalities are able to avoid that fate,” she said. 

–Johanna F. Still

Thanks for reading The Dive, a weekly newsletter written by Wilmington editor Johanna F. Still and WHQR’s Benjamin Schachtman. Reach us with tips or ideas at wilmington@theassemblync.com.

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Revenge of the Binder

At Monday’s budget meeting, Republican New Hanover County Commissioner Dane Scalise voiced frustration in his attempts to trim spending.

“I don’t feel like I’ve got the tools at present to do that, and I’d like some assistance,” Scalise said.

It’s not a new struggle. Last year, we wrote about Scalise and Democratic Commissioner Rob Zapple’s attempt to tackle the “binder,” in other words, take a granular look at the budget.

I got my own copy, and found the pages of budget codes to be largely inscrutable. In an interview earlier this year, Scalise admitted it wasn’t what he’d hoped for.

“It made my efforts to pinpoint some areas where savings might be had more difficult,” he said.

This year, Scalise told me he was pivoting to a third-party audit or review–an idea he’s raised repeatedly during this year’s county budget meetings. Fellow conservative Commissioner LeAnn Pierce agreed it might be a good idea, but voiced concern there wasn’t enough time this budget cycle for a third-party to generate usable results.

Pierce and Scalise agree, though, on trying to whittle the county budget down. While both acknowledge inflation has increased costs, they want to keep things as close to revenue neutral as possible–meaning next year’s tax bills will be as close as possible to last year’s, irrespective of the significant increases in property values from the recent property revaluation. 

But while Scalise and Pierce could likely win over Republican Chairman Bill Rivenbark’s vote for a lean budget, figuring out what exactly to cut is tricky. In part, that’s the nature of the budget process, where commissioners mainly see high-level categories of funding, not the line-item level, where Scalise and Pierce–echoing comments they made last year–suggested that a lot of small tweaks could aggregate to big savings. Cheaper office furniture, combining overlapping or redundant positions, things like that. “Pennies make pounds,” as Scalise said Monday.

County Manager Chris Coudriet has countered that, noting that those cuts wouldn’t add up to the multi-million dollar savings the county would need to significantly decrease the proposed tax rate. 

But Coudriet, who is always quick to defer to the “will of the board,” also said he’d be happy to give commissioners more budget details. He also offered them access to a “dynamic spreadsheet” that shows some of the inner workings of his budget; this is apparently the first time many of the commissioners have seen the manager’s sausage-making machine up close.

However, that’s about as far as county staff are willing to go. While acknowledging some things were “left on the cutting room floor,” in his budget, Coudriet avoided Pierce when she pushed him to further prioritize in a way that would let commissioners make easier cuts. Basically, while Coudriet and his staff have made recommended cuts to budget requests from other county-funded agencies–like the sheriff’s office, school board, board of elections, and nonprofits–they’re hesitant to do it for their own internal operations. 

A county manager, now retired, once told me, “it’s easy to train a dog to bite someone. It’s very hard to train a dog to bite itself.”

If conservatives want to reduce the budget, they’ll have to get major high-level cuts and risk the blowback of reducing popular services, or get very granular to find those pennies. And they’ll have to be quick, because the recommended budget is due out next month, and must be finalized by the end of June.

–Benjamin Schachtman

Catch up on an audio conversation on last week’s edition here. Contact The Dive team with tips and feedback at johanna@theassemblync.com.

Around the Region

An Overpriced Overpass?: A group of more than 100 residents organized a meeting opposing a transportation project that plans to bring an overpass to Eastwood Road, StarNews reports.

Renting Capital: Private equity firms own 20 percent of apartment real estate in Wilmington, Port City Daily reports. 

Depart, Deport: Avelo Airlines, a low-cost carrier with a growing presence in Wilmington, recently contracted with the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to carry out deportation flights, WHQR repots.

Around the State

For the Lumbee, Full Federal Recognition Is Closer Than Ever

One of Trump’s earliest executive actions directed the Interior Department to find a path forward for the tribe, with a deadline of this week.

Trump Administration Restores Funding for NOAA Weather Data Centers

After letting crucial data disappear from the internet, the Trump administration reversed course and extended the contracts for NOAA’s regional climate centers.

Abolishing Innocence

Republicans in the state Senate have proposed eliminating the Innocence Inquiry Commission, the only one of its kind in the U.S.