Is the General Assembly About to Kill Light Rail in Durham and Orange counties?

The budget adjustment Republicans in the General Assembly crafted behind closed doors, unveiled last night, and are expected to pass by a veto-proof supermajority later this week—for the first time in modern history, without an opportunity for lawmakers to offer amendments, because democracy is for suckers—does a lot of things.

It keeps the tax cuts coming, lowering the personal income-tax rate to 5.25 percent (from 5.499 percent), cutting the corporate tax rate from 3 percent to 2.5 percent, and throwing a ton of incentive money at major new economic projects (cough Apple cough). It includes an average 6.5 percent raise for teachers and a 6.9 percent raise for principals, slightly higher than the earlier budget called for, though not as high as Governor Cooper wanted. It gives every state employee a 2 percent raise and ensures that all state workers make at least $15 an hour. It budgets $60 million for Hurricane Matthew recovery. It reverses cuts to the state’s environmental budget, most likely to deal with the GenX crisis. It digs up $6 million for TROSA to build a new facility in the Triad and $250,000 for something called Cross Trail Outfitters “for purposes of promoting wellness and physical activity for youth seven to 20 years of age.” (On its website, Cross Trail Outfitters puts its mission thusly: “Guiding the next generation to Christ through the outdoors.” OK, then.)

Oh, and the budget also effectively kills light rail dead. Page 179 of the budget document contains the sentence-as-murder-weapon: “Additional Requirement for High-Cost Projects. A light rail project is ineligible for scoring, prioritization, and State funding until a written agreement is provided to the Department establishing that all non-State funding necessary to construct the project has been secured.”

In other words, the N.C. Department of Transportation won’t be allowed to move forward with evaluating the project for state funding until all of the non-state-funding sources are locked down. And there’s the rub: half of the project’s financing—more than $1.2 billion—is supposed to come from the federal government. But the feds are required by law to have secured a 50 percent match from state, local, and other sources before they commit.

Read more: https://www.indyweek.com/news/archives/2018/05/29/is-the-general-assembly-about-to-kill-light-rail