- Homeowners in several North Carolina counties can expect their property tax revaluation letters soon.

Asheville leaders are grilled about their DEI programs, if they exist, and millions to kick-start election management software upgrades.

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(upbeat music) ♪ - Welcome back to State Lines.

Good to see you.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today, our good friend of the show, Dawn Vaughan of The News and Observer.

To her right, Travis Fain, CEO of Fain Communications, and Theresa Kostrzewa of Capital Advantage.

Seat four, occupied by Claudia Rivera Cotto of Enlace Latino NC.

Hello, everyone.

- Hello.

- Hi.

- Good to have you.

- We have a lot of topics.

This feels like one of those lot of topics, nothing too deep, a lot of fun things to talk about, things you might be interested in, like North Carolina County Government sending letters, maybe to you, if you're a property owner, announcing the new tax value of your home or property.

It's called revaluation.

Counties assess property values for tax purposes, and they must not allow the assessed value of your property to fall below 85% of the property's true market value.

Property value inflation, in case you didn't know this decade, has leaving tax value in the dust.

Prices are rising quickly.

Guilford County, for example, values there up 45% since the last tax assessment.

Local governments, they can lower the rate, Travis, to offset higher bills.

It's called being revenue neutral, so what you say and what you do in certain counties are different things.

- Yeah, and I mean, look, we're in a fast-growing state, a lot of fast-growing counties.

I live in Wake County, and this is an issue, a political issue, that is kind of broken containment, right?

It's not just something we talk about on State Lines or in any sort of bubble.

My neighbors are noticing this.

My friends are noticing this.

Because their bills are going up, it's pretty significant.

Worth noting, both the House and Senate, General Assembly, House and Senate, have a committee, each one has its own committee, to look at this issue.

I'm beginning to think they may actually do something about it.

We'll see what it is they do.

Also worth noting that a lot of what your property taxes pay for at the county level is schools.

And as the state continues without a budget and over the years has not funded schools at the level that a lot of people think they should, that does have a downstream effect.

- Well, the House is ahead of the Senate, right?

So this was, you know, Republican House Speaker Dustin Hall put this out.

The committee started meeting in December, and now Senate Leader Phil Berger has said, OK, these are the people in the Senate that I want to look at this too.

And once the Senate agrees to do something, it's going to happen.

Some form of--well, you should never say it's going to happen with legislation, but it is much more likely to happen that there will be some sort of property tax reform passed this year.

- Theresa, I remember first reading about this in Florida, and some people in my family got on it.

I said there's no way they'll reform property.

I don't know how you would possibly do it.

And then you start paying attention to the legislature and Democrats, some very liberal, go, you know, we have an issue here, we need to discuss it.

Maybe different nuances from Republicans, but I don't say they're calling it a problem, but it's something to be considered.

- Well, it is a problem, especially--so if you talk about people that own property that's in, let's say, older neighborhoods, let's just take Raleigh, OK, so some of those people that have lived in those homes that are now the highest value are on fixed income, and that kills people that are senior citizens that are getting X amount per month, and their property taxes over the last 10 years, I can tell you, have doubled.

So the whole idea of revenue neutrality is just that.

It's an idea that rarely comes to fruition, and it's painful for everybody.

The more you're spending paying those taxes, the less you're spending taking care of your kids or your family or buying things, and that's what our economy needs.

- Claudia, there's some mixed messaging here.

People talk about working families, young adults and professionals can't buy a house in some of these larger cities and suburbs.

And then when you hear the soundbites and we discuss it, politicians, all of us, will go back toward fixed income of senior North Carolinians.

How do we separate the needs of fixed income folks older with younger people who want to buy a home and would lowering taxes or reforming them help them buy a home?

- Yeah, I think that particularly as you're mentioning, like the revenue neutral rate, that is something that would benefit all of the population regardless of age.

And if you think about it as well, like homeowners right now, a lot of them are seeing their tax go up when the counties don't do that revenue neutrality rate.

And even if they see that sometimes the tax bill, it looks like the rate is going down, but if it's over the rate neutrality, it will eventually be an increase in your tax rate.

- Travis, Representative Alan Chester was sitting in seat three last week, and he says county commissioners are getting away with these silent-- Democrats and Republicans are getting away with these silent tax increases by doing just what she says.

They lower the tax rate a little bit, but tax a whole lot more value on your house, and you're creating a tax increase and then going public and going, "I don't vote for tax increases."

- Well, I mean, I'd ask for specifics on that, but, yeah, it sounds-- Well, we can.

It sounds about right.

I mean, that is so often how it works.

But county commissioners are also in a position-- you know, the average fire truck is like $1 million now.

The average ladder truck is like $2 billion.

Why?

Well, private equity cornered the market on fire trucks.

So, I mean, all these costs are going up, and they're going up for a lot of different reasons.

And so it's not just, "Oh, well, we need to talk about property taxes.

We need to talk about what county commissions are doing."

There's a lot going on, a lot of moving parts to it.

At the same time, "Hey, Wake County, you want to lower my taxes."

- Please do.

- The other point you make about this is that it makes the cost of rents go up, and that affects a lot more people, especially a lot younger people who can't afford-- It's really crazy what rents are in some of the markets in North Carolina.

You just pass the tax up because you're maintaining-- Tell me about these-- The Senate committee I see is all Republican.

The House committee looking at property tax reform, Dawn, has some Democrats on it.

Does that matter at all in the context of developing policy?

- Well, the House, like I was saying, is they're further along, and they're looking at different aspects of property tax.

And one thing that is really interesting to me is how they're looking at who or what entities get an exemption from taxes.

So if the local governments argue the state's not giving us enough money for this and higher tax revenue is the only thing that's going to solve the problem, you can think about who that you're giving a tax break to.

If the homeowners aren't going to get any sort of tax break, you could have more income if you give fewer tax exemptions.

And that is what the committee is looking at now.

And there are a lot of property owners that get tax exemptions.

And one other thing, there's the fixed income and people wanting to try to buy a house in the market, but there's also just the average person who's owned their house for several years doesn't suddenly all of a sudden have a bunch more money to pay an increased tax bill.

So I think that there's a couple different things that the House and Senate are going to come to some sort of agreement on eventually, but they also have to get Governor Stein to agree to it, and he doesn't want to punish the municipalities.

- Theresa, this is one thing Republicans have drilled into me when I was a reporter there.

If you get rid of exemptions on this, you can lower the tax rate for everyone.

I have seen online people go, hey, a lot of churches out there aren't paying property taxes.

- Hospitals too.

- Hospitals too.

What do you think?

Would Republicans dare go for churches, and would Democrats dare tax hospitals?

- Well, you know what?

Nobody knows for sure.

There are some entities that do need to be taxed that I think are getting away with making a ton of profits at the expense of the taxpayer, and they should be, but churches, no way, either party.

- I don't mean to open that can of worms, but someone mentioned-- I've heard this argument before, but since we're talking, let's lay it all out on the table.

- Hospitals make pretty good money.

- Folks in Asheville like watching State Lines, so a nice Asheville story comes before us, but it does have statewide interest.

City leaders appeared before the state House Government Efficiency Committee this week.

Conservative legislators had been hearing that Asheville might be flouting state law by still operating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs inside city government.

Asheville came out and testified the city has in fact repurposed and renamed its DEI office.

They say any lawsuits that were filed against the city about that, those policies are gone.

They were voluntarily resolved with no current legal issues.

Lawmakers also focused on Asheville's reparations study.

Asheville's mayor said reparations is more than the commonly assumed direct payments to individuals.

Claudia, I watched that event.

It was very cordial.

If you said certain buzzwords, certain lawmakers popped up with very pointed questions.

This DOGE committee in the House, what does it aim to do?

- Well, it does seem that the debate is more about the legal boundaries itself.

They're criticizing the Buncombe and the Asheville city officials because they think that what they're doing with the DEI initiatives is in some way violating constitutional or civil rights.

And the local officials are saying that they're not doing so because they are getting information to help underserved communities, but the examples that they gave, for example, was public housing.

And in those, they say that there are people from diverse backgrounds, but they're not necessarily uplifting a specific race.

And in that sense, they think that it is in line with the state and the federal laws.

And I think that the debate then just comes into the inequalities there.

I think everybody can see that, but to what extent can the government actually make something to address that inequality without it being any constitutional violation?

- Dawn, one interesting line of thought.

The Asheville mayor said, they asked, "Well, who do you know who to pay reparations to?"

And she says, "We know families in Asheville that maybe the federal government, someone came in, took their home and did urban renewal," which was before my time, before any of our times.

So she brought that up.

There was not much pushback there except to say, "Be careful with the language you use.

Did anyone steal the land?"

They said the land was stolen kind of thing by the feds to repurpose it.

I found that very, very interesting.

But can the debate in North Carolina ever get beyond just the buzzword and the knee-jerk question and answer that we saw this week?

- Well, I think some of this has to do with at the federal level, what did people see on TV or social media, and they want to talk about that in a committee.

So I think that's some of it.

And phrasing is changing.

I remember it was the anti-CRT bills in the past.

And a couple of DEI bills, Republicans were not able to override this past year, but there's things coming down from the federal level.

I wrote an explainer this week about explaining House Oversight Committee and this House Efficiency Committee and what they do and what the dynamics are as far as is there going to be legislation?

No, not right now, but it could end up something that part of a bill that we see months from now and the Senate--we were talking about the Senate versus House.

The Senate does not have this Efficiency Committee.

So this is something that's been a priority of the House, but right now they're just kind of running in their own lanes.

- I caught the tone of that committee.

I don't know if you watched it, Travis.

I caught the tone.

It was very cordial and very friendly, and the topic was yet very contentious.

It was very interesting, unlike even floor debate you see on the House between politicians themselves.

- Well, I'm glad to hear it was cordial.

I read about it.

I thought it was--I mean, it was pointed to comments, but it was just thank you, yes sir, no sir, all that.

- Here's my question.

So as best I can tell, this meeting was to allow Asheville and Buncombe County to respond to a 42-page presentation that a woman named Ruth Smith, who lost a close race for a House seat in Buncombe County in 2024, had appeared before the committee the month before and made a bunch of accusations.

And then in February Asheville and Buncombe came back.

Y'all, if as a reporter I had written a story and just put a bunch of accusations out there and said don't worry, in one month I will have the rest of it, I would have been fired.

I don't really understand why a committee, a legislative committee with all these resources in the General Assembly, why are we having two meetings?

- Well, let's talk to Theresa about that.

She's seen them come and seen them go.

Well, to Dawn's point, right, about the House having this committee first, right, the House has 120 members and 71 Republicans, and that's a lot of people to keep busy.

And I think what we've seen in this interim and that we're going to talk about today are a lot of committee meetings about maybe not such important topics, but it's kind of busy work, right?

And it's also it's red meat for Republicans is a lot of what's going on as well.

- And it's an election year.

People have primaries, people have generals, so I mean I think a lot of the messaging, a lot of the discussion we see, especially if it's in front of cameras, is for the attention and campaigning.

- And guess what I just did, gave it all the attention, five minutes on statewide television.

Yes?

- And also not only at the federal level, we have seen that here in the General Assembly there has been some legislation that has passed and now has been vetoed by the governor that would actually make the DEI initiatives to be illegal in North Carolina.

So I think right now they're debating on the constitutional rights, but it does seem that it has in mind that bill that most likely will be debated when the General Assembly comes back.

- If those veto overrides just float out there, they can just spring it on them whenever they think they have that vote, right?

How about members of another House select committee, this one on oversight again.

They questioned Mecklenburg County leaders this week.

Now, there's a couple things going on here.

The committee wants criminal investigation documents, e-mails, anything regarding the Iryna Zarutska murder case.

She was fatally stabbed on video on the Charlotte light rail last summer.

Now, the committee is focusing on Mecklenburg County Sheriff Gary McFadden.

They want him to release all documents, correspondence between his office and federal ICE officials.

Sheriff McFadden is asked to turn over invoices, credit card statements, travel logs, itineraries, and other expenses partially or fully funded by taxpayers.

Everything but the sheriff's diary, it appears.

- It's really interesting.

So my colleague at the Charlotte Observer, Mary Ramsey, came up to report from within the committee room because she covers Charlotte.

All these people from Charlotte, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff, the mayor of Charlotte, all these Charlotte/Meck leaders were here for this hearing on public safety.

But like you were saying, where there are some cordial aspects to meetings, there's cordial exchanges with other people.

And then it basically came down to Sheriff McFadden, who was questioned extensively.

He's already a controversial figure locally.

And we just saw, you know, the legislative, I guess, magnifying glass on that.

And it's not going to be over.

We don't know if he'll be back in front of their committee.

McFadden himself has a primary in the next couple of weeks, and it's a Democratic primary, and whoever wins that is likely going to win the general, too.

So, again, these election year dynamics are part of everything, too.

But a lot of it was McFadden.

There was some talk about light rail safety, but it was also about sheriffs cooperating with ICE, which has been a big issue at the General Assembly, and legislation passed, and McFadden was one of these that Republicans see as flouting that law.

- Even in the big counties, Theresa, the sheriff is a powerful figure.

I don't know much about Sheriff McFadden.

I saw what they asked him and got him with these questions and things in that committee hearing.

So the dynamic of a sheriff in even a Mecklenburg County is pretty profound.

- Well, it is, and I'm kind of laughing to myself because if the reparations committee meeting is the sports equivalent of curling, this one with Sheriff McFadden is the sports equivalent of cage fighting.

I mean, it was hot and heavy and crazy for a legislative hearing like this.

But, again, this is about, in my mind, what happened in Charlotte with Iryna's Law has brought up a lot of problems, and the Republicans are not letting them go.

And they want stuff to be different.

They want things to be fixed.

And so I think they will continue to put everybody on the hot seat that they think has something to do with the problems that are happening in some of our cities.

- Claudia, how do legislators stay focused?

You have one sheriff, and they're frustrated with him on a variety of fronts.

Is it going to be difficult to dial in on one issue?

The primary is here anyway in a couple weeks.

- For sure.

No, I think necessary, the legislative oversight is important, and it's part of what they have to do, mostly, if there is public scrutiny about an issue.

And mostly, as we've seen in Charlotte, there is this high-profile cases.

But that being said, we have seen that immigration enforcement and public safety have also become an issue not only about accountability on the systems, but also politics.

And both can be part of it.

I think in this case, that is what's happening, but we will have to wait a little bit and see if they do another oversight and if they focus specifically on the accountability, on seeing if the systems can be fixed, or if they focus more on the politician pressure.

Because at the end of the day, as you're mentioning, the sheriff is an elected official.

- Travis, I think I read somewhere one of the committee members, may have been the chairman himself, said these oversight committees are here, they may not change law or change the world, but they will bring attention to even local issues they think matter.

For all the emotions of that committee hearing, did it resonate outside of Mecklenburg and Wake counties this week?

- That's a good question.

My guess would be no, because I spent 25 years in journalism, and getting things to resonate anywhere is really, really hard.

But there is national attention on law enforcement in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.

So to the extent that it's possible to resonate, probably a little bit, but these are things that you're ultimately going to see in campaign ads.

You're going to see them brought up again and again and again.

And we'll see what happens in election season.

- So we would set aside the property tax reform issues, like expect something to be proposed in the spring of '26 versus oversight committees like this, which are more just public airings of grievances.

Is that-- - It could end up in legislation.

It's more likely to.

Because house oversight is the house arm of gov ops, which is run by Republicans in control, and they can add things to a bill.

So we might see some sort of fallout later, maybe not through this committee, but added as a policy provision in the budget.

- Let's talk about elections.

Primary is coming up, general election later this fall.

North Carolina's statewide elections computer system, we're told, is nearly 28 years old.

Now, the state board of elections can use part of $15 million in new state funding to begin upgrading parts of that system.

State officials say that hodgepodge of old computer programming is at risk of failure.

A 22-member state commission will oversee this project, including current and past state elections board members, county board of elections members, and even political scientists, like our dear friend Chris Cooper, who's been on the show from Western Carolina.

Auditor Dave Boliek says $15 million will not completely upgrade the election management database, Theresa.

That is wild to me.

They can't build a computer for $15 million, and we start with a committee first to fix it.

- Actually, I have--I think that Auditor Boliek really has his eye on a prize that is very worthwhile.

So the $15 million is just to upgrade what we currently have so that it doesn't fail us.

What will be needed beyond that in terms of money is probably closer to $80-plus million, because that's to build a brand-new back-end database for voting.

And his vision includes that it's not just for elections officials, but that citizens would be able to go and access that database and do any kind of query they want, get any kind of report they want.

And if you think about it, why do people have doubts about our election system?

It's because they don't have transparency.

And when that gets created in the state of North Carolina, that any of us can go and access that data, there will be a lot more faith in the voting system, which is a very positive thing.

- Travis, that Dave Boliek inherited a 28-year-old computer system is not an accident of state policy.

How is he doing it differently to even get $15 million to begin modernizing the computer systems?

I mean, I'm generalizing that, but it's a huge system undertaking.

- It's a huge number, and every government IT project I ever covered as a journalist ballooned in cost.

So I would really recommend a few things.

One, be real certain about what you want and what you want it to do before you sign the contract, because change orders are what kills a project and balloons cost.

Number two, there are 50 states in the United States of America.

I refuse to believe one of them does not have a good system like this that already exists, as opposed to building one from scratch.

So don't build one from scratch.

Number three, I don't know if everybody's heard of vibe coding, but this is where you basically task an AI, an artificial intelligence, with coding something for you, and it just cuts the time and the work required way, way down.

I would really start to play hardball with IT companies on any sort of government IT contract, including this one, because the power dynamic is shifting in that area.

- That's a really good point with the cost, because I think we've seen, especially with education and things coming down from the legislature, these different contracts of what the public school systems use, and then the cost of changing that and then changing that a few years later and thinking about that, like if there's some whatever the long-range balloon costs are going to be.

- Claudia, polling did show people aren't feeling really good about our election structure and processes in North Carolina and America, so this is a step towards a new database that if Theresa's right and it goes off, you'll be able to do reports on your own, you can look up anyone.

Will it work?

Will it work in the face of news reports and bloggers and people saying elections are somehow not working as well as they should?

- Well, I think that modernizing it definitely will help, and not having any other failures in the future.

And in elections, having even for a little bit a failure can definitely impact the public's scrutiny and the way that they feel about the elections.

So if this is what it takes for people to also feel better in the election process, I think it's necessary.

And obviously, if it's going to cost this much, people are going to feel that it is going to be good, and eventually I think they could even add more to it.

As she's mentioning, and look into other states that could potentially be of an example for North Carolina.

- Georgia spent over $100 million reforming their system, and the thing of it is-- I mean, Travis, yes, it should-- - Do Republicans believe in election results in Georgia?

Because the president just sent a squad to seize information.

- Yeah, the point I was making is, yes, should costs be able to go down when you're talking about software because of AI, et cetera?

Yes, probably.

And a back-end database for voting state by state is going to be unique to that state, and North Carolina is going to want to own its data, and so it won't be like a vendor's going to come in and be able to make any money off of having access to that data because they won't.

The state will own the data, and it will be a custom program just for North Carolina.

There's no off-the-shelf database for any state's voter registration because every state is so different.

- I've got about a minute.

I want to touch base with New Hanover County State Representative Deb Butler.

She wants to stop legislator pay when there's no new state budget passed.

Her idea is to stop those paychecks if they miss the June 30th deadline on budget legislation, requires a 60% majority vote in the House, 60% majority vote in the Senate, then you as a voter would approve a constitutional amendment.

That could not be vetoed.

This is truly rapid-fire, Dawn.

It's a talking point.

I don't know, but it's out there.

- I think it brings up the fact that state lawmakers only make about $14,000 a year.

They do get per diems, and because it's not a set schedule, because they don't have a deadline in place, there aren't a lot of people who have just regular jobs that can hold a regular job and also be a lawmaker.

- Yes, absolutely do it.

Pair it with a constitutional amendment that increases lawmaker pay.

Let's get some regular people into the General Assembly.

- Costing them that $40 a day is going to just really make them want to work harder.

There you go.

- Claudia, last word to you on this.

They don't get paid if they don't pass a budget.

- Yeah, I think it definitely has to do with the negotiation also for the budget, so we'd have to see if that is an impulse or if it just standalones.

- Just throw it on the pile of things to discuss later this spring.

Thank you so much for watching us, folks.

We appreciate you most of all and the panel.

Great this week.

Email your thoughts and opinions to statelines@pbsnc.org.

We'll read the emails, write you back.

I'm Kelly McCullough, and thank you for watching.

Have a great weekend, and I will see you next time.

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