NCLM News Center

The 2023 legislative session has been a long and winding journey, and one that, as of this writing in mid-September, still had not ended. (A budget bill has been drafted, but not yet signed into law. NCLM will closely review all provisions included in the budget and provide a detailed report in our End of Session Bulletin, detailed in the...

Sen. Paul Newton of Cabarrus County sees legislative priorities as falling into two buckets: the short-term needs that arise quickly, and the long-term goals that he moves towards slowly and intentionally over many years. As the Senate Majority Leader, he handles both. Sen. Newton sat down with NCLM in early September to discuss his approach to leadership, the 2023 legislative...

For more than 60 years, from the Civil Rights Movement to now, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson has served her community, always with social justice and equity front of mind. Yvonne Johnson’s career as a public leader started long before her election to city council. Thinking back, Johnson points to it beginning as a freshman at Bennett College. More specifically, she...

A unique, valuable service offering from NCLM There is little question that many small towns across North Carolina have struggled financially in recent years. For the town governments, those struggles can take many forms: a lack of revenue to meet maintenance needs for water and sewer systems, meaning those systems are not run efficiently; vacant properties that no longer produce economic...

The League’s ongoing series connecting federal and local leaders continued this summer with Rep. Valerie Foushee and Rep. David Rouzer At the beginning of the summer, the NC League brought together federal lawmakers and local leaders through its Congressional Luncheon series. First up was Rep. Valerie Foushee, who met with mayors and council members in Chapel Hill. Conversations ranged widely, from...

At the North Carolina League of Municipalities, our motto of, “Working as One, Advancing All,” is one that we take seriously. You see it when we advocate for land-use policies that allow our biggest cities and smallest towns to pursue their own unique visions of what their communities should look like. You see it when we provide legal services to...

The longstanding and successful North Carolina-Moldova relationship was renewed with a meeting this summer NCLM President and Fuquay-Varina Commissioner William Harris, other members of the NCLM Board of Directors, and Fuquay-Varina town officials hosted members of the Republic of Moldova Parliament in Fuquay-Varina this July as a part of the North Carolina-Moldova partnership for peace program. The members of Parliament...

Newsletter, Webinar Series, Service Line, and More You are making transformational investments into your community. We are here to guide you every step of the way. What does that mean in practice? It means updating you as U.S. Treasury guidelines change. It means offering a robust service line to assist in every facet of the ARP process. And it means holding...

Over the past several years, local governments in North Carolina have seen their pension fund contributions escalate drastically to keep the Local Government Employees Retirement System on a sound fiscal footing. In 2022, the total employer contribution to the North Carolina pension fund—including LGERS, the Teachers and State Employees Retirement System and a handful of smaller public employee funds—was $3.75...

Over the course of late summer and fall, cities across North Carolina are hosting a series of local meetings examining the opportunities to expand access to intercity passenger rail in North Carolina. Rail Response is a project of the North Carolina Metro Mayors Coalition and this series of meetings is meant to look at how intercity passenger rail—and an expansion...