NC REALTORS® Legislative Priorities Supported in Budget

This week the General Assembly presented and passed the conference committee report to Senate Bill 99 “Appropriations Act of 2018.” Included in the $23 billion package were many important NC REALTORS® priorities in areas like the Housing Trust Fund, disaster relief, economic development, tax policy, and many more.

• Retains funding for the Housing Trust Fund ($10 million) and the Workforce Housing Loan Program ($20 million) administered by the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency.
• Provides funding to support the state’s disaster relief efforts following Hurricane Matthew, the Western NC wildfires, and many other natural disasters. It also provides money to support flood warning systems, assistance programs, and emergency housing options.
• Appropriates funds to address the issues in the Cape Fear region as a result of GenX Issues contamination. It also provides for continued study of existing and emerging contaminants.
• Provides $5 million for the Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund to support projects in coastal areas.
• Economic Development Budget Items:
  • Provides an additional $1 million to the Economic Development Partnership of NC’s (EDPNC) Tourism Promotion department.
  • Retains the majority of the funds supporting the Job Development and Infrastructure Grants (JDIG) and OneNC Fund that were appropriated in 2017.
  • Creates new standards to assist transformational economic development projects
  • Transfers international investment recruiting activities from the Department of Commerce to EDPNC.
• Extends the moratorium on the Map Act for an additional year, until July 1, 2019.
• Provides grants to support rural broadband projects through the creation of the Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) Program and appropriates $10 million to the program.
• This budget makes the following changes to statutes affecting the application of sales tax:
  • Removes the exemption for collection of sales taxes from security systems on real property
  • Defines a property management contract and exempts those services and the repair, maintenance, and installation (RMI) services done under those contracts from sales tax. There will be a study done on this for the next 2 years to determine whether or not this falls inline with the intent of the NCGA’s tax reform policies.
  • Allows cities the ability to use property tax funds to support education.