SESSION WINDING DOWN

All signs point to the General Assembly adjourning the session by Friday. The House is scheduled to convene Friday morning at 9 a.m., and the Senate is also expected to meet on Friday. Sen. Marc Basnight said Thursday on the Senate floor that the two chambers are going to try to finish by noon on Friday. Among the major issues left to be resolved that would impact counties is the drought legislation (H2499).

COUNTIES RECEIVE ADDITIONAL METHOD TO FINANCE INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS

High-growth counties were given new authority to finance infrastructure needs in a bill that passed the House and Senate on Wednesday. H1770 (Future Conveyances/Special Assessments) includes a new Article 9A, “Special Assessments for Critical Infrastructure Needs.” This article enables a city or county to finance any of several capital needs – sanitary sewer systems; storm sewers and flood control facilities; water systems; public transportation facilities; school facilities; or streets and sidewalks – through revenue bonds that will be paid by issuing special assessments on the affected properties. To impose a special assessment, the Board of Commissioners must receive a petition for the project to be financed by the assessment signed by at least a majority of the owners of real property to be assessed. Those owners must represent at least 66 percent of the assessed value of all real property to be assessed.

WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT BILL APPROVED

The House concurred with Senate changes to H1889 (Present-Use Value System Modifications) on Tuesday. The legislation creates a new property tax deferral program for landowners who manage their land for wildlife conservation purposes. Qualifying land must consist of at least 20 contiguous acres and no more than 100 acres and must be owned by the same owner for the previous five years. According to the legislation, “the land must be managed under a written wildlife habitat conservation agreement with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.” The land must “protect an animal species that lives on the land and … is on a North Carolina protected animal list published by the Commission under G.S. 113 333” or “conserve any of the following priority animal wildlife habitats: longleaf pine forest, early successional habitat, small wetland community, stream and riparian zone, rock outcrop, or bat cave.” The legislation does not allow a business entity that is a corporation whose shares are publicly traded or has a member that is a corporation whose shares are publicly traded to qualify for the wildlife conservation benefit. The Association worked with the stakeholders to remove some of the more harmful provisions contained in earlier versions.

BUILDING MORATORIUM AMENDMENT REMOVED FROM HOUSE BILL

An amendment that would have limited a local government’s ability to enact a building moratorium to give the local government time to update or adopt a local ordinance was removed from H2313 (Permitting and Building Code Changes) before the bill passed the House and Senate on Wednesday. The amendment attempted to rewrite G.S. 153A 340(h)(1) and G.S. 160A 381(e)(1) by inserting the sentence: “A county may not adopt an ordinance imposing a development moratorium on the sole basis that an existing ordinance is outdated or in need of amendment or that there is a need for a new ordinance.” The Association thanks the many county officials who discussed with their legislators over the weekend the impact the amendment would have had on their county’s ability to deal with growth.

NEW TIPPING TAX BILL PASSES; DELAY NOT INCLUDED

The House and Senate overwhelmingly passed H2530, Solid Waste Tax Changes, on Thursday on second reading. The conference report changes the schedule for counties to remit the tax to a quarterly basis and also allows counties to receive a credit for bad debts in the event that an operator does not pay his account balance. It was estimated by Fiscal Research that the tax would raise approximately $24.5 million annually, with 37.5 percent of the revenues to be redistributed to local governments. Changing the remittance system to a quarterly basis will reduce overall revenues for 2008-09 by about $6.1 million because only three quarterly payments will be made during the fiscal year. The conference report also clarifies that local governments that do not operate solid waste programs are not eligible to receive any funds from the tax “unless it is served by a regional solid waste management authority established under Article 22 of Chapter 153A of the General Statutes.” The bill is scheduled for third reading on Friday.

HOUSE, SENATE FINALLY CONCUR ON REAPPRAISAL CHANGES

The House and Senate reached a consensus on changes to a bill that would impact when a county must reappraise its real property. When S1878 (Property Tax Modifications) was passed by the Senate, it required counties to reappraise their property when their sales/assess ratio reached .90 or was above 1.10. The House modified the trigger on the sales/assess ratio to less than .70 or greater than 1.10. The conference report that was taken to the House and Senate on Thursday changed the trigger to when the sales/assess ratio is lower than .85 or greater than 1.15, but only for counties whose population is 75,000 or greater. Counties with a population of less than 75,000 would still be required to perform a revaluation at least once every eight years. The House on Thursday passed the conference report 110-1 on second reading. The Senate passed the report 45-0 on Thursday. It will have to be voted on again in both chambers on Friday.

BILLS OF INTEREST

The Association has created a section on its Web site to track bills of interest to county officials. Visit www.ncacc.org/legislation/about.html for updates on key legislation, including the bills listed below.