Development Ranking
North Carolina was recently named first for workforce development in Site Selection Magazine’s annual rankings. “North Carolina’s strength is our people,” said Gov. Josh Stein in a press release. “They power our economy. North Carolina is already the top state for business; now we are the top state for workforce.”
The magazine is popular among corporate real estate leaders, location strategy consultants, and economic development professionals shaping companies’ location and expansion decisions.
“This recognition affirms what companies experience every day when they locate and grow in North Carolina,” Dr. Jeff Cox, president of the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS), said in a press release. “Our workforce development model is built on strong partnerships, local responsiveness and a clear focus on employer needs, which gives North Carolina a decisive advantage.”
For John Loyack, vice president of economic development for the NCCCS, the ranking is a victory decades in the making. The state established an apprenticeship program to meet national standards back in the 1930s, Loyack said. In the 1950s, North Carolina developed a customized training program, still part of the community college system. Forty years ago, the community college system developed the small business center network. And since the turn of the century, the system has responded to industry-specific needs, such as with the 2004 foundation of the NC BioNetwork to bolster the biotechnology and life science industries.
Site Selection highlighted several North Carolina programs as key reasons for the top-ranking position for the state, including the NCEdge Customized Training program, through which the state’s community colleges provided tailored upskilling and reskilling for 848 companies across 319 total workforce development projects between July 2024 and June 2025. The program has trained more than 100,000 North Carolinians through the program, according to the NCCCS release.
State Jobs
State Auditor Dave Boliek on Thursday presented lawmakers with a suite of options for cutting government jobs that have been vacant for six months or longer. In a nearly 700-page report created by his new self-titled government efficiency division, Boliek, a Republican, provided extensive details on the 8,800 long-term vacancies that he says have produced $1.04 billion in lapsed salary dollars.
The report lists nine potential criteria for cutting vacant jobs, ranging from eliminating positions that have been vacant for over five years to eliminating all positions that agencies keep purposefully vacant for funding reasons.
“It’s giving legislators, policymakers and the General Assembly and for that matter, members of the executive branch, a starting point,” Boliek told reporters Thursday evening.
The report did not endorse a specific option for cutting jobs, but Boliek said eliminating vacancies of five years or longer would be a good place to start.
“I do think there are some low-hanging fruit spots,” he said. “Positions that have been open for five years? Yeah, we can start with that.”
Boliek also stressed that his intention was not to solely recommend cutting jobs, but to also recommend increased salaries for some hard-to-fill positions.
“There are places where we need to reinvest, where we can get a return on investment: nursing, other health care professionals … correction officials,” he said.
Boliek released a pared-down version of the lapsed salary report last month, but promised to provide a more thorough analysis later with responses from the affected agencies.
Last week, Gov. Josh Stein’s office accused Boliek of making “significant inaccuracies” in finding the state had generated over $1 billion in lapsed salary dollars from vacant state agency positions. In a letter to Boliek, Stein’s chief of staff, Seth Dearmin, said the topline figure overcounted the total impact of long-term vacancies by hundreds of millions of dollars by improperly including unfunded and federally funded positions in the count.
Boliek defended his findings on Thursday, saying that the $1.04 billion topline was not misleading and “gives a true picture of the type of economies of scale that occur when you have a recurring lapsed salary issue across state government.”
“… If agencies have difficulty filling open full-time positions, how realistic is it to believe that they will be able to quickly — on a dime — fill placeholder positions?” he said.
Endangered Species
There's no doubt the Endangered Species Act has helped some keynote species in North Carolina, ranging from the American alligator and bald eagle to the loggerhead sea turtle and red-cockaded woodpecker, rebound from near extinction. But there's also no question that the federal legislation, which offers extra protections for plant and animal species teetering on the edge, has been less than successful in helping other species recover from the brink. That's spawned frustration from businesses and landowners that the law does little more than create additional bureaucratic red tape, limits development opportunities, and drives up costs.
Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has zeroed in on the law as legislation that does little more than inhibit development and economic opportunities. As with other key federal environmental rules and protections aimed at protecting wetlands and limiting air pollution, the administration has moved to dilute the breadth and scope of the act, including making it harder to have new flora and fauna added to the list of endangered or threatened species.
Some officials and business leaders also think the act, while good-intentioned, has gone too far in the real world, adding years of delays and costs to projects because of concerns they could impact a listed species. Whether its rare freshwater mussels forcing the N.C. Department of Transportation to rethink highway and bridge projects to beach nourishment and fishing season getting curtailed due to impacts on endangered sea turtles and shorebirds, the ESA is a powerful tool that can mold, change and even hinder projects and development.
Researchers and environmentalists say, at the least, it helps buy species time − like the highly endangered red wolf that's only found in the wild in northeastern N.C. "I think it's been very effective for a lot of species in North Carolina that it has protected and continues to protect," said Dr. Sarah McGrath-Blaser, assistant director of conservation and science at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences.
More than 2,000 species have been added to the ESA in the past 50 years. They range from the giant North Atlantic right whales, of which fewer than 380 remain, found off the N.C. coast to the highly endangered spruce-fir moss spider found in the mountains of Western N.C.
But only around 50 species have recovered enough since the 1970s to be delisted. A 2022 paper published in the research journal PLOS ONE blamed the low recovery rate on several factors, including a lack of funding for recovery efforts and the general pattern of not moving to protect a species until its numbers have shrunk to dangerously low levels, putting it behind the proverbial eight ball even before conservation efforts can start.
In November 2025, the government announced plans to adopt new rules that "remove regulatory barriers" that were strengthened during the Biden administration. “This administration is restoring the Endangered Species Act to its original intent, protecting species through clear, consistent and lawful standards that also respect the livelihoods of Americans who depend on our land and resources,” said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum in a release.
Funding cuts and the slashing of the federal workforce also means there are fewer people to work on act-related projects, including reviewing new species for possible listing and monitoring and implementing recovery programs.
As conservationists have watched in alarm as environmental rules get watered down, McGrath-Blaser said the protections offered by the Endangered Species Act are vital for species already pressured by factors ranging from fragmented habitats to climate change. Protecting critical habitat is especially important, she said, comparing it to the classic Jenga block-stacking game. If you keep losing habitat piece by piece, eventually the whole ecosystem comes crashing down. “We know that habitat is the best predictor of species survival," McGrath-Blaser said. "Protecting the critical habitat protects the species."
Recovery Funds
North Carolinians are set to see a large release of federal assistance meant to help those still recovering from Tropical Storm Helene. The state will get $72 million in FEMA Public Assistance and $44.6 million in Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding, according to a Jan. 14 news release from U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards’ office.
Public assistance funds will go towards repairing and replacing public infrastructure including roads, water and sewer systems, schools and public safety facilities, the release said. “These funds allow communities to restore essential services, reopen public facilities, and accelerate recovery efforts without diverting limited local resources,” the release said.
“FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program is designed to help local governments rebuild in a way that’s resilient against potential future natural disasters, according to DHS’ website.
The release of this money has been much anticipated.
“My team and I are asking FEMA, 'What's the hold up?'" Gov. Josh Stein said during an Oct. 13 Governor's Advisory Committee on WNC Recovery meeting, the Citizen Times previously reported.
“While this is another promising step in the right direction, there are still families awaiting buyouts for their damaged and destroyed properties. As I have with the public assistance program, I pledge that I will continue to work closely with all federal, state, and local leaders to continue to identify projects that qualify for federal reimbursement,” U.S. Sen. Ted Budd said in a Jan. 14 news release.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation will receive $34.7 million for repairs to 300 road and bridge sites in Alleghany, Avery, Buncombe, Caldwell, Henderson, Mitchell, Surry and Watauga counties, The Department of Homeland Security said in a Jan. 14 news release.
Another $17.6 million will go to Rutherford County for removal of 700,000 cubic yards of debris and 70,000 trees and limbs from rights-of-way as well as running four debris processing sites, it said.
Asheville will receive $10.5 million for potable water distribution, repair for more than 100 fleet vehicles and repairs to roads and the DeBruhl Water Treatment Plant, it said. The Town of Beech Mountain will receive $3.7 million for sewer and wastewater plant repairs, it said. Buncombe County will get another $14.2 million and Henderson County $9.2 million for acquiring flood-prone properties, according to the DHS release.
Beaufort County will get $2.5 million to elevate homes prone to flooding. The city of Asheville had applied for more than $400 million in Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding as of November, the Citizen Times previously reported.
“I’ve been on the ground in these communities, and it’s encouraging to see businesses reopening and folks moving forward — with continued support like this, we can do even more,” U.S. Rep. Tim Moore said in a Jan. 14 news release.
I-40 Rebuilding
Rebuilding Interstate 40 through North Carolina’s section of the Pigeon River Gorge is going to cost a lot more than previously thought. The N.C. Department of Transportation now expects that restoring about five miles of the eastbound lanes of the highway near the Tennessee state line will cost about $2 billion.
That’s about $900 million more than NCDOT estimated last June. That increase, along with fluctuating costs for other recovery projects, puts the current estimate for rebuilding roads and bridges in Western North Carolina at nearly $5.8 billion, up from about $5 billion a few months ago. By either number, Helene is by far the costliest storm NCDOT has ever faced.
Several factors contributed to the growing cost of the Pigeon River Gorge project. Most come down to having engineers being able to study the terrain and develop a plan for building back the highway foundation that the flooded river washed away, said Chris Peoples, NCDOT’s chief operating officer.
NCDOT and its contractors have changed the expected costs of all the big Helene repair projects in recent months, as they get better information. In several cases, the numbers have gotten smaller. For example, NCDOT now expects to spend $266 million rebuilding 18 miles of roadway and seven bridges along the Toe and Nolichucky rivers north of Burnsville; that’s $114 million less than earlier estimates.
The upshot is that while the I-40 repairs increased $900 million, NCDOT’s overall estimated cost of Helene reconstruction rose $804 million. Those numbers will likely change again, said Mark Newsome, the department’s chief financial officer. “I feel more confident every month that we go,” Newsome told the board. “But I think we may have some additional changes.”