Ferry Tolls
Just a few paragraphs in the state's massive, 634-page 2026 budget bill are causing plenty of waves at the N.C. coast. The language involves a requirement that the N.C. Department of Transportation place tolls on all ferry routes by Jan. 1, 2027, to generate revenue to pay for new vessels and fund systemwide upgrades. But the provision is causing an uproar in communities where ferries are seen as little more than maritime highways, and thus should be seen as playing the same role for local residents and the coastal economy as traditional asphalt roads and bridges do in the rest of the state.
The situation is so emotionally charged that two Republican state senators that represent the Outer Banks filed protest votes against the budget bill. The votes by Sens. Bobby Hanig and Norman Sanderson were the first time since 2013 that a GOP senator had voted against the state budget bill.
The state's busiest ferry by far is the Hatteras-Ocracoke route on the Outer Banks, which typically carries nearly 1 million passengers and 350,000 vehicles a year − mostly tourists during the summer − and is currently a free ride. The second busiest route is Fort Fisher-Southport, which carries roughly 500,000 passengers and 185,000 vehicles a year. It is a toll route.
Critics say it's unfair to ask all North Carolinians to subsidize ferry operations that are only used by a fraction of state residents and in many cases focused on serving tourists. A N.C. State study done in the late 2000s found passenger revenue only covered about 6% of the Ferry Division's costs − a much smaller amount than other state-run ferry systems in the country. They also note that it seems unfair to other state residents that while three ferry routes already have tolls on them, including Fort Fisher-Southport, four do not.
Ferry Division spokesperson Tim Hass said the agency did not take a position on expanding tolling to currently un-tolled ferry routes.
Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, signed the budget bill on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. That means the DOT has to come up with a toll schedule, including how much the toll on each ferry for each type of vehicle will be, by January 2027. But the budget does include a provision setting a commuter pass for residents who reside in a "coastal area" at $150 annually.
According to the budget document, the toll amounts "will be set and adjusted in a manner that funds the costs of passenger vessel replacement, in accordance with a specified replacement schedule developed by the Ferry Division." Hass said it was yet to be determined if toll revenue would impact the makeup of the division's future ferry fleet.
Wildlife Crossings
North Carolina’s new state budget includes a recurring $10.2 million for wildlife crossings and habitat connectivity, paving the way for animal-friendly overpasses and underpasses, particularly in the state’s western mountains. The move caps a decade-long campaign by a coalition to win support for wildlife crossings, making North Carolina a national leader in road ecology and public safety, said Ben Prater, Southeast Program Director at Defenders of Wildlife. “This is a big deal, and it sends a really strong signal that it’s possible,” Prater said. “North Carolina is leading by example through this historic $10.2 million investment to reduce the impacts of roads on iconic and imperiled wildlife alike — from the black bear to the endangered red wolf.” The investment follows a $25 million federal grant to build fencing and wildlife underpasses on U.S. 64 in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge to protect the critically endangered red wolf and other animals. With $10.2 million now recurring in the state budget every two years, North Carolina will have money to match other federal grants. Nationally, wildlife-vehicle collisions cost $8 billion a year and kill hundreds of people. In North Carolina, these incidents disrupt commerce and supply chains and endanger motorists, says Jeff Hunter, the National Park Conservation Association’s Southern Appalachian Director. “One of the things the DOT is always concerned about is if they have to close a road for a while, if traffic slows, that costs a lot of money,” Hunter said. “It’s more than wildlife; it’s more than driver safety. Our economies are so tied to this interstate transportation system, and when it doesn’t run efficiently, everyone pays.”
With the budget finished, the legislature still has work to do
When North Carolina lawmakers headed home for the Fourth of July weekend, they left a lot of unfinished business on the table — a result of long-delayed budget discussions that dragged out until the final days of voting before this month’s recess. Set to return on July 27, the General Assembly could continue debate on several key issues that legislative leaders have said they want to take action on. Among them are election law changes, hemp regulations, veto overrides and constitutional amendments to limit the governor’s powers.
The Senate must decide whether to proceed with House Bill 958, which would significantly expand election auditing and ballot challenge mechanisms among other reforms. The proposal garnered controversy in the House, including protests on committee room floors from voters who say it risks sowing further doubt in the election process and endangers legitimate ballots.
State Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, declined to commit to passing the House election bill when asked by members of the media. But he reiterated that his policy priority is shortening the early voting period for primary elections, a change that does not currently appear in the House bill.
House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, said budget talks delayed the process for passing an elections bill.
“As always, we’re talking to our Senate counterparts about ideas they have for an elections bill, and so we, especially on something like that, try to at least have a general understanding,” Hall said ahead of the House passage of the bill last month. “Part of the delay has been, I’m sort of taken up with the budget every second that I’m not in here, and so it makes it difficult for me to also work on the elections bill.”
In one of their last acts before departing earlier this month, Senate Republicans passed House Bill 328, a bill that would ban almost all cannabis-derived consumables on the market in North Carolina. Berger said “doing nothing was not an option” after a surge in youth health complications related to hemp.
The House will need to weigh whether they are willing to agree to the Senate’s version of the bill. Previously, House Republicans were contemplating a bill that would have raised the age limit on these consumables to 21, but otherwise allowed them to remain on the market.
Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch, D-Wake, who voted for the bill despite reservations over the hemp restrictions’ impact on North Carolina business owners, said she is glad there will be more time for House lawmakers to make changes to it — hopefully giving Democrats the chance to have input on the final version of the bill, she told reporters on the last day of session.
“What I hope that we can do is move forward,” Batch said. “Sit down, give them our ideas, see if they can incorporate it in a conference report that addresses a lot of North Carolina farmers who are growing hemp so that they don’t go bankrupt.”
The House still has an outstanding veto override for Senate Bill 50, a measure to enact a “freedom to carry” law allowing concealed carry without a permit across the state. But that veto may not come to a vote, as several Republicans either voted against it or chose to miss the vote when the House passed it earlier this year.
Legislative leaders may also seek to override Stein’s Wednesday veto of a bill banning “unauthorized camping” House Bill 437, a major anti-homeless initiative by Republican lawmakers — which received supermajority support in the House, with five Democrats and two unaffiliated representatives voting in favor.
Four others remain up in the air. Senate Bill 1082, a constitutional amendment enshrining the “right to work” regardless of union membership, has been approved by the Senate but has not yet passed the House. Senate Bill 1081, which does the same for the right to farm or engage in forestry, has yet to pass either chamber.
Berger said the Senate is likely to vote on House Bill 443, an amendment that would require the governor to fill vacancies on the Council of State with a member of the same party as the departing official. That amendment passed the House in May.
But the fate of House Bill 144, which would allow voters to choose State Board of Education members instead of the governor, is less clear. “Nothing’s dead as long as we’re still hanging around,” Berger said of that amendment. “I think it probably needs a transfusion or something, but I don’t think it’s dead.”
I-77 Tolls
Charlotte’s new leader says “time is of the essence” to figure out how to handle a law that requires municipalities that voted down adding toll lanes to Interstate 77 to pay millions. But Mayor Robert Harrington was noncommittal on Charlotte’s next steps and whether the city will change its position on the controversial project.
North Carolina’s new budget includes a provision to make the communities who killed adding toll lanes from uptown to the South Carolina state line reimburse the state Department of Transportation for $60 million already spent on the project or lose access to other transportation money.
Gov. Josh Stein signed the budget into law Tuesday despite saying it “makes real the General Assembly’s wrong-headed threats of retribution against Charlotte.”
The provision says the members of the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization who voted in May to rescind support for the toll lane project have 90 days to reverse their position to avoid paying up. It calls for local governments to divide the cost based on the value of their weighted CRTPO votes.
Representatives of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, Davidson, Monroe, Cornelius, Matthews, Mint Hill, Huntersville and the Metropolitan Transit Commission voted against the toll lanes. Monroe later reversed its position, and the MTC was dissolved July 1 to be replaced by the new Metropolitan Public Transportation Authority.
In an interview with The Charlotte Observer on Thursday, Harrington said he’s “still working through the bill” with staff including the city manager and city attorney to “to make sure we understand all that’s in there.”
“Time is of the essence in working through it and making sure the community voices are heard, and that’s my priority,” said Harrington, an attorney by trade who took office last week following the resignation of longtime Mayor Vi Lyles.
Charlotte has the biggest weighted vote on the CRTPO, so the city stands to pay the most if it holds its position or has the potential to change the course of the project if it changes its mind again. Asked if the city will go back to supporting the toll lanes, Harrington reiterated Charlotte needs to “make sure we understand all of the things” in the budget provision “before we charge off.”
CNBC Survey
North Carolina ranks second among the best states for business, cable news channel CNBC said today in its annual survey. Ohio came out on top. It’s an impressive ranking, but a dip from last year, when North Carolina was rated first for the third time in five years. Economic development leaders constantly tout the CNBC report in their advocacy for North Carolina. Virginia, Texas and Minnesota rounded out the top five. Tennessee is ninth, while South Carolina is 23rd. Hawaii, Alaska, Rhode Island, Louisiana and West Virginia were the bottom five. The study measures the 50 states on 138 metrics across 10 categories of competitiveness. North Carolina’s position was affected by its relatively high costs, which were rated 35th among U.S. states. For many years, the state had benefited from lower operating costs compared with many other locales. The survey also concluded that North Carolina was 34th in quality of life, which includes many factors such as income inequality, air and water quality and freedom of expression. On the plus side, the state ranked in the top 10 for economy, workforce, education, access to capital, business friendliness and technology and innovation.
Business Office
North Carolina’s new state budget abolishes one office that supported minority-owned businesses and folds another focused on health disparities into a broader public health division. The budget also repeals several state laws intended to increase opportunities for businesses owned by members of minority groups to win government contracts. The budget abolishes the Office for Historically Underutilized Businesses, which connected businesses with state contracting opportunities. Businesses were eligible if they were owned by people who are Black, Hispanic, Asian American, American Indian, female, socially or economically disadvantaged, or disabled.
It also eliminates the standalone Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities by transferring its duties to DHHS’ Division of Public Health. The HUB Office was part of the Department of Administration, while the Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities was within DHHS.
Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, signed the bill passed by the Republican-controlled legislature. He told reporters during a budget signing ceremony Tuesday that the budget includes “programs that they have eliminated that have people doing that work, and those folks will lose their jobs.”
“Obviously, I care about those people, but I care more about the work they do,” Stein said Tuesday. “Our Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities — it is a fact that people of different races experience different health outcomes, and what we should be doing is doing everything we can to improve the health of all our people, and if you were blind to the fact that different health concerns impact different populations differently, you are going to miss out on opportunities to improve people’s quality of life. It’s just, it’s just wrong. There’s no other way to speak it.”
The News & Observer reached out Tuesday to the offices of Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Destin Hall for comment on the closures. They did not respond.
Republicans, who control the General Assembly, have sought to eliminate programs and initiatives that consider race, sex and other characteristics in government and education.
In late June, Republicans in the state House, joined by one Democrat and one former Democrat who is now unaffiliated, voted to override several of Stein’s vetoes of bills targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Broadly, the bills prohibit DEI initiatives in schools and state government. All but one of the DEI bills had already been overridden by the Senate, allowing those measures to become law.
The budget also cuts several provisions in state law related to minority business recruitment. That includes a law that said that when the state — or a local government using state money on a project costing $100,000 or more — undertakes a government construction project, it should aim for at least 10% of the project’s dollar value to go to minority-owned businesses. It defined minority-owned businesses as those owned by people who are Black, Hispanic, Asian American, American Indian or women.
The budget also bans state and local governments from setting their own minority- or women-owned business participation goals for certain types of contracts.
Department of Administration Secretary Gabriel Esparza said in a written statement shared by the department that, “We are deeply disappointed by the elimination of the HUB Office and the support it has provided to North Carolina businesses.”
“For more than 25 years, the HUB program has been instrumental in increasing the number and types of businesses competing for government contracts across North Carolina. This cut means 10 current employees will lose their jobs, and we are working to help them find other opportunities."
The budget eliminates the standalone Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities by transferring all of its authority, functions, powers and duties to DHHS’ Division of Public Health. The budget refers to the office as the Office of Health Equity, which DHHS said is the same office as the Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities. It says all of the office’s authority, functions, powers and duties are transferred to and consolidated within the Division of Public Health.
DHHS spokesperson Hannah Jones said in an email on behalf of the department that DHHS will work to implement the legislation “in a timely manner.”
Construction Acquisition
France’s Bouygues Construction acquired Vannoy Construction, one of North Carolina’s largest general contractors and private companies. Terms weren’t disclosed. Paris-based Bouygues says Vannoy reported revenue of 873 euros last year, ($996 million), while the French firm had turnover of about 10.6 billion euros ($12.1 billion). It cited Vannoy’s strong presence in the healthcare, education, manufacturing and retail industries, and noted it has a solid order backlog. The French company has had projects in Florida, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., and now will add the fast-growing Southeast. Vannoy Construction was founded by Jim and Wilma Vannoy in 1952 in Jefferson, North Carolina, and now operates from seven locations across North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. The company works with public and private clients on high-value projects.