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North Carolina’s Office of State Budget and Management has released a report on how it proposes to spend $90 million of a repairs and renovations fund approved by the General Assembly this summer. The report, released on Monday, details many of the 191 proposed projects, including a dozen major ones in Western North Carolina.
Those include building repairs in the DuPont State Forest, elevator and boiler plant upgrades at the Black Mountain Neuro-Medical Treatment Center, a new septic system at the Governor’s Western Residence in Asheville, and fire-safety renovations at the N.C. Center for the Advancement of Teaching in Cullowhee, among other WNC-based projects.
The budget office’s full report, which identifies both specific local projects and more general statewide ones, can be read below. And this interactive map, prepared by Carolina Public Press with data from the report, shows the major projects identified for WNC:
Click on the icons to see details of proposed repair projects; click here to see a larger version of the map.
In a letter to legislators sent with the report on Sept. 30, State Budget Director Art Pope reported that he and other officials had reviewed 545 project proposals from state agencies seeking to tap the fund to repair ailing facilities and infrastructure. The cost of funding all of the requests, Pope wrote, would have totaled more than half-a-billion dollars.
The General Assembly’s recent repairs-funding legislation dictated that, of a total $150 million appropriation, 60 percent of the expenditures (or $90 million) be selected by the Office of State Budget and Management. The remaining 40 percent (or $60 million) will be selected by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors. That board’s proposal for its share of the funds had not been finalized.
The OSBM’s proposals for the $90 million will be reviewed by the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations, according to an N.C. Department of Administration press release announcing the report.
“Depending on when that occurs, it is possible that many of these projects will be available for bids and have a contract in place before Christmas,” the release said.
Read the full budget office proposal below, with specific WNC-related information highlighted.
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