News

N.C. General Assembly prepares for final debate on $20 million rural infrastructure bill
The state House is set to vote next week on a Senate-backed plan to boost economic development in rural counties with a $20 million grants and loan program to generate business growth and construct and repair ailing water and sewer systems. The Rural Center would administer the plan, which would provide $10 million for water and sewer grants that are directly related to job growth and another $10 million for business development loans and grants. Rural Center President Billy Ray Hall said the still-depressed rural economy prompted Senate leaders to take a serious look at the proposal, which is expected to generate at least 130 new and expanding small businesses and create 1,500 new jobs. The legislation already included a $20 million emergency appropriation for Gov. Easley’s One North Carolina Fund to aid in industrial recruitment and encourage existing plant expansions and $4.1 million in new and emerging industry programs at community colleges. Senate lawmakers led by Sen. Walter Dalton approved their version of the bill, which goes back before the House next week for a final debate. The House’s original version of the bill did not contain the rural infrastructure funding.

Telecenter expansion effort gets closer look with House bill
North Carolina’s business and technology centers have had such an impact bridging the technology gap and boosting business development in the state’s most rural areas that lawmakers are considering a $2 million expansion of the program. Edgecombe County Rep. Joe Tolson and Rutherford County Sen. Walter Dalton are urging the General Assembly to invest $2 million to create four additional so-called ‘telecenters.’ House Bill 1664 also asks that the e-NC Authority update lawmakers on technology needs in distressed urban areas of the state. The bill awaits a hearing in the House Appropriations Committee. The centers, currently located in Alleghany, Cherokee, Duplin, and Martin counties support entrepreneurial, education and job training efforts. The authority is working with community partners around the state to create an additional six telecenters, tentatively planned to serve all or part of the following counties: Columbus and Brunswick; Hertford, Northampton, Gates, Warren, and Halifax; Union and Anson; Transylvania, Rutherford, Polk and Henderson; Madison, Yancey and Mitchell; and Rockingham, Caswell and Person.

Concern over small business health insurance prompts lawmakers to establish 24-member commission
State lawmakers last week established the Health Insurance Innovations Commission, a 24-member panel that will address spiraling health insurance premiums affecting more than 92,000 small businesses across the state. The issue was the focus of a Rural Center report released last month. The center’s research found that double-digit premium hikes are leaving some employers with few options other than to scale back benefits or stop offering them altogether - a bitter choice for employers who say their ability to attract quality employees and grow their businesses often depends on offering health insurance as an employment benefit. Gov. Easley is expected to sign legislation authorizing the commission to study the issue and find workable solutions. The center’s report is available in PDF form by clicking here. To receive a printed copy, call Kelly Griffin, production manager, at (910) 250-4314. To read the enacting legislation for House Bill 1463, click here.

State senator proposes housing legislation to help build personal wealth through homeownership
Haywood County Sen. Joe Sam Queen has introduced legislation in the short session to boost home ownership in the state with a comprehensive $16 million plan to increase public awareness, provide consumer credit counseling, and create regional housing coalitions. Under the terms of Senate Bill 1097, the Rural Center and the state Housing Finance Agency would lead the statewide effort through the Equity Plus Home Ownership Program. The Rural Center would receive $9 million in funding to educate North Carolinians on the importance of building personal wealth through equity-building homes, or homes that appreciate in value over time, while putting initiatives in place to help would-be homeowners improve their credit, save money, and qualify for home loans. The N.C. Housing Finance Agency would receive $7 million enabling the agency to make mortgage loans and provide other assistance. Overall this effort is designed to put 6,000 families in equity building homes. The bill awaits a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Reports and Research

FCC report finds majority of homes in U.S. have high-speed access
In a semiannual report on high-speed connectivity, the FCC released figures last week showing a remarkable 42 percent increase in the number of high-speed Internet lines in the U.S. in just one year. The report finds 28.2 million homes and businesses now have high-speed service, with cable modems accounting for 58 percent of those subscriptions and DSL 34 percent. The report found that only 7 percent of zip codes in the nation do not have access to broadband services. To access the full report, click here.

MDC report examines public education 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education
MDC’s newest report, State of the South 2004: Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education, examines public education in the South a half-century after the landmark case. The report finds that an equitable public education is still elusive for many school-age children in the South, that Southern schools are rapidly resegregating, and that these problems along with radical economic and demographic shifts threaten the region's well-being. State of the South 2004: Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education discusses four crucial trends facing the South: the region's continued prosperity, requiring more people with higher skills and education beyond high school; the region's booming Latino and African American population; low-income and minority youth attending isolated, resource-poor schools; and Southern high schools failing to engage and inspire many students, regardless of income and race. To read the full report, click here.

MCNC recruits supercomputer expert, initiates new computer institute in plan to boost statewide economic development with grid computing
North Carolina’s $8 million effort to use grid computing to link industry and academic research to jump start the state’s faltering economy is featured in the current issue of Information Week. The grid computing project is being led by MCNC, a nonprofit created to boost technology-based economic development efforts. The article quotes Dan Reed, former director of the National Center for Supercomputer Applications at the University of Illinois, who MCNC recruited to North Carolina to start the Renaissance Computing Institute. The UNC-Chapel Hill-based institute will work to help the state’s manufacturing and biotech industries overcome challenges and maximize opportunities for high-tech innovations. "The place North Carolina is trying to go is transforming its traditional economic base--textiles, furniture making, and tobacco--to an economic base for the 21st century," Reed said in the article. To read the full article, click here.

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Meetings and Events

Center to hold annual Rural Partners Forum Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2004 in Raleigh
The Rural Center will hold its annual Rural Partners Forum Sept. 30 through Oct. 1 at the North Raleigh Hilton. The theme for this year’s forum will be "A New Day Dawning for North Carolina's Rural Workers, Small Businesses and Family Farms." Participants will hear from top state and national speakers, who will share their ideas for creating home grown jobs in the changing rural economy, and will participate in workshops focusing on promising community solutions. The center will also be releasing new reports and reference guides on small business and agriculture. Plenary discussions include: creating home-grown jobs in the global marketplace; embracing entrepreneurship as a rural economic strategy; and redefining North Carolina agriculture for the 21st Century. The cost for the two-day event is $125, which includes meals. To register online, click here. For questions, call Kelly Griffin at (919)250-4314.

Enterprise Foundation to hold annual network conference in New York Oct. 13-15, 2004
The Enterprise Foundation's 2004 Annual Network Conference will be held October 13 - 15, 2004 at the Marriott Marquis in New York City. The conference will look toward strengthening the business and government partnerships necessary for the community development industry to build healthy communities nationwide. To do even more for low-income families, the community development industry must strengthen its relationship with existing partners and broaden its reach beyond the usual ones. Participants will hear inspiring stories of community development, and learn how to highlight such stories in their own community to garner support. The Enterprise Foundation's mission is to rebuild distressed neighborhoods and help people with low incomes move up and out of poverty into the mainstream of American life. To learn more or to register online, visit the website at www.enterprisefoundation.org.

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At the Rural Center

Center’s NOW program broadens eligibility requirements
The Rural Center’s New Opportunities for Workers program, which helps laid-off workers interested in starting their own business with entrepreneurial training and small business loans, has broadened eligibility requirements. Originally, the NOW program was targeted to laid-off manufacturing workers in a 28-county area with the highest rate of lay-offs and unemployment, but the center recently expanded those requirements to include any unemployed person with an interest in starting a business. Participants of the NOW program receive training at one of 13 community colleges and, if they quality, a business loan from the center’s Microenterprise Loan Program. The program serves the following 28-county area: Alexander, Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Catawba, Cherokee, Clay, Cleveland, Edgecombe, Franklin, Graham, Granville, Greene, Halifax, Jones, Lenoir, Mitchell, Northampton, Polk, Richmond, Robeson, Rutherford, Scotland, Transylvania, Vance, Warren, Wilkes, and Yancey. To find out more about the program, contact Leslie Scott, director, Institute for Rural Entrepreneurship, (919) 250-4314.

Funding Sources

Kellogg Foundation announces major rural entrepreneurship grant program The W.K. Kellogg Foundation will award up to $8 million in grants to foster entrepreneurship across rural America. Four grants of up to $2 million each will be awarded to four rural regional entrepreneurship development systems. Each will promote entrepreneurial activity in their region, produce entrepreneurial models for other communities, leverage significant investment, and stimulate national and state interest in rural entrepreneurship policies and strategies. The Kellogg Foundation has contracted with the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) to assist it in identifying states and regions in rural America that demonstrate the capability of creating effective Entrepreneurial Development Systems. The foundation is seeking applicants that will form a collaborative of groups (may be private, governmental, and nonprofit) to provide a full range of entrepreneurship development services for their region-be it a community, county, group of counties, reservation or state. The application deadline is August 13, 2004. Final awards will be announced in March 2005. For more information, visit the Kellogg Foundation's website at www.wkkf.org/ruralentrepreneurs.

From the N.C. Press

Raleigh News & Observer: Aid for poor schools sought
Hoke County and other school systems struggling with low achievement and high teacher turnover would get extra help under a plan that education leaders have outlined to a judge who ordered improvements. The plan calls for North Carolina to spend as much as $25 million next school year on efforts to strengthen classroom instruction in as many as 15 school systems, including Hoke, the focus of a 10-year court battle. "We truly expect that these strategies will assure that Hoke County and similar districts help every student to learn, to achieve," said state Superintendent Mike Ward and Howard Lee, chairman of the State Board of Education, in a letter this week to Wake Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. But finding the money could be a problem. The House has already signed off on a budget that excluded spending on new efforts. And the Senate is under pressure to restore nearly $30 million that local school systems must cut under the House budget. Manning said in a letter two weeks ago that he expects a "substantial effort" and the "required resources" before next school year in Hoke and other counties with pressing educational needs. In a 22-page reply this week from Ward and Lee, the education leaders provided details of a number of proposals. Among them: $3.14 million for incentive pay to attract and retain qualified teachers in hard-to-staff schools and $22 million to improve instruction for disadvantaged students; Ward said that although Hoke would be first in line for the additional state effort, he wants the full $22 million included in next year's budget for the school improvements, as well as the incentive pay for teachers. Legislative leaders said the money will be hard to find.

Freedom Newspapers: Global Transpark funding in question
A House subcommittee has recommended that state funding for the Global TransPark in Kinston cease at the end of this month. But at the same time the co-chairmen of the House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee were talking about eliminating funding for the park, they were also expressing a belief that when House and Senate leaders negotiate a final budget compromise, money for the airpark would be restored. Darlene Waddell, executive director of the Global TransPark, said Thursday's action was merely a "minor setback" and that it would have little impact on the park's operations. Sen. Charlie Albertson, D-Duplin, said that he was disappointed in the subcommittee's action. "I sincerely believe that the TransPark will be successful," Albertson said. He said that the attention the TransPark received during last year's effort to lure Boeing focused a lot of national attention on the area. Albertson said that he would work to restore the $1.6 million requested by Gov. Mike Easley when the budget is taken up in the Senate. Rep. Stephen LaRoque, R-Lenoir, meanwhile, plans to push for a change in the management of the park when the full House Appropriations Committee takes up the budget today. "My goal now is to get the management of it transferred over to the Commerce Department," LaRoque said. Such a move would get professional economic developers working to bring industry to the park, he said. Ernie Seneca, a spokesman for Easley, said the governor has not seen LaRoque's proposal and therefore would not comment on it. Commerce Secretary Jim Fain said his department does not back LaRoque's proposal. Fain said the department would also seek to restore the $1.6 million in state money.

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Copyright by N.C. Rural Economic Development Center, Inc. 2002. We encourage you to share this UPDATE with interested individuals, organizations, or agencies. Material may be reproduced in electronic or print form. We ask that you please cite the Rural Center as the source.

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The mission of the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center is to develop, promote, and implement sound economic strategies that improve the quality of life of rural North Carolinians, with a special focus on individuals with low to moderate incomes and communities with limited resources.

N.C. Rural Economic Development Center
Michelle Taylor, UPDATE editor
Kelly Tucker Griffin, UPDATE production manager
Elaine Matthews, vice president for communications and development
4021 Carya Drive, Raleigh, NC 27610
(919) 250-4314 Fax: (919) 250-4325
www.ncruralcenter.org