RALEIGH — Another bill to address Hurricane Helene recovery efforts was filed in the House on April 9.
House Bill 863 would allocate more than $582 million for relief efforts. Primary sponsors of the bill are all Democrats from Buncombe County: Reps. Lindsey Prather, Eric Ager and Brian Turner.
No Republicans were listed as sponsors when the bill was filed, including House Select Committee on Helene Recovery co-chaired by Rep. John Bell (R-Wayne). All three of the bill’s primary sponsors sit on that committee.
Bell, who also chairs the powerful House Rules Committee, told North State Journal the bill “was out of the blue” and its sponsors had “not mentioned anything to me” about it.
“This bill represents the pressing needs that Western North Carolina still faces that we’ve been pushing for in Raleigh since October,” Prather said in response to North State Journal’s request for comment. “We hope and expect to see some of these priorities included in the next disaster relief bill that gets passed by the legislature.”
The legislation covers funding across multiple state agencies for various recovery efforts, including business grants, housing assistance, environmental restoration, education support and infrastructure rebuilding.
The bill would create two grant programs: the Hurricane Helene Business Recovery Grant Program administered by the Department of Revenue, and the Expanded Dogwood Health Trust Partnership Grant Program managed by Appalachian Community Capital Corporation in partnership with the Dogwood Health Trust.
Both programs would be geared toward helping businesses that suffered economic or physical losses from Hurricane Helene.
The Department of Commerce would receive $100 million for the grants, which would be capped at $75,000 per business. The funds appropriated for the grants would have to be used by June 30, 2027, at which time the funds would revert to the Savings Reserve.
Other spending items by agency include:
- Department of Commerce: $7 million to Rural Economic Development Division for the Creating Outdoor Recreation Economies Program.
- Housing Finance Agency ($105 million): $50 million for affordable housing grants to local governments (up to $1 million per government), $25 million for homeowner and renter unmet needs, including minor repairs, $20 million for mortgage and utility assistance and $10 million for housing stabilization and assistance for homeless populations.
- Department of State Treasurer: $100 million for grants to local governments for revenue replacement.
- Department of Natural and Cultural Resources ($50 million): $25 million each for Parks and Recreation Trust Fund for state parks restoration and Land and Water Fund for flood abatement and water quality.
- Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services ($127.42 million): $75 million for streambank stabilization and stream restoration, $20 million for food banks (including $10 million to buy food from local farms), more than $16 million for Forest Service fire season preparation, $12.5 million for working farms and forest preservation, $3.35 million for NC Forest Service wildfire risk reduction, and half a million for stormwater control in the French Broad River watershed.
- Department of Public Instruction ($39.2 million): $14 million for community college small business centers ($1 million per college), $25.2 million for K-12 Summer Learning Programs.
- Office of State Budget and Management ($26 million): $20 million for state agencies’ continuing operations and staffing, and $3 million each to Legal Aid of NC and Pisgah Legal Services for disaster legal aid and for independent colleges and universities in the affected area.
- Department of Public Safety/Division of Emergency Management ( $11.6 million): $10 million for resilience and backup power, including mobile solar arrays, and more than $1.6 million to strengthen disaster financial and communications teams.
- Department of Environmental Quality ($16 million): $10 million for engineering and design work for dam removal, $4 million for septic repair and replacement grants, and $2 million for recycling infrastructure and business grants for cleanup.
