Recently, the North Carolina Council of State approved a purchase of $700 million in Build NC Bonds that will allocate funds to the N.C. Department of Transportation for immediate road repair and construction needs across the state. Authorized through House Bill 77, a pro-business bill that passed with the NC Chamber’s support during the 2020 session, the bonds will primarily be used to pay for projects that have regional impacts and will be repaid through the state’s Highway Trust Fund. State Treasurer Dale Folwell and the State and Local Governance Finance Division (SLGFD) announced that the bonds are expected to be issued by the end of October.

Approval of the bond sale – which comes at a time when interest rates are at historic lows – is welcome news for North Carolina’s job creators, who depend on a well-funded transportation network to operate efficiently. However, the business community must continue to focus on providing long-term solutions to our funding challenges if we hope to secure a truly modernized revenue formula that can strengthen our ability to proactively invest in the future of our network.

To that end, the NC Chamber is leading a fast-growing alliance of businesses and growth-minded organizations, the Destination 2030 Coalition, in a series of conversations to help us determine the transportation solutions we will support on the business community’s behalf in 2021. The purpose of this coalition is to give job creators a forum to share ideas for improving transportation funding in North Carolina and a collective voice to help move those ideas forward. Participation from companies like yours will be vital to our success – click here to join the Destination 2030 Coalition today and add your organization’s voice to this important effort.