“Game Changer”: Proposed State Budget Includes $33 Million for City, Town and County Utilities

The legislative budget, which will likely become law next week, also includes money for teachers, the Ecusta Trail, the Transylvania County Landfill and Blue Ridge Community College.

January photo of a Brevard Public Works employee at the city’s aging wastewater treatment plant. A $13 million earmark included in the state’s proposed budget will allow the city to start work on a badly needed revamping of the plant, which was built in 1987.

BREVARD  — Two years ago, Transylvania County Commissioners were in the mood to celebrate after learning the county was in line to receive millions of dollars for utilities expansion.

Remembering that, Rosman Mayor Brian Shelton said that two $10 million infrastructure earmarks in the new proposed state budget — one each for his town and the county — should be even bigger news.

“Twenty million (dollars) would be a game changer,” he said. “That totally changes everything for the county for the next 100 years. I mean, you don’t receive that kind of money often . . . I’m super-excited.”

And those two appropriations amount to less than half the total value of state funds heading to the county.

Other earmarks include $7 million dollars for a new cell at the Transylvania County Landfill, $13 million to begin dramatic upgrades at Brevard’s aging wastewater treatment plant and $100,000 to the city for the Transylvania portion of the multi-use Ecusta Trail.

Another $2.3 million “directed grant” was set aside for capital improvements at Blue Ridge Community College, said state Rep. Mike Clampitt, R-Swain, who helped secure all the funding for the county.

Money from a larger funding pool will result in a $2,449 salary supplement for teachers at Transylvania County Schools. Finally, the county will share $2 million with three other counties as part of a program designed to help farmers prevent pollution of the French Broad River.

All these items made it into the budget for the current fiscal year approved (about three months late) by the state General Assembly last week. If Gov. Roy Cooper declines to take action — and he has said that he plans to neither sign nor veto the budget bill — it will become law ten days after its passage.

“I don’t think it is too early to start celebrating,” said Brevard Mayor Maureen Copelof, who said the $13 million would pay for engineering and design for the revamping of the wastewater plant, a project that carries a total estimated price tag of $65 million.

It is, however, too early to provide much more detail about the planned use of the sums, especially the $10 million in infrastructure funds designated for the county.

Among the reasons commissioners were celebrating two years ago: The state had pledged to pass on $7 million in federal pandemic-recovery funds to the county, an amount originally intended to pay for a new Rosman water treatment plant.

That plan was abandoned, according to Laughter, because the costs of such a plant came to far higher than that amount and because of the tight spending deadlines that apply to recovery funds. Another big factor, Shelton said, was that the county and his town failed to reach a long-term utility agreement.

As of June, the $7 million had been diverted into other utility projects — the now nearly complete expansion of water and sewer lines on the US 64 corridor, a connection between those lines and Brevard’s water system, and engineering and design for future water and wastewater treatment plants.

Those priorities could be adjusted as the jobs progress, “and we get more engineering information that can impact cost and timeline,” Laughter wrote in an email at the time.

Laughter was unavailable for comment Tuesday, Commission Vice Chair Jake Dalton wrote in an email, but both he and Chair Jason Chappell wrote that it was too early to pinpoint the use of the projected $10 million in new state funds.

The Commission will make that decision, Chappell wrote in an email, “once the budget goes into effect and guidance/requirements are received on how and when the dollars must be spent.”

The same is true of the money for Blue Ridge, the college’s director of marketing and communications, Benjamin Rickert, wrote in an email:

“We are truly grateful to our local delegation for the support of Blue Ridge Community College and our 58 North Carolina community colleges. When approved, all of our colleges will await further details on the uses and restrictions of these funds.” 

Transylvania’s teachers have received supplements the last two fiscal years, said the district’s assistant superintendent, Brian Weaver, who added that he has not received confirmation of the amount of the new stipends from the state Department of Public Instruction.

The budget also included raises for teachers averaging 7 percent over the next two years, lawmakers said, though those increases will be higher for new rather than veteran educators. And as a point of comparison, the national Consumer Price Index has climbed by more than 11 percent in the last two fiscal years.

Average teacher pay in North Carolina ranks 36th nationally overall, and its starting teachers’ salary ranks 46th, according to the educational news website, EdNC, citing a recent study from the National Education Association labor union. The budget calls for an increase to the base salary for starting teachers of 10.8 percent, the site said, from $37,000 to $41,000.

At Monday’s meeting, Chappell credited the legislators who represent Transylvania — Clampitt and state Sen. Kevin Corbin, R-Franklin — for securing the funds. But he also said it would not have happened without the outreach of commissioners and county staffers, who pressed the issue with repeated emails, calls and letters.

“Those personal relationships have made a difference,” he said.

“It was a pleasure to benefit the citizens of Transylvania County with the acquisition of these funds,” Clampitt said.

Shelton said the use of any state money the town receives would have to be approved by its Board of Aldermen, though he said, “my hope is that the $10 million will be concentrated on the water plant itself.”

Laughter earlier cited a county engineering report that estimated the cost of a plant with a capacity to treat 4 million gallons per day at about $40,000 million.

Purchasing a prefabricated “package plant” with half that capacity would cost far less than that amount, Shelton said. It would be more than adequate to handle development expected to follow the completion of the new utility lines in the near future, he said, and could be expanded further down the line.

Because two federal grants totaling about $46 million would easily cover the estimated cost of building the Ecusta Trail, Copelof said the unrestricted state money will go to “some of the amenities for the trail . . . or to help with trail head development.” 

Any money Brevard spends on engineering and design would better position the city to apply for future grants, said City Manager Wilson Hooper, who added that money from a combination of sources — such as public foundations, the state and the city — would likely be required to pay for its construction.

The plant’s limited capacity and, more critically, its outdated treatment process, leave it inadequate to serve future development, especially in the manufacturing sector, Hooper has said. The city had originally requested $65 million from the state to cover the cost of the wastewater plant, an estimate that was the result, Hooper said, of “back-of-the-napkin math.”

The $13 million could pay for an engineering report that would “tell us what kind of system we ought to build, what the environmental challenges are for our site,” he said, “and most importantly it will give us an . . . opinion of probable cost, so next time we go back to the General Assembly, we’ll have good data on what the project will actually cost.”

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