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While the center is designed for grants to generate jobs, in its files "Other stories emerge: Legislators influencing where the money goes. People and businesses from across the political landscape getting in on the deals. Political money men benefiting from taxpayer cash, spent with little notice or scrutiny," reports Curliss, who details several examples of politicians receiving grants for businesses they own.
Republicans, in full control of state government for the first time since Reconstruction, want to reduce the center's funding. Billy Ray Hall, who heads the agency, told Curliss, “I eat, sleep and breathe rural North Carolina. Rural North Carolina, I think, deserves the respect of trying to chart their path. They deserve the value of giving them as much as you can to help them make good decisions. And I think that’s what I’ve been trying to do. That’s what the Rural Center’s been trying to do. And we’ve been trying to do it smart.” But Hall may have drawn more Republican ire by reminding new state Budget Director Art Pope, a leading critic, that a center grant had helped his family's discount-store business, which Pope denied but then admitted.
Hall claims the center has created 19,911 jobs in the past five years, but the newspaper found more than 950 jobs from projects that had yet to begin, writes Curliss. Even jobs the center claims to have created are sometimes suspicious, such as a $350,000 water-well grant that would help generate jobs at a new restaurant that had already hired employees. The center’s communications director, Garnet Bass, said in an email message: “I suppose you could argue about whether we’re prematurely saying some of the jobs have been created. ... We think we’re providing the most accurate picture possible for the value of the state investment. It may not be perfect, but we haven’t heard of a better way.”
The center has replied to the stories, in a comment to this blog post.
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