March bond vote urged
By Steve Herring
Published in News on August 16, 2015 1:50 AM
The Goldsboro National Guard Armory would be in line for $1,558,334 and Wayne Community College for $4,591,238 should a $2.8 billion bond package put together by the state House get on the ballot and be approved by voters.
And state District 4 Rep. Jimmy Dixon of Mount Olive wants the most voters possible to have a say in that passage.
To that end, Dixon offered an amendment to change the date of the possible bond referendum from this November to the state's presidential primary in March.
The $2.8 billion bond that includes Dixon's amendment, has passed the House and been sent to the state Senate, where it passed its first reading before being assigned to the Committee on Ways and Means.
Dixon is known for his opposition to increasing taxes or state debt. Nor did he support the state unilaterally issuing the bond.
"I would have vigorously opposed it," he said. "There are aspects of the bond which I support. There are aspects to which I am opposed. But to find a middle ground to say that I could support borrowing money at this time I did feel like it needed to be a referendum and that it needed to be at a time when you could maximize the number of people who had a chance to vote.
Dixon said he could think of no better way to get approval to borrow money than letting the people decide.
"If they want us to borrow the money, fine," he said. "I don't want to make that decision unilaterally. So that is the reason that I offered the amendment to agree to the time when I felt like there would be a lot of people going out to vote."
Dixon said that for him that was the deciding factor in supporting the bill.
"If the referendum had stayed in November, I would not have supported it," he said. "If we had not had the additional $195 million dedicated to agriculture, I would not have supported the bond initiative.
Dixon said voters should learn what the bond issue would mean.
"I would encourage the people to inform themselves," Dixon said. "There is $1.7 billion for education. There is $400 million for our transportation system.
"There's $10 million for parks, $200 million for capital repairs and renovations, $75 million for clean water and sewer projects, $46 million for pubic safety, that is the Highway Patrol, $93 million to improve our national park capabilities and facilities. There is $195 million for agriculture partnerships and projects and $11 million for cultural resources."
Dixon noted that the sale of the bonds would not tie the state's hands fiscally.
"There will be no required tax increase," he said. "As a matter of fact, on the payback schedule, five years after the bonds have been issued, we will have less outstanding debt than we have right now.
"I might add that the bond will be issued in four stages over a two-year period after the bond is approved, if it is approved."
There is "quite a bit" of difference between the House's proposed bond and the governor's, Dixon said.
""Basically the governor had his proposal broken down into aspects -- infrastructure, mainly highways, bridges, etc., and then buildings and renovations," he said. "What we have done is under the leadership of Rep. Dean Arp we developed one package to cover what we felt like where the priorities.
"One of the biggest differences is that we approached transportation in a pay-as-you-go manner rather than borrow money."
The House plan puts $400 million into various shovel-ready projects, Dixon said. But then it stops the transfers out of the Highway Trust Fund and switches to a pay-as-you-go, he said.
"It will end up putting about the same amount of money," he said. "We will be doing about $1.3 billion worth of stuff, but only borrowing $400 million to start with."
Another difference is that the governor's proposal did not contain "a whole lot" specifically addressing agriculture, said Dixon, who is a farmer.
The House proposal contains $195 million for agriculture. Of that total, $85 million is for the plant science and food processing initiative at N.C. State University.
"It is a very visionary type of approach because agriculture going forward is going to be in the plant science," he said. "We have got to figure out how to have better drought-resistant corn, soybeans and wheat. We have made great strides, but we have got to continue to try and improve the varieties. I am excited about that.
"The other big thing is $110 million to revamp our labs in the Department of Agriculture. Right now our veterinarian services lab was built in 1974. It provides tests for all international and domestic shipment of poultry and livestock (in the state). It is one of the first lines of defense and it is just out of date."
An even bigger issue is the state lab that provides food and drug protection, he said. That lab was built in 1977.
"It is the only food safety and defense lab in the state," Dixon said. "That is the place where we all depend on to make sure the food on the shelf is safe. The environment and controls in that lab are terrible."
There are times when it can only be used for a few hours a day because of temperature and humidity control issues, he pointed out.
The state's motor fuels lab dates back to 1952, he said. The lab provides testing for all motor fuel products, quality and specifications, Dixon said.
"Then the standards lab, and these are all separate entities in separate location, was built in 1986," he said. "It does all of the tolerance and precision. That is where lottery balls are weighed to make sure they are accurate. That package in our proposal receives $110 million. That is one of the main differences between our package and the governor's also.
"I am not kicking the governor's. I think ours is a more well-rounded approach. Put together the way we have we believe you can actually measure a 46 percent increase in economically producing activities in our bond proposal than the governor's proposal and the governor has very highly endorsed ours."