The North Carolina General Assembly needs to do more to help small businesses recover from Hurricane Helene, Gov. Josh Stein said during his visit last week to Haywood County.
Remarks from Stein, a Democrat, come as the Republican-controlled legislature is working on a $524 million Helene recovery spending bill. The state House passed its version of the measure in late February, but rejected an amended version from the Senate. A conference committee was formed to iron out the differences, and the final version of the legislation was approved by the state House Tuesday night.
“There is some funding in the next Helene bill for agriculture,” Stein told reporters while visiting a farm in Haywood County on Friday. “That's a good thing. We need to have some funding for small business owners. You know, farmers are small businesses. But there are other types of small businesses that also need help, and I've urged the legislature to provide that funding.”
The Senate version of the bill increased the total amount of aid from $500 million to $533 million, according to summaries posted on the General Assembly’s website. It included $192 million in aid to farmers who sustained losses due to the storm; $140 million for housing repairs; and $100 million for the reconstruction of private roads and bridges, among other appropriations.
But notably, the Senate version did not include a $15 million funding mechanism for small businesses that House members passed last month. The funds would go toward the Golden LEAF, or Long-Term Economic Advancement Foundation, which is tasked with distributing the money to nonprofits with “demonstrated expertise in small business revitalization.”
The final version of the measure does not include those funds, either. It includes $200 million for farmers, $120 million for housing repairs; and $100 million for private roads and bridges. It also contains $55 million in small business infrastructure grants that was included in the original legislation.
State Sen. Julie Mayfield (D), whose district includes most of Buncombe County, called for increased aid to small businesses as well.
In an interview with ABC-11 earlier this month, Mayfield said “there's not in my mind a sufficient distinction between farmers, who are businesses, to help them recover from their losses, and we're not doing the same [for] hundreds of businesses in western North Carolina who have suffered tremendous losses as well."
Olivia Weidie, a spokesperson for Stein, told BPR Wednesday that the governor will ask for more small business relief in the weeks ahead.
"Just as the bill awards grants to our farmers, Governor Stein is committed to continuing to advocate for relief for the rest of small business owners in western North Carolina," she said. "Governor Stein plans to submit an additional Helene budget request to the General Assembly in the weeks to come and keep pushing Congress for meaningful help."
The total amount of the latest Helene relief legislation is about half of the $1 billion Stein has requested. And even with federal funding, the total amount of Helene recovery money is expected to fall far short of the nearly $60 billion in damages state officials say Western North Carolina sustained in the storm.
While in Western North Carolina last week, Stein met with members of GROW NC, the governor’s newly-established hurricane recovery office. He also toured the property of the Ferguson family, whose three-generation dairy farm on the banks of the Pigeon River was flooded during the historic storm.
The flooding killed some of the dairy cows and damaged the farm’s milk tank, silos and barn – costing the family hundreds of thousands of dollars, Stein said. Help from the federal government has been slow in arriving, he added.
“I wish I could say it surprises me. It disappoints the hell out of me, because he needs help now,” Stein said, referring to the farm’s owner. “Agriculture works on a seasonal basis, and if you miss a season, it will have repercussions for the entire year. So, what I’m going to do is what I have been doing, which is urging the federal government to speed up its processes so we can get the resources and start allocating it here in North Carolina.”
Note: This story has been updated to include details of the final version of the legislation approved by the state House Tuesday night.
