Here's what the newest Helene relief bill means for WNC
By Laura Hackett, Adam Wagner
July 3, 2025 at 5:21 PM EDT
A fifth round of Hurricane Helene recovery money — worth $1.5 billion — was approved by the state legislature and signed into action by Governor Josh Stein in late June. BPR’s Helene Recovery Reporter Laura Hackett sat down with Adam Wagner of the NC Newsroom to talk about what the bill means for western North Carolina.
Laura Hackett, BPR Reporter: Governor Josh Stein has said Hurricane Helene caused around $60 billion dollars in damage to the state. Right now, we're seeing around $2 billion in aid from the state government. Obviously, not anywhere close to that $60 billion dollar estimate. So, how are lawmakers thinking about this discrepancy?
Adam Wagner, NC Newsroom: On the state level, lawmakers are trying to basically do the most important things, but they also don't want to get too far ahead of where the federal government is. So, they don't want to spend a ton of state money when there is the likelihood that federal money will eventually come. It's been kind of a game of who's going to go first on some of these things.
Hackett: This bill, again, it's the fifth Helene bill to come out. It's evolved a lot. Could you talk about some of the back and forth there's been deciding, you know, what is going to be included in this latest recovery bill?
Wagner: In late May, the house passed its version of this bill unanimously. And then it went over to the Senate and it kind of stalled for several weeks. So, the session was coming up on an endpoint and legislators were planning on leaving for the most of the summer. And Senate Democrats filed what's called a discharge petition to try to get the bill removed from committee under the Senate floor for a vote.
That same day, the Senate started to actually move the bill. They signed it to a different committee. Then less than a week later, we saw the new version. Senate voted it through. It went back to the house, then the Senate and House kind of negotiated on this compromise version. That compromise version was one of the very last things legislators did before they left for the summer.
Hackett: Sounds like there was a lot of going back and forth. There was some stalling. What were the big concessions that lawmakers made to get this bill through?
Wagner: Some of the concessions that were made were the House giving up on small business grants and the Senate giving up about half of the transportation funding that it wanted to send to Western North Carolina.
Hackett: A little bit more on those small business grants. In some earlier drafts of the bill, there were tens of millions of dollars included for small business grants. Why did lawmakers ultimately end up removing small business grants from this bill?
Wagner: Lawmakers in the Senate have insisted that a small business grant is a direct payment from the state to a private entity and therefore in violation of the state constitution. The house doesn't see it that way. The house thinks that you can make those payments, but the Senate is not going to budge on this. So, to that end, there's been a bill introduced in the Senate to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot next spring that would allow an exception in the event of disasters.
Hackett: Until there's some legal allowance, we're not going to see any small business grants, it sounds like.
Wagner: That's correct.
Hackett: So, we've learned that there are no small business grants in this bill. Where is money going? What are some of the biggest pots of funding?
Wagner: There's more funding for private roads and bridges. We've seen this in previous Helene bills, but this allocates even more money to that. There's more funds to help kind of match federal dollars.
There's crop loss funds and then there's just lots of money for local governments and kind of local infrastructure, water and wastewater plants, things like that. There's also an additional 5 million dollars for a tourism campaign. We've seen efforts to kind of get more people to come to Western North Carolina and this bill is no different.
Hackett: Anything else interesting on this bill?
Wagner: One thing that kind of jumped out that hasn't gotten a ton of attention is $15 million dollars to help with wildfire relief efforts. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, we saw a number of serious wildfires pop up. The down trees all over the region from Helene contributed to that.
So, we heard the agricultural commissioner, Steve Troxler, kind of pushed for additional funds to help respond to that and this bill allows for some additional equipment and contract firefighters to be working in Western North Carolina.
Hackett: So, is there anything else on the horizon in terms of Helene relief funding that you'll be watching?
Wagner: If the constitutional amendment starts moving in the General Assembly, that would allow the state to send small business grants out in the event of a disaster.
The other thing is just everyone insists that this is not the last Helene relief package.
So, are they already working on another one? Is that kind of taking shape? And then also just like, what is the federal government going to do? When does a larger relief package come down from them and kind of how does that shape what the state is going to do next?
Laura Hackett, BPR Reporter: Governor Josh Stein has said Hurricane Helene caused around $60 billion dollars in damage to the state. Right now, we're seeing around $2 billion in aid from the state government. Obviously, not anywhere close to that $60 billion dollar estimate. So, how are lawmakers thinking about this discrepancy?
Adam Wagner, NC Newsroom: On the state level, lawmakers are trying to basically do the most important things, but they also don't want to get too far ahead of where the federal government is. So, they don't want to spend a ton of state money when there is the likelihood that federal money will eventually come. It's been kind of a game of who's going to go first on some of these things.
Hackett: This bill, again, it's the fifth Helene bill to come out. It's evolved a lot. Could you talk about some of the back and forth there's been deciding, you know, what is going to be included in this latest recovery bill?
Wagner: In late May, the house passed its version of this bill unanimously. And then it went over to the Senate and it kind of stalled for several weeks. So, the session was coming up on an endpoint and legislators were planning on leaving for the most of the summer. And Senate Democrats filed what's called a discharge petition to try to get the bill removed from committee under the Senate floor for a vote.
That same day, the Senate started to actually move the bill. They signed it to a different committee. Then less than a week later, we saw the new version. Senate voted it through. It went back to the house, then the Senate and House kind of negotiated on this compromise version. That compromise version was one of the very last things legislators did before they left for the summer.
Hackett: Sounds like there was a lot of going back and forth. There was some stalling. What were the big concessions that lawmakers made to get this bill through?
Wagner: Some of the concessions that were made were the House giving up on small business grants and the Senate giving up about half of the transportation funding that it wanted to send to Western North Carolina.
Hackett: A little bit more on those small business grants. In some earlier drafts of the bill, there were tens of millions of dollars included for small business grants. Why did lawmakers ultimately end up removing small business grants from this bill?
Wagner: Lawmakers in the Senate have insisted that a small business grant is a direct payment from the state to a private entity and therefore in violation of the state constitution. The house doesn't see it that way. The house thinks that you can make those payments, but the Senate is not going to budge on this. So, to that end, there's been a bill introduced in the Senate to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot next spring that would allow an exception in the event of disasters.
Hackett: Until there's some legal allowance, we're not going to see any small business grants, it sounds like.
Wagner: That's correct.
Hackett: So, we've learned that there are no small business grants in this bill. Where is money going? What are some of the biggest pots of funding?
Wagner: There's more funding for private roads and bridges. We've seen this in previous Helene bills, but this allocates even more money to that. There's more funds to help kind of match federal dollars.
There's crop loss funds and then there's just lots of money for local governments and kind of local infrastructure, water and wastewater plants, things like that. There's also an additional 5 million dollars for a tourism campaign. We've seen efforts to kind of get more people to come to Western North Carolina and this bill is no different.
Hackett: Anything else interesting on this bill?
Wagner: One thing that kind of jumped out that hasn't gotten a ton of attention is $15 million dollars to help with wildfire relief efforts. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, we saw a number of serious wildfires pop up. The down trees all over the region from Helene contributed to that.
So, we heard the agricultural commissioner, Steve Troxler, kind of pushed for additional funds to help respond to that and this bill allows for some additional equipment and contract firefighters to be working in Western North Carolina.
Hackett: So, is there anything else on the horizon in terms of Helene relief funding that you'll be watching?
Wagner: If the constitutional amendment starts moving in the General Assembly, that would allow the state to send small business grants out in the event of a disaster.
The other thing is just everyone insists that this is not the last Helene relief package.
So, are they already working on another one? Is that kind of taking shape? And then also just like, what is the federal government going to do? When does a larger relief package come down from them and kind of how does that shape what the state is going to do next?