Get up to speed on what you missed in NC politics over the holidays
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Lawmakers launched a legislative committee to study soaring property tax assessments
- Jackson recovered $17M in federal grants tied to Helene recovery
- State audit found lottery sales rose while school revenue share declined
Good morning and Happy New Year!
This is Kyle Ingram bringing you Friday’s Under the Dome newsletter after a brief holiday break.
While many of us took some much-deserved time off to celebrate with our families, North Carolina politics kept on chugging. So, here’s a look back at some of the biggest stories in #ncpol over the last few weeks that you may have missed.
Changes to NC’s property tax law?
Our Capitol bureau chief, Dawn Vaughan, reports that state lawmakers are considering significant reforms to how property taxes are assessed in North Carolina.
House Speaker Destin Hall, who is pushing for reforms, said property tax bills have gone “through the roof” in recent years, prompting him to create a new legislative committee to study the issue.
Get more details in the full story from Dawn.
Jeff Jackson wins Helene lawsuit against Trump administration
In a lawsuit against federal agencies, North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson succeeded in recovering $17 million in federal grants that had been intended for Helene recovery.
Our Washington correspondent, Danielle Battaglia, reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security had held up grants approved by Congress after tacking on new conditions related to immigration enforcement.
A federal judge ruled in Jackson’s favor after he argued that those new terms were unlawful.
Get the full story from Danielle here.
Schools’ declining share of NC lottery funds questioned in new audit
A newly released state audit found that even as the North Carolina Education Lottery hit record sales, the percentage of revenue it gave to public schools declined.
Despite the high sales, lottery officials said profit had gone down as a share of overall sales leaving less money for education, politics reporter Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi wrote.
Get the full story from Luciana here.
NC teachers join Republican primaries for General Assembly
Education reporter T. Keung Hui reports that a new group of retired and current teachers are running for the General Assembly in Republican primaries.
The teachers, all of whom were formerly registered Democrats or unaffiliated, are aiming to oust Republican incumbents in solidly red districts.
The state Republican Party has accused the slate of candidates of trying to “mislead voters.”
Learn more about the candidates and where they’re running in Keung’s story here.
Vacancies in state government produced $1 billion in lapsed salaries, audit finds
And lastly, I reported earlier this week that North Carolina has accumulated over $1 billion in lapsed salaries due to widespread vacancies in state agencies.
The information, which comes from a newly created state division charged with recommending job cuts, was released in an interactive online dashboard by the Office of the State Auditor.
The division which released the report has faced criticism from skeptics, who have compared it to DOGE at the federal level.
Read my full story here.
Thanks for reading Under the Dome
That’s all for today, but we hope to see you right back here on Sunday.
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This story was originally published January 2, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Get up to speed on what you missed in NC politics over the holidays."
