North Carolina General Assembly · 2025–2026 session
Showing 1705–1728 of 2,338 bills
Introduced by Amos Quick
This bill authorizes the African American Heritage Commission to study the feasibility of creating monuments commemorating North Carolina's role in the civil rights movement and appropriates $500,000 to place markers and signage along the state's Civil Rights Trail. The Commission must hold public hearings and report its findings by May 1, 2026.
Other / General Government
Introduced by Lisa Grafstein
This bill requires all noncertified public school employees in North Carolina to earn a minimum of $17.00 per hour. The State Board of Education must adjust salary grades accordingly, and the bill appropriates $144.7 million in state funding for the 2025-2026 fiscal year to support this increase.
Education
Introduced by Timothy Moffitt
This bill revises North Carolina's laws governing transfers of surface water between river basins. It establishes new requirements for water transfer permits, including mandatory environmental impact statements for major transfers (over 30 million gallons per day), detailed public hearing processes, and stricter conditions such as water loss ratio limits and revenue set-asides for source basin infrastructure improvements.
Environment & Energy
Introduced by Jim Burgin
This bill requires the Department of Administration to create a comprehensive system for identifying, cataloging, and disposing of vacant or underutilized state-owned properties. It establishes new procedures for tracking building conditions and usage, mandates annual reporting to the legislature on state property inventories, and allows the state to sell surplus properties with proceeds split between the General Fund and property repair projects.
Local Government
This bill requires all insurance and benefit providers (such as insurance companies, brokers, and administrators) who work with North Carolina counties and cities to submit annual reports disclosing all compensation they receive from those local governments. The disclosure must include commissions, fees, bonuses, and other payments, and must confirm that no compensation has been given to county or city employees or elected officials.
Introduced by Val Applewhite
This bill reforms North Carolina's prison labor system by requiring fair compensation (at least $5 per hour for most programs, prevailing wage for PIECP-certified programs), prioritizing rehabilitation and workforce training, prohibiting prison labor from displacing agricultural workers, establishing an independent Prison Labor Oversight Board, and requiring regular public reporting on prison work programs and employment outcomes.
Criminal Justice & Public Safety
This bill requires North Carolina schools to include instruction on the costs of gambling, including sports betting and gambling addiction, as part of mandatory personal financial literacy courses for all students. The instruction would begin in the 2025-2026 school year.
This bill restores longevity payments for North Carolina teachers and instructional support personnel based on years of service, providing annual bonuses ranging from 1.5% to 4.5% of base salary. The bill appropriates $140.3 million in state funding for the 2025-2026 fiscal year to implement these payments, which would be paid as a lump sum once per year.
Introduced by Bobby Hanig
This bill creates the Improper Action Claims Act, which allows private citizens and the Attorney General to sue public entities in North Carolina for knowingly failing to comply with state laws and regulations. The bill establishes civil penalties between $5,500 and $11,000 for violations, and allows private citizens (called 'qui tam plaintiffs') to bring lawsuits on behalf of the State and receive a percentage of any damages recovered.
Introduced by Dennis Riddell
This bill changes how North Carolina assigns school performance grades by requiring all schools to receive two separate letter grades: one for school achievement (how well students perform) and one for school growth (how much students improve). Previously, schools received a single overall performance grade combining both measures. The bill also requires these separate achievement and growth grades to be prominently displayed on school report cards.
Introduced by Woodson Bradley
This bill prohibits business entities and corporations from purchasing single-family homes for rental purposes in North Carolina counties with populations over 150,000 if they already own 100 or more rental homes in such counties. The bill allows the Attorney General, county commissioners, and affected individuals to enforce the restriction through civil lawsuits with penalties up to $100 per day per home and potential damages up to $50,000 or triple damages.
Housing
Introduced by Sophia Chitlik
This bill stops awarding new Opportunity Scholarships to students starting in 2025-2026 while allowing current recipients to finish their eligibility, with the program fully ending by 2037-2038. It reduces funding for the scholarship program by approximately $161.92 million over two years and redirects that money to public schools.
This bill establishes a 18-member Sewer Repair Task Force to study North Carolina's wastewater infrastructure needs, develop strategies for funding and implementing repairs, and recommend future legislation by December 2026. It also appropriates $50 million to the South Granville Water and Sewer Authority for facility expansion, PFAS treatment upgrades, water meter modernization, and lead pipe replacement.
Transportation & Infrastructure
Introduced by Todd Johnson
This bill requires local governments to hold a public vote on whether to use a revenue-neutral tax rate during years when properties are reappraised. A revenue-neutral tax rate would keep tax collections the same as the previous year despite property value changes. If the local board votes yes, they must use this rate; if they vote no, they can set rates normally.
Taxes & Budget
This bill prohibits North Carolina public schools from using block scheduling, requiring instead that no class period exceed 50 minutes of instructional time per day. Schools must report their class schedules and start/release times to the State Board of Education beginning in the 2026-2027 school year.
This bill creates a process for dog owners to request that their pet's 'potentially dangerous dog' designation be removed, but only 18 months or more after the original determination. The owner must submit an application with a professional assessment of the dog's behavior, and the local animal control authority will decide whether to revoke the designation based on the dog's current behavior and management.
This bill expands North Carolina's Opportunity Scholarship program to include homeschooled students. Homeschool students would receive scholarships worth up to 25% of the state's average per-pupil funding, which can be used for educational materials and required costs (but not tuition). The bill also significantly increases overall funding for the scholarship program from $191.5 million to $625 million in fiscal year 2025-2026.
Introduced by Terence Everitt
The Main Street Resilience Act allows small business owners to deduct up to $75,000 of net business income from their North Carolina state income taxes (or $150,000 for married couples filing jointly). A small business is defined as independently owned and operated with fewer than 50 employees and annual revenues under $5 million. The tax relief takes effect for the 2026 tax year.
This bill proposes three constitutional amendments to be voted on in November 2026. The first sets legislative salaries equal to the average public school teacher salary and aligns per diem/travel rates with state employee rates. The second limits members of the General Assembly to 16 consecutive years of service and changes state Senate terms to four years. The third limits regular legislative sessions to 120 days in odd-numbered years and 90 days in even-numbered years.
Introduced by Diane Wheatley
This bill appropriates $1 million in state funds for the 2025-2026 fiscal year to Blue Star Families, Inc., a nonprofit organization that serves military families. The funds are divided into three categories: $400,000 for a military spouse career development program in the Fayetteville area, $300,000 for family strengthening programs, and $300,000 for military and veteran caregiver services.
The Community Safety Act appropriates $7.5 million to support law enforcement agencies through grant programs, establishes minimum hiring and training standards for officers, revises use of force policies to classify certain neck restraints as deadly force and require de-escalation tactics, and creates funding for community policing initiatives and detective positions.
This bill limits the amount of 'due diligence funds' (nonrefundable money paid to sellers upon offer acceptance) to 1% of the purchase price in residential real estate transactions, making any higher amounts void and unenforceable. It also appropriates $10 million to the North Carolina Housing Coalition to support homebuyer education services.
This bill repeals a 2024 law that restricted local governments' ability to reduce zoning density (down-zone) and restores their previous authority to do so. The bill applies retroactively, meaning any ordinances affected by the 2024 restriction would revert to their pre-December 11, 2024 status.
Introduced by Dana Jones
This bill creates a new licensing system in North Carolina for medical imaging professionals and radiation therapists, including radiographers, sonographers, radiation therapists, and technologists in various imaging specialties. It establishes the Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy Board of Examiners to set standards, issue licenses, enforce requirements, and conduct disciplinary proceedings to ensure that only qualified, educated professionals perform these procedures on patients.
Healthcare