“I kept believing, kept believing. But they never did what they said they were supposed to do. It’s been promises and promises and lies and lies.”

Marcy Bea’s frustration is evident.

Pender County had 217 households active in the ReBuild NC program as of March 9, but just 14 of them had work completed and 12 others have work underway.

“It’s been promises and promises and lies and lies.”

Marcy Bea

Bea, Alverda Holmes, Willie Northern, and Robert Sault, along with their families, are among those 191 still waiting for actual renovation or rebuilding to begin.

Applicants for assistance go through eight steps in the ReBuild process: intake, eligibility review, duplication of benefits review, inspection and environmental, award determination, contract and bid work, construction, and completion.

The Northerns and the Holmeses are still in their hurricane-damaged homes, like most applicants. Unless they stay with family, pay for their own rental, or have been granted an emergency move-out designation, most families are not eligible for ReBuild’s Temporary Relocation Assistance (TRA) until the contract has been awarded and construction is set to begin. The Beas have been approved for emergency move-out status and are beginning the process. Sault has made it to contract and construction stage and is living in a hotel paid through TRA.

Their homes have been damaged by wind and water and often have compromised roofs, ceilings, walls, and floors. Mold often infests the homes.

Bea and her husband live in a mobile home outside of Burgaw that will be demolished and replaced with a newly constructed home. Her son, a freshman at Methodist University, lived there growing up and still stays there when home from college.

Rain penetrated the home through windowsills and the wind- and rain-damaged roof, ruining the ceiling, walls, and floor. Through the years of waiting for construction to begin, the home has deteriorated. There are holes in the floor. Bea covers them with rugs. She hides holes in the walls and crumbling sheetrock with posters. Mold is prevalent.

Bea is waiting for the work to go out to bid.

Alverda Holmes’ Maple Hill home also suffered water and wind damage in Hurricane Florence. Issues with her home include roof leaks, cracks in the ceiling, and soft floors. The roof still leaks, causing further damage.  Her home, too, is infested with mold. She was denied an emergency move-out and is still living in the home.

“I’m staying here with the mold. My husband and I do what we can until we get out of here,” she said. “I’ve been waiting almost three years now.”

They are waiting for their project to go out for bidding. The home will be demolished and replaced with an elevated stick-built home. Holmes and her husband will move to a hotel when work begins.

Willie and Carolyn Northern are dealing with similar issues, including floors damaged by water and mold. They used their own resources to repair the roof and make other minor repairs before applying for assistance from ReBuild. Their home is considered a rehab—the floors are to be replaced, and the bathroom and kitchen are to be repaired.

“We would get a call every 30 days or two months saying they didn’t have an update,” Willie Northern said. “The main thing is the communication— not being communicated with.”

The Northerns are still living in their home in Atkinson. A contractor recently conducted the walk-through evaluation of the home, so they are waiting for word that they can start packing their belongings into a PODS portable storage unit and move to a hotel.

Unlike the wind-and-rain damaged houses, Robert Sault’s home, which sits on the banks of the Northeast Cape Fear River, flooded as the river rose from Hurricane Florence. Sault had experienced hurricane flooding before. Fran’s waters reached the bottom of the house, Floyd’s were higher up to the windows, and finally, with Florence, the river level topped the windows of the small bungalow.

He lived in the screened-in porch on the back of the house until construction was slated to begin. Sault entered the construction phase in January 2022 and has been living in a hotel while waiting for his modular home to arrive and placed on an elevated base to protect it from future flooding.

Another issue that strains ReBuild applicants is that the damage to their homes often worsens over time as they aren’t allowed to make repairs while they are in the program.

“If you repair the house, you’ll go backward in the program,” Bea said of what she was told if she made repairs to her home when the ceiling fell. “You’re stuck in a house you can’t repair.”

A Rebuild representative explained, ”There are some repairs that would be too costly or difficult for the homeowner to make. That is one of the many reasons why we have the emergency move out policy so that homeowners do not have to live in unsafe conditions. Sometimes, depending on the needs our inspectors see when they visit, they might make an internal referral for a National Volunteer Organization Active in Disaster (VOAD) partner to come out and fix items so that the home can be safe for the homeowner.”

Pender County residents who have been waiting for four-plus years to have their homes repaired or rebuilt are ready to move forward.

“I’m 70 years of age,” Sault said. “I’d really like to get back in my house.”

March 2 2023 House Oversight and Reform Committee Hearing

For much of what it does, government is a monopoly, operating without competition, and often compelling citizens to use its services. Government provides its services free at the time of use, which removes the ability to learn from customer’s decisions on price and value. Without these natural feedback mechanisms, the General Assembly and government agencies need other ways to evaluate the results they get for roughly $30 billion in state taxpayer dollars each fiscal year.

Legislative oversight plays an important role, as does the state auditor. Each of these has practical limits in what they can examine, particularly as the scope of government has grown. Oversight staff and auditors must also rely on the ability of state agencies to provide answers they may not have themselves. State agency leadership and staff often have the same questions and no good way to get answers.

Academic research provides another way to learn more about the value of government services. North Carolina is blessed with a vibrant public university system and excellent private universities. Scholars in these institutions can look ahead to future needs and back at past performance. University researchers combine broad subject matter expertise comparable to agency staff and greater specific methodological expertise than oversight, audit, or agency staff.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) has had a partially funded mandate from the federal government for twenty-five years to conduct research and development with universities. More recently, the Office of Strategic Partnerships (OSP) in the Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) has tried to bridge the gap between agencies and academia with mixed success since 2019. Federal funds made possible the creation of an Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration in the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), which recently launched a sweeping series of university research projects on Covid’s impact on public school students with assistance from OSP and the NC Policy Collaboratory.

On March 2, 2023, the House Oversight and Reform Committee heard testimony on four efforts to connect government programs and academic experts at the Department of Transportation, the Office of State Budget and Management, the NC Collaboratory, and the Department of Public Instruction.

NCDOT Research and Development Office
Federal law has long required state transportation departments to dedicate a portion of their funding to research and development a twenty percent state match. In North Carolina, NCDOT’s Research and Development Office contracts around thirty studies per year with roughly $7.5 million in combined state and federal funds and studies dating back to 1997. The Research and Development team refines ideas for projects with subject-matter experts throughout the department. Curtis Bradley, Research Implementation Manager for NCDOT, told the committee that it is hard to measure the return on investment because it could include direct improvements, canceled spending, and systemic changes that affect multiple programs and projects. As long as Congress requires a portion of federal funds go to research, the General Assembly will likely provide the state match.

OSBM Office of Strategic Partnerships
Governor Cooper created the Director of Strategic Partnerships position in 2018. The primary purpose was and continues to be increasing the use of evidence in government decision making. The endeavor has expanded into the North Carolina Office of Strategic Partnerships, housed within OSBM. Funding comes from lapsed salaries and philanthropic grants. Agencies provide submit topics for researchers. It has a small, full-time staff who connect government agencies with researchers and philanthropy. OSP staff “speak the same language” as academic researchers and help agencies translate operational needs into research topics that can provide evidence.

DPI Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration
DPI’s Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration is one place with a core of academic experts. It is funded with about one-tenth of one percent of the $5.5 billion in one-time federal money North Carolina received to help move schooling online and back again to in-person instruction. Director of Research and Evaluation Jeni Corn said they have $6.7 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to conduct a suite of twenty research projects through the Collaboratory. She advocated for a permanent establish a permanent Office of Innovation and Research with a $1.3 million recurring appropriation to examine already implemented reforms and plan for future changes.

North Carolina Collaboratory
The Collaboratory was established in the summer of 2016 by the General Assembly. It distributes state funding to researchers in universities and colleges across the state. The work of the Collaboratory covers many research areas and projects, including hog farms, testing for GenX and other PFAS “forever chemicals,” Covid testing, specific funds for historically minority-serving institutions, and the DPI studies. Executive Director Jeff Warren told the Committee that every dollar his organization receives from the General Assembly goes directly to research because UNC-Chapel Hill covers its operating costs, and it does not allow other universities to charge traditional overhead costs for research projects. Warren also described a fellowship program that placed UNC scholars at the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

Conclusion and Options

Contrasting the apparent successes of NCDOT and DPI with the challenges Owen cited in OSP’s work with other agencies, a key factor appears to be having staff in the agency with academic experience. Bradley and NCDOT’s research and development team can translate the organization’s priorities into tractable research questions. Corn and her team provide the same ability at DPI. Most agencies do not have a research team.

Coordination: Owen testified that her office has no direct appropriation and has relied on a combination of lapsed salary and private grants to fund its operations. It also has not received any appropriations specifically for research projects. Despite this, OSP has hired a strong team who provides research assistance to staff in other agencies. The Collaboratory, in contrast, has distributed millions in appropriations for scientific research projects. Although NCDOT’s experience shows that agencies may not need a coordination partner, DPI’s experience shows the value of assistance from OSP and the Collaboratory.

Permanent Funding: DPI has requested recurring funding to make its Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration permanent. Internal staff with academic expertise does seem to have been a key factor in the agency’s ability to improve its post-Covid response. NCDOT provides a precedent for a permanent research section. The General Assembly could fund a similar staff at other agencies or, following the federal example in transportation, require the agency to dedicate a portion of its funding to research staff and projects.

Fellowships: The applied research fellowship program that DEQ and the Collaboratory launched to host scholars, may be a way to bridge the gap in academic research on a temporary basis at some agencies.

The transcript from the hearing can be found here.