WASHINGTON, D.C. — North Carolina will soon get tens of millions of dollars to fund community initiatives ranging from gun violence prevention efforts to sidewalk improvements.

What You Need To Know

  • Congressional earmarks were banned for a decade after high-profile scandals

  • Earmarks are now called community project funding

  • North Carolina will receive tens of millions of dollars in funding

The appropriations, once called earmarks, were included in the federal budget bill signed by President Joe Biden this week.

Earmarks were once controversial and were banned for a decade because of some high-profile scandals. They returned in 2021 but under a new name.

“They rebranded them,” said George Washington University assistant professor Casey Burgat. “It’s earmarks by any other name.”

They are now known as community project funding, and they follow a strict approval process.

“They have to be posted online. They can’t go to for-profit entities … they can’t go over a certain amount of government spending,” Burgat said.

In North Carolina it amounts to tens of millions of dollars.

Some of the projects in North Carolina include:

  • $2 million for a tutoring program to combat learning loss at Guilford County Schools
  • $3 million for streetscape and safety improvements in the town of Four Oaks
  • $1.3 million for a new fire station Nashville
  • $3.5 million for improvements at the Kerr Lake Regional Water Treatment Plant
  • $1 million for streetscape and parking improvement on Rand Mill Road in Garner

The projects are recommended by individual lawmakers.

“They know their constituents best. They know what the needs of their voters are,” Burgat said.

Every House Democrat from North Carolina requested funding, as did Republican Reps. David Rouzer and Madison Cawthorn, and Republican Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis.

But the Republicans didn’t vote for the budget.

“They get to have their cake and eat it, too, in this instance, where they get to vote against a bill and then claim credit for things in that bill they wanted to kill,” Burgat said.

Here are the North Carolina lawmakers who requested community project funding under the budget: