State budget includes $12M for city

Nov. 19—HIGH POINT — The compromise state budget includes $12.4 million for High Point, ranging from a record amount of state support for the High Point Market to appropriations for a number of local nonprofits and community improvements.

Details on the city line items in the budget were released Thursday by Reps. John Faircloth, R-Guilford, and Cecil Brockman, D-Guilford, the only two High Pointers in the 170-member N.C. General Assembly.

The biggest-ticket item for High Point is $4.6 million for the High Point Market Authority, which organizes the world's largest home furnishings trade show, the single-largest economic event in the state annually. The largest appropriation that the market authority had received previously was $3 million, which has been the amount for the past several fiscal years.

The market authority has used state funding to provide transportation services to marketgoers coming to and from the showroom district during the spring and fall trade shows and to promote the Market to potential visitors. Some of the extra state money will go toward helping Market organizers make adjustments because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper came to the fall trade show last month and reiterated the bipartisan support for the Market.

A Duke University study found that the Market has an estimated $6.7 billion economic impact on North Carolina each year. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the trade show drew 75,000 to 80,000 visitors from around the world.

Other High Point provisions in the state budget:

—The Generator at Congdon Yards — $2.8 million

—Hayden-Harman Foundation — $1.4 million

—John Coltrane music festival — $1 million

—City of High Point for High Point Equity Project — $1 million

—Business High Point Inc. — $500,000

—Welfare Reform Liaison Project — $300,000

—High Point Preservation Society — $250,000

—High Point Sensory Garden — $200,000

—High Point Arts Council — $150,000

—Southwest Renewal Project — $100,000

—Greater High Point Food Alliance — $50,000

—Macedonia Family Resource Center — $50,000

—Open Door Ministries — $50,000

The state budget, which will total $25.9 billion for the new fiscal year, was rolled out this week as a compromise between Cooper and Republican leaders in the General Assembly. The state has gone 2 1/2 years without a finalized, approved budget because of a logjam between Cooper and GOP legislative leaders.

"This compromise budget is a responsible approach to fulfilling our state's financial obligations over the next biennium," said Faircloth, a co-chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. "This budget focuses on the needs that have been building since our last comprehensive budget and the added financial pressures of COVID-19."

Brockman concurred, saying "this compromise budget serves the best interest for all North Carolinians. After ending the previous biennial without passing a budget, an all-or-nothing approach to this process would have left North Carolinians without a new budget."

pjohnson@hpenews.com — 336-888-3528 — @HPEpaul