ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TIERS: Moore County officials describe a story similar to Chatham’s

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Note: This story ran as a sidebar piece to "An unfair ranking?" that was published in the March 12 edition of the Chatham News + Record, and is the first in a two-part series on how the state's economic development tier system affects Chatham County.

Chatham isn’t the only North Carolina county which struggles with the implications of the Tier system regarding grant and loan funding. Moore County officials say that its Tier 3 ranking shortchanges poorer areas within the county, especially in the town of Robbins.

Patrick Corso, executive director of Moore County Partners in Progress, says that Moore’s economic inequality is largely manifested in a relatively wealthy southern section and the more disadvantaged north side.

“ …it’s a tale of two counties,” Corso said. “If you put northern Moore and southern Chatham together, you might have one of the poorest counties in the state. But that’s not recognized by state government. The reality is, distress knows no boundaries. But yet the state seems to want to not address that.”

With the help of the North Carolina Economic Development Association, Moore County officials refined and proposed a bill last year that would allow Tier 3 counties to apply to the state’s Utility Industrial Fund. The UIF is currently aimed at incentivizing industry in Tier 1 and 2 counties; only counties with those two designations are currently allowed to apply. The bill passed in the state House but was “killed” in the Senate.

David Lambert is the Moore County Solid Waste and Recycling Manager and a longtime advocate for state-level Tier reform. Though he praised last year’s proposed bill and emphasized the need to “keep chipping around the edges” of the Tier problem, Lambert takes issue with the criteria used to evaluate “economic distress.”

“I mean, a lot of the methods now do not measure the degree of distress,” he said. “They measure the effects of distress. And there’s a difference. And I don’t think they truly represent well the economic distress. They don’t include a number of different things that specifically people have looked at and said, This is how you measure economic distress.’”

The town Robbins, with a population of about 1,000 in northern Moore, has been struggling with this issue for years. Lambert said that Moore’s level 3 Tier status has historically enticed industry in disadvantaged northern Moore to move “just 10 minutes to the west of us, to Montgomery County.”

Wayne Vest, Moore’s county manager, says that legislative discussion about the Tier system has not reached much of a conclusion.

“I think every legislative session there’s a lot of activity and interest in doing something with the Tier system,” he said. “It just never really has gained a lot of momentum; or at least over the past few years.”

In the meantime, Robbins officials say the town is struggling.

“...there are infrastructure needs in Robbins that need to be addressed,” Corso said. “But there’s no money...in general, there is not an equal playing field for Robbins to apply for funding as could a Tier 1 and Tier 2 county for those kinds of infrastructure needs.”