Here's what Commissioners are thinking on a host of topics

Commissioners listen to a presentation on property values and taxes during the planning retreat. Commissioner Butch Lawter said commissioners should make tax cuts the norm when the tax base grows.

 

During their planning retreat in February, County Commissioners talked about communication with the public and how to make it better.

But improved communication was just one of many goals to emerge from the retreat. Over the course of two days, Commissioners set goals for water and sewer, public safety, transportation, and human services, among others.

Below are brief looks at Commissioners’ thinking on those topics.

Water and sewer

Commissioners have talked often in recent years about regionalization of water and sewer but have made only modest progress.

Neil Emory, director of outreach services for the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, suspects he knows one reason why. “Everybody wants to be a player in regionalization, but everybody wants to be in charge of it,” he said.

That’s not how regional cooperation works, Emory said. “Everybody’s going to have to give up some turf,” he said.

Patrick Harris, chairman of the Johnston County Board of Commissioners, sees another hurdle to regionalization. “I think in order to move forward with regionalization, we have to first all agree what that looks like,” he said.

Harris pointed to Harnett Regional Water in neighboring Harnett County. “That was a regionalization of resources, but it’s still operated by the county,” he said.

A different approach is the Onslow Water & Sewer Authority, which is governed by an independent board that is separate from the county and its towns.

“I think we’ve got to make that decision among ourselves as to what that is going to look like,” Harris said.

When handing out grants and loans for water and sewer projects, the state increasingly favors partnerships among towns and counties — perhaps one large water plant instead of two.

Commissioner Mike Rose put it this way: “If there’s a regional approach, they don’t have to pick winners and losers as much as they can pick large groups of winners.”

That gives regionalization some urgency, Rose said. “That is something we desperately need to pursue,” he said.

Public safety

This will be the first year Johnston fire departments submit budget requests to the County, and Commissioner Ted Godwin fears the board might be surprised by the size of those requests.

Godwin said he recently stopped by a rural fire department where a man from outside the County was applying for a full-time job. “And I’m sure that’s replicated throughout the county because we need that kind of coverage,” he said. “It’s a different time. We don’t have farmers on the fire department who can drop everything and respond.”

Still, “I have a feeling we’re going to be surprised when we roll all of these budgets together because it’s going to include things like that — full-time people,” he said.

Commissioner Harris was more optimistic. “I think you may be surprised once all the dust settles from the budget-submittal process because incorporated in that is also things like group purchasing for trucks and apparatus, which saves the county a lot of money,” he said.

“I don’t think you will see a tremendous spike,” Harris added. “I think we’ll be able to provide a lot more service for the same amount of money or perhaps even less.”

Transportation

Will commuter rail one day carry Johnstonians to and from their jobs in the Triangle?

“I think we have a unique opportunity now with all the money being spent on rail to look at it,” said Commissioner Butch Lawter, whose employer has offices in Wake and Mecklenburg counties.

“Personally, I could get on somewhere between Clayton and Wilson’s Mills and ride to downtown Raleigh, ride to downtown Cary or go to downtown Charlotte, all our offices there,” he said. “So it would be something that I definitely would consider.”

Already, some 70% of Johnstonians travel outside the County for work, and Commissioner Godwin wondered whether commuter rail would only increase that percentage.

“Could it work against us?” he asked. “For example, if we made it easier to get to Wake or Durham County on rail, what’s the incentive to keep them here?”

Perhaps, Lawter said, but rail would also make it easier for people living outside Johnston to work here. “I’ve had people call who used to work at one of our pharmaceuticals and quit because it was too far to drive, but if they had rail, they could come back,” he said.

Either way, people on trains wouldn’t be in cars clogging the County’s roadways, Lawter said.

Without action soon, he feared that land suitable for a rail corridor would fill instead with new homes on large lots. “If we want to have an urban area along rail, we can’t wait much longer,” Lawter said.

Human services

Commissioner April Stephens said it was time County services gave seniors their due.

“These seniors are the ones who were here originally,” she said. “They’ve paid the most in taxes, and I feel like they have the least amount of services.”

“Whether it be medical, mental, transportation, our senior citizens kind of get left behind,” Stephens said. “And I really would like to see that they’re getting all of the service and the communication they deserve.”

Commissioner Harris felt much the same for Johnstonians suffering from mental illness.

Some years ago, the state moved to managed care for mental health and chose providers for the various regions of North Carolina. Alliance Health is the provider for Johnston, and the County has been working with Alliance to open a mental health urgent care center here.

It’s been slow going, Harris said. “Our friends at Alliance have been slightly difficult to work with and to move,” he said. “They always have a thousand reasons why we can’t do something. And now, I think they’re wanting to push for some type of virtual option instead of having a brick and mortar facility that we can have our citizens go to.”

“It’s really a frustrating process to me,” Harris said. “But I think we’re diligently pushing toward a resolution.”

Commissioner Lawter said human services had become a pressing need in Johnston. “As we’ve grown, we haven’t grown with all of us being healthy and wealthy,” he said. “And I think this has gotten to the level that we can’t not do something about it.”

County buildings

Commissioner Bill Stovall said the County needed to do a better job of selling its building needs.

For an example, he pointed to a planned new home for the Department of Social Services. “You’re looking at close to $100 million just for it alone,” he said.

Commissioners and County staff know the need because they’ve seen it, Stovall said. “We’ve literally got employees sitting in each other’s laps in the existing space,” he said.

The average citizen doesn’t know that, Stovall said. “They say, ‘Well, all you’re doing is building nice offices for bureaucrats to go sit in,’ ” he said.

The truth is that federal and state laws mandate social services, and as Johnston County has grown, so has the demand for those services, Stovall said. “I think we need to start publicizing those types of metrics to the citizens so they understand why we need these new facilities,” he said.

“We’re busting at the seams where we’re at,” Stovall said of the existing DSS buildings. “That’s why we’ve got to have this building. But until we can sell it to the public, it’s going to be a hard sale.”

Financial stewardship

This past year’s countywide property revaluation shocked Johnstonians, who, on average, saw their values climb more than 70%.

Before last year, Johnston had last done a revaluation in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic drove more people to largely rural Johnston, causing land and home prices to skyrocket.

Commissioner Lawter wondered whether Johnston should revalue property more often to avoid such huge shocks. “We’re at four years now,” he noted. “I think Wake County’s doing two. How do we get in that rotation where we don’t have huge spikes or dips and make sure we’re leveling out as best we can?”

After last year’s revaluation, Commissioners lowered the property-tax rate from 67 to 52 cents per $100 valuation, though many Johnstonians still paid higher tax bills.

Lawter suggested that tax cuts should be the norm when growth in the tax base allows. “I think that should always be our goal — to figure out how we can reduce that and put money back in the taxpayers’ pocket,” he said.

A more immediate question for Commissioners is whether to give the state-funded Clerk of Court’s office $1 million to hire staff. In the absence of a state budget, Clerk of Court Michelle Ball has asked the County for financial help.

“These are clearly state-funded positions,” Commissioner Godwin said. “And if the County takes it on, it just spreads that County dollar thinner and thinner.”

He was certain too that the state wouldn’t help if Johnston did. “If we take it on, we’ll never be able to give it up,” he said.

Commissioner Stovall faulted state lawmakers. “It’s disappointing that we don’t have a state budget,” he said. “Both houses of our General Assembly are controlled by the same party, and we can’t seem to come to agreement. That’s hurting state government services as well as local services because we’re having to do these types of things.”

Growth and land use

Commissioner Lawter wondered aloud whether Johnston had the staffing needed to enforce its many land-use rules.

“With our new stormwater regulations, I have a real concern on the enforcement end of this,” he said. “It’s hard for us to cover what we’ve got now.”

The new stormwater rules will require some new subdivisions to build two or more retention ponds, and all ponds require an annual inspection.

“I know the HOAs are not going to take care of all the things,” Lawter said. “So I just want to make sure we do some sort of evaluation of all of our land-use services to make sure we are staffed at a proper level.”

County Government is building its first park and mapping its first greenways, but Johnston County residents don’t have to wait on those, said Commissioner Michelle Pace Davis.

“There are opportunities for them to be able to enjoy passive recreation,” she said, calling on Johnston to promote those. “There are things in the towns for people to go and walk and bike.”

Education

Johnston school leaders routinely ask Commissioners for money for building repairs and maintenance, sometimes for a little, sometimes for a lot.

For both school and County buildings, Commissioner Lawter said he was looking to budget a consistent amount on upkeep, not $30 million one year and $5 million the next. “Just some way for us to better plan,” he said.

Commissioner Godwin said spending some dollars on maintenance was better than spending many on repairs. “If we could spend a dollar at the school system to keep things working properly through maintenance, we could maybe avoid $3 down the road,” he said. “That makes good sense to me.”

Amy Cannon of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners urged school and County leaders to talk often about school budget needs. “The best budget processes I’ve seen between county boards and boards of education is there’s discussion about budget all throughout the year,” she said. “So when you get that request for the board of education, there are really no surprises, and there’s an opportunity to explain it and justify it.

“Both sides can really plan because you can provide feedback along the way about the County funding that’s available.”

 

Page last updated on:  March 13, 2026