Research Reports

Executive Summary North Carolina’s Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement System (TSERS) is widely recognized as being among the nation’s healthiest pension plan systems, currently almost 90 percent funded at a…

Introduction North Carolina’s K-12 public school finance system is broken. And efforts to fix it have been at least a decade in the making. This paper highlights the problems with…

Introduction While the national health care policy debate focuses on access to health insurance and health providers, the importance of oral care often does not receive the attention it should.

Introduction: A tale of two enterprising Tar Heels Bob has a bumper crop of North Carolina sweet potatoes. How can he get them to a consumer? Bob’s got a lot…

North Carolina has reduced tax rates in four of the last six years while building its savings to the highest level in history. We present seven traditions, institutions, and processes…

This is the second part of a three-part analysis of the federal government’s “equitable sharing” program and its impact in North Carolina. Part One explained how equitable sharing makes it…

Background Did you know that North Carolina used to be the nation’s leader in locally owned and operated distilleries? It’s true. In 1904 the state had 745 registered distilleries, 540…

Introduction The North Carolina State Health Plan provides health care coverage to more than 720,000 teachers, state employees, retirees, and their dependents. The office of the State Treasurer, currently held…

Executive Summary In 2017, North Carolinians were alerted to the discharge of a relatively new, unregulated chemical compound called “GenX” as well as other, similar compounds in the Cape Fear…

Background As early as April 2017, residents of southeastern North Carolina learned that levels of GenX compounds discovered in the Cape Fear River posed a threat to their drinking water.