North Carolina Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in North Carolina, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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Can North Carolina State University finance a hotel, conference center, and golf course on its Centennial Campus through a non-profit LLC's bond issuance backed by a university usage-purchase commitment, without violating the State Constitution's public-purpose and credit-of-the-state limits?
Probably yes, given the financing structure NCSU built. The Project has a plausible public purpose under Maready (university-related uses primarily benefiting public interests). The bond structure doe…
Can a public hospital system in North Carolina lend operating revenues to a nonprofit hospital corporation it created to run a long-term acute care hospital?
Yes. The Municipal Hospital Act (G.S. § 131E-7(b)) lets public hospitals contract with nonprofit corporations to provide health care and use hospital revenues to fund those contracts. A $1.825 million…
Can the North Carolina Rural Internet Access Authority give grant money to for-profit companies to set up telecenters in rural counties?
Yes. The NC AG concluded in 2001 that the Rural Internet Access Authority (RIAA), a state agency, can award telecenter grants from its MCNC contributions to for-profit applicants. North Carolina const…
Could the UNC Health Care System legally spend $163 million in public funds to acquire control of Rex Healthcare, a private nonprofit hospital, without specific authorization from the General Assembly? Would Rex employees become state employees? Would Rex get state immunities?
The AG concluded yes the System had authority, no Rex employees would not become state employees, and no Rex would not get state immunities. The acquisition was structured as a corporate-control trans…
Can the NC legislature constitutionally give direct cash grants and low-interest loans to homeowners, farmers, and small businesses devastated by a hurricane?
Yes, in the AG's view. After Hurricane Floyd flattened eastern North Carolina, Senate leader Basnight and Speaker Black asked whether direct grants and below-market loans to individual victims would v…
Can a county board of commissioners create and run its own college scholarship program for students from county public schools?
No. The NC AG concluded that, although a county scholarship program serves a public purpose, no NC statute (general or local) grants counties the specific authority to establish their own college scho…
Can North Carolina's state revolving loan fund make loans to privately owned drinking water utilities, or does the state constitution's public-purpose limit on tax money block it?
Statutorily no, constitutionally yes if the General Assembly amends the law. The AG concluded that NCGS 159G-9 currently restricts the state revolving loan fund to units of local government, so privat…
Can the dean and faculty of a state medical school participate in a nonprofit physician contracting organization (and a for-profit administrative company owned by faculty) without running afoul of NC's conflict-of-interest, public-purpose, and Umstead Act limits?
Yes, the AG concluded. Participation by ECU School of Medicine faculty in ECHO (a nonprofit physician-contracting organization) and EMO (a for-profit network administrator partly owned by faculty) did…
The 1995 General Assembly gave the NC State Bar $500,000 'to further the criminal justice system.' Can the State Bar grant part of that money to a private, nonprofit corporation (the Center for Death Penalty Litigation) that supports capital defense work?
Yes, if the State Bar concludes the Center's work actually 'furthers the criminal justice system.' Enhancing the system by improving legal representation in capital cases is a public purpose, and publ…
Can a North Carolina municipal hospital legally join a physician-hospital organization (PHO) and put public money into it, so the hospital can compete in the managed care market?
Yes on all three counts. The AG concluded that NCGS 131E-7(b) authorizes municipal hospitals to enter joint ventures with physicians to create local PHOs that then form a Statewide PHO, that the expen…
Was 1993 N.C. House Bill 1109 (authorizing counties and cities to extend water/sewer to private industry, pay for site preparation for private industrial facilities, and statewide extend land-acquisition-and-conveyance powers for industrial recruitment) constitutional under the NC public-purpose and adequate-consideration clauses, and would a local-bill version of the same content raise an equal-protection problem?
The AG concluded the water/sewer extension provision raised no serious constitutional problem (utility service to industry has long been authorized). The site-preparation and statewide acquisition/con…
Can a NC city or town appropriate municipal funds to help a local school board buy property that will mostly be used as a school parking lot, but that the town will also use a few days a year?
Not for the school portion. The AG concluded that a NC town has no authority to appropriate municipal funds to acquire property that will be used for school or school-related purposes. The town may ap…
Does NCSU's TACIT program, which sells consulting services to North Carolina local governments to help them select computer systems, violate the Umstead Act's prohibition on state agencies competing with private business?
No. The Umstead Act forbids state agencies from rendering services 'to the public' that are ordinarily provided by private business. TACIT provides services to local governments, not to the general pu…
Can a North Carolina county spend its money on advertising the county's advantages (to attract tourists, businesses, and industry), and can it hand a chunk of that money over to the local Chamber of Commerce to do the actual advertising? Does it matter whether the money is property tax revenue or non-tax revenue?
Yes for both, but with significant limits. The 1978 AG concluded that under G.S. 153A-149(d) and Chapter 158, Article 1, a county may levy a property tax for advertising / local development only with …
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Attorney general opinions in North Carolina are written by the North Carolina Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.