North Carolina lawmakers passed a bill Monday aimed at cracking down on local officials who use their positions for financial gain.
The bill, which passed the House and the Senate and awaits Gov. Roy Cooper’s signature, stems from an audit of Rocky Mount’s finances last year, but it would apply statewide.
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According to State Auditor Beth Wood, Rocky Mount Councilman Andre Knight didn’t pay his utility bill for years and owed more than $47,000. The Rocky Mount city manager wrote off the debt, but the city had no legal means to get the money back, city officials said earlier this year.
The bill that passed Monday would require local governments across the state to garnish wages to recover lost money in similar situations. It would also make it a felony for public officials to financially benefit from misusing their position, and allow the Local Government Commission to follow up on any audit conducted since 2018, including the one in Rocky Mount.
“There are so many small towns where the citizens are expecting the elected officials to be looking after them, and in reality, they're not,” Wood said in an interview. “They are taking advantage of their positions. They're abusing their position, and there's nothing anybody can do about it.”
Knight didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. He previously denied findings by the state auditor.
“It’s a lie,” Knight said in June. “Everything she put in that report was not true.”
The state NAACP has accused Wood of racism for targeting Rocky Mount officials. Democrats, including Rep. Kandie Smith, D-Pitt, questioned whether those officials could face charges under the bill.
“It is not wise, and it does not make sense, and it seems like it's targeting, especially when you look at those smaller municipalities,” Smith said Monday during a debate on the House floor. “This looks like spot zoning to me.”
Wood, who along with State Treasurer Dale Folwell, has been pushing the bill all year, says racism has nothing to do with it.
“They should have known it was wrong to begin with,” she said. “God help us that we've had to pass a law that says you take advantage and abuse your position. As an elected official, you should have already known that it was wrong.”
The state’s constitution doesn't allow people to be prosecuted for committing an act before the act was made criminal. However, Rep. Matthew Winston, R-Franklin, said that’s not the case for misuse of public office or public money.
“They’re already criminal offenses,” he said. “It’s just now this makes it punitive.”
Wood said she would have no problem with lawmakers who’ve misused their offices facing retroactive penalties for it. She also said she’s working on more than two dozen investigative audits of local governments around the state.