This was the kind of week at city hall where everything happened at once. The first mandatory water restrictions in seventeen years took effect Friday. A $4.5 billion budget hearing Monday night. A data-center moratorium that flipped from a 5-5 deadlock to unanimous in two weeks. A state budget framework after ten months of standoff. A CMS board that rejected its superintendent's budget 8-1 two weeks ago and approved it unanimously Tuesday.
Here's what we covered at The Charlotte Mercury this week, distilled to six things worth keeping in your head this weekend.
1. Stage 2 water restrictions are now in effect.
Charlotte Water escalated to Stage 2 of the Low Inflow Protocol on Friday, May 15 — the first time the protocol has reached Stage 2 in seventeen years. The Catawba region has reached exceptional drought for the first time since 2008.
What's now enforceable: outdoor irrigation is limited to two days a week, between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Odd-numbered addresses water Tuesdays and Saturdays. Even-numbered addresses water Wednesdays and Sundays. Pools can be topped off — not filled — on Thursdays and Sundays during the same overnight window. Indoor use is not restricted. Violations carry fines starting at $100.
Two burn bans came alongside the restrictions: Mecklenburg County's countywide ban on parks, in effect since May 4, and a separate Charlotte Fire Marshal's citywide ban issued under the North Carolina Forest Service's statewide ban. Both prohibit grills, fire pits, and open flame.
The conservation target Charlotte Water is asking residents to hit: a 5 to 10 percent reduction in total regional water use.
2. The data-center moratorium went from 5-5 to unanimous in two weeks.
Two weeks ago, a 5-5 deadlock on a Charlotte data-center moratorium required Mayor Vi Lyles to break the tie just to defer the matter. Monday night, the same council voted unanimously to schedule a public hearing on a 150-day pause on new data-center approvals.
What changed, in Council Member Kimberly Owens's own words: "I was one of the people who voted to get more information on this before I was confident and comfortable making a decision." The intervening two weeks included a deep staff briefing on existing approvals, water and energy use, and what state law actually lets a municipality do — North Carolina's Senate Bill 382, in particular, restricts how much zoning authority Charlotte can lean on.
The public hearing is set for May 26. Council could adopt the moratorium as early as June 8. Two already-approved data centers — Powerhouse at University City Boulevard and Morris Chapel — are vested and unaffected.
3. Charlotte's $4.5 billion FY27 budget hearing drew more than 30 speakers.
Item 11 on Monday night's 4 p.m. special-session agenda was the public hearing on Charlotte's $4.5 billion FY27 budget. More than thirty residents, city employees, and nonprofit leaders signed up to speak. Nearly all of them told the council the proposal does not go far enough.
The asks broke into a few clusters: a $200 million housing bond instead of the proposed $125 million; 10 percent raises for firefighters and city workers instead of the proposed 7 and 4; restored funding for Safe Alliance's domestic-violence programs; expanded eviction-prevention legal aid; sustained funding for the Alternatives to Violence program. Nearly 1,500 residents signed onto a People's Budget platform behind those asks.
The schedule from here: amendments May 18, a first straw vote June 1, final adoption June 8.
Worth noting separately — Council Member Malcolm Graham, who chairs the budget committee, was asked twice on WBTV's Live Impact News Sunday whether he is a candidate to fill Mayor Vi Lyles's seat after she steps down June 30. Both times, he answered with the public hearing. He hasn't said yes. He hasn't said no.
4. After ten months, NC Republicans found a state-budget framework.
Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and House Speaker Destin Hall announced a budget framework in Raleigh on Tuesday afternoon, ending a ten-month standoff during which North Carolina had been the only state in the country still operating on a stale spending plan.
What it includes: teachers get an average 8 percent raise and a $48,000 starting salary floor before local supplements. Most state employees get about 3 percent — below the 3.8 percent inflation rate the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the same morning. The personal income tax steps down from the current 3.99 percent to 2.99 percent by 2034. A constitutional amendment capping the income tax at 3.5 percent goes on the November 2026 ballot. A second amendment limiting how much local governments can raise property taxes may follow.
The aim is a vote by mid-June.
5. The CMS Board approved Crystal Hill's amended budget unanimously — two weeks after rejecting it 8-1.
Two weeks after rejecting Superintendent Crystal Hill's $2.1 billion budget 8-1, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education unanimously approved her amended version Tuesday night. Six negotiated changes carried the difference.
The two that drew the most public testimony: the $2.4 million Capturing Kids' Hearts contract is eliminated and redirected — $1.6 million to in-classroom social-emotional learning, $800,000 to a competitive procurement for student-facing services. And all four CMS-DSS educational liaison positions — the foster-care liaisons that bridge the district and the Department of Social Services for roughly 400 students in Mecklenburg County foster care — are reinstated, funded by restructuring rather than new money.
District Court Judge Elizabeth Trosch, Mecklenburg's longest-serving juvenile-court judge, came to Tuesday's meeting to explain what twenty years of investment in those four positions had built. "When I first became a judge, the kids that I saw in foster care, they were failing out or they were truancied out of school," she told the board. "And the kids that are in foster care in Mecklenburg County today, because of these resources and investments, are thriving and succeeding." Other courts across North Carolina, she said, look to Mecklenburg to understand how to replicate it.
The state framework above is the variable holding everything else still. CMS's amended budget assumes a 5 percent state raise. The framework says 8 percent. If that holds in the final budget, the math gets easier.
6. The MPTA is hiring a CEO. The clock says July 1 — for now.
The Metropolitan Public Transportation Authority board launched a national CEO search Wednesday, working with Krauthamer & Associates across three phases, with finalists going to the board for interviews and a recommendation. Interim CEO Brent Cagle has been told he may apply and will be treated as a full candidate.
The deadline driving the search: July 1, the date MPTA is scheduled to assume operational control of CATS. That date may move. City Manager Marcus Jones told council last week that MPTA will not be ready by July 1 and proposed pushing the handoff to January 1, 2027.
Either way, the job is open. Chair David L. Howard, a former Charlotte mayor, framed the stakes plainly at Wednesday's meeting: "If all of this $30 billion winds up going to people in other cities, and we have left trains and buildings, we did something wrong."
Also worth knowing this week. Council adopted a non-binding resolution Monday calling for an independent re-evaluation of the I-77 South toll-lane corridor; a separate motion to rescind the P3 approval drew six votes and failed, after Mayor Pro Tem James Mitchell Jr. announced from the dais that he was "more informed now" and could not support rescinding. Carolina Ascent FC won 3-0 at Fort Lauderdale Saturday, extending its unbeaten run to ten matches and pushing past Lexington into second place in the Gainbridge Super League with one match left.
— Jack Beckett
Read the full stories at The Charlotte Mercury:
- Charlotte Water Escalates to Mandatory Restrictions as Drought Reaches Stage 2
- Mandatory Water Restrictions Begin Friday in Charlotte. The Five-Stage Protocol Behind Them.
- Charlotte Council Votes Unanimously for 150-Day Data Center Moratorium. Two Weeks Ago, It Was 5-5.
- Charlotte's $4.5 Billion Budget Drew More Than 30 Speakers Monday Night. Nearly All of Them Asked for More.
- A Budget Hearing, an I-77 Reset, Data Centers — and the Question Malcolm Graham Wouldn't Answer
- After Ten Months Without a Budget, NC Republicans Found a Framework. Most State Workers Get a Raise Below Inflation.
- CMS Board Unanimously Approves Hill's Amended Budget — Two Weeks After Denying It 8-1
- CMS Restored All Four Foster-Care Liaisons. A Judge Explained What 20 Years of That Investment Had Built.
- MPTA Launches CEO Search With July 1 Deadline Less Than Seven Weeks Away
- Charlotte Council Passed an I-77 Resolution Monday Night. Then Came the Vote That Actually Mattered.
- Three Carolina Ascent Players Scored at Fort Lauderdale. The Unbeaten Run Is Now Ten Matches.