Credit union teams up with School of Government for initiatves

The UNC School of Government is teaming up with the Local Government Federal Credit Union to help economically distressed communities across the state.

The credit union, which is a nonprofit financial cooperative, has pledged to fund two initiatives to help local governments across North Carolina — giving $1 million to the first project and $625,000 to the other.

The main project, Expanding Development Finance in North Carolina, is meant to help create new opportunities for the poorer communities in the state by increasing access to financial development tools such as tax credits.

The other project, the Fellows Executive Development Program, is aimed at helping local government officials build and maintain finance programs.

While the credit union and the School of Government have a long history of working together in the past, this will mark the largest partnership they have had so far, said Erica Hinton, spokeswoman for the credit union.

“We really share a common vision,” Hinton said.

The credit union has already given $300,000 to the School of Government, she said.

The development finance initiative will receive $200,000 a year for five years and the fellows program’s annual sum will vary for its four years, Hinton said.

The goal is to make the programs self-sustainable after the funds run out, she said.

The partnership has been in the works for a year, she said.

The need for the development finance initiative stems from the school receiving calls from local governments looking for assistance with financial issues, said Tyler Mulligan, assistant professor of public law and government at UNC, who helped spearhead the project.

“It’s come to our attention that local governments don’t have the capacity to deal with complex finance mechanisms,” he said.

Will Lambe, director of communications and economics programs and another leader of the initiative, said the project will identify distressed areas that are ready for growth and development and help them with projects like renovations in real estate and small businesses.

These projects would typically fail if the local bank could not provide funding — and the tax credits are usually too complicated to implement correctly, he said.

“It might be able to get done if we were to come in and help them fill the gaps,” Lambe said.

After five years of funding are complete, the School of Government might continue the work or recommend the state develop the same capacity, he said.

“The point of doing that is to test whether or not this service is needed,” he said.

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