Accomplishments

• Under Governor Cooper’s leadership, North Carolina has grown its economy at record-breaking levels and brought home good-paying jobs in everything from advanced manufacturing to clean energy.
• In 2022 and 2023, North Carolina was named America’s Top State for Business by CNBC. North Carolina finished 2^nd in 2024 and has ranked in the top three for the last five years. 

Since Governor Cooper took office in 2017, North Carolina has added more than 640,000 good-paying jobs and billions of dollars in investments across the state. North Carolina continues to recruit good-paying jobs in advanced manufacturing, clean energy, and technology industries already thriving in the rural and urban parts of the state.

• Under Governor Cooper’s leadership, North Carolina became the epicenter of the clean energy economy.
• Governor Cooper issued Executive Order 80 in 2018 which created the North Carolina Clean Energy Plan and laid the groundwork for the state to transition toward a clean energy future, creating good-paying jobs in the process.
• In 2021, Governor Cooper signed a bipartisan law to move North Carolina into a reliable and affordable clean energy future, requiring North Carolina to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
• North Carolina has announced major clean energy jobs announcements from companies including Wolfspeed, Toyota, Boom Supersonic, Siemens Energy, Kempower, and Natron resulting in thousands of good-paying clean energy jobs. 

Teachers deserve to be paid like the professionals they are, and Governor Cooper has fought tirelessly to raise teacher pay. Each year in office, Governor Cooper proposed a state budget that would give North Carolina’s public schools the funding they need and provide meaningful raises for teachers and school officials. Governor Cooper proposed budgets and plans that would have made North Carolina first in the Southeast for teacher pay. Throughout the Governor’s time in office, the state raised average teacher pay by over 19%.

• Diversity at the front of the classroom improves student success across the board. Governor Cooper created the Developing a Representative and Inclusive Vision for Education (DRIVE) Task Force resulting in recommendations and an action plan to increase the racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of North Carolina’s educator workforce.
• Under the Governor’s leadership, the Teaching Fellows program was expanded to three additional campuses including two historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

• Announced a historic investment in North Carolina’s early care and learning child care programs to keep child care centers open and improve early childhood teacher pay. A total of $1.1 billion in child care stabilization grants has gone to child care programs across 99 counties in North Carolina. Grant recipients used the funds to boost teacher pay, mental health support, payments for rent, mortgage, utilities, facility maintenance or insurance, equipment and supplies and goods or services necessary to maintain child care.  More funding is needed in the coming years to keep these essential businesses operating.
• Directed $8 million in federal funding to all NC Pre-K classrooms to help address classroom needs.
• Reauthorized the state’s Early Childhood Advisory Council to convene experts from a wide range of fields that contribute to young children’s healthy development, education and well-being.

• Governor Cooper launched the Longleaf Commitment program, a $25.5 million investment to guarantee that 2021 graduating high school seniors from low- and middle-income families received at least $2,800 in federal and state grants to cover tuition and most fees at any of the state’s 58 community colleges. In November 2021, the Governor signed the bipartisan state budget into law which expanded the Longleaf Commitment Program to include 2022 high school graduates. To date, more than 27,400 students have received a Longleaf Commitment Grant totaling over $25.5 million. 77% of the grants have gone to students with family incomes less than $60,000.
• The Governor launched the Finish Line Grants program to help community college students who face unforeseen financial emergencies complete their training. More than $7.5 million in Finish Line Grants have helped thousands of community college students complete their training and prepare to enter the workforce. Finish Line Grants have helped students pay for course materials, housing, medical needs, dependent care, and other financial emergencies that students faced through no fault of their own.
• Governor Cooper directed $20 million to create Workforce Resilience Grants for eligible community college students pursuing high-demand workforce training programs within ten workforce pathways leading to a state or industry recognized credential, including in advanced manufacturing, automotive, IT, construction and education. To date, more than 22,500 students across the state have received Workforce Resilience Grants.
• The Governor announced a $23.7 million investment to create STEPs4GROWTH, a clean energy workforce training program at NC A&T that will start in high school and continue through college. He also announced that North Carolina was selected as a partner in the EVeryone Charging Forward program, receiving $1.6 million in EV career pathway funding.

Governor Cooper never stopped fighting for Medicaid expansion. After a decade of work, Medicaid expansion launched in North Carolina on December 1, 2023. Thanks to months of planning prior to launch, the state was able immediately to enroll nearly 300,000 people who had been receiving Medicaid Family Planning benefits. At the time of launch, it was estimated that it would take two years to enroll 600,000 newly eligible individuals and families into Medicaid. Thanks to Governor Cooper, Secretary Kinsley, state partners, community-based organizations, local advocates and other trusted messengers, North Carolina has reached more than 600,000 enrolled in just one year, half the time that was projected.

• After enacting Medicaid expansion, it became clear that many North Carolinians were still suffering under the burden of medical debt. Governor Cooper and NCDHHS worked with hospitals and other stakeholders to create a first-of-its-kind medical debt relief program that will relieve $4 billion in existing medical debt for nearly two million of low and middle-income North Carolinians and ease the burden of medical debt in the future.
• The program offers enhanced Medicaid payments from the federal government in exchange for relieving certain medical debt. All of the state’s 99 eligible hospitals have signed on to the state’s innovative plan, and states across the country can now look to North Carolina for a roadmap on how to help.

• During his two terms, Governor Cooper prioritized investing in mental health resources and support. Through Medicaid expansion, the Governor and NCDHHS secured a transformative $835 million investment in mental and behavioral health to make it possible for more North Carolinians to receive care when and where they need it.
• This monumental investment will help ensure that people’s behavioral health needs are better met by funding services for people experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis, helping individuals with behavioral health conditions avoid incarceration, helping children with complex needs and supports for families and strengthening the behavioral health workforce.

• In 2022, Governor Cooper and NCDHHS launched the Healthy Opportunities Pilots, a first-in-the-nation effort to recognize that supporting health doesn’t just happen at the doctor’s office or in a hospital. The program invests in non-medical support related to housing, food, transportation and more for high-needs Medicaid recipients.
• Early findings on this innovative program show that it works by saving money and keeping people healthier. Participants saw decreased rates of hospitalization and significantly lower health care spending. Two years into the pilot, the state is spending about $85 less in medical costs per beneficiary per month.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Florence Governor Cooper established the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) to lead the state’s efforts in rebuilding smarter and stronger.  NCORR managed state and federal funding to help North Carolinians rebuild their homes and aimed at making North Carolina communities safer and more resilient from future storms. Our collective recovery effort has led to more than 13,000 homes being rebuilt or repaired along with hundreds of roads, bridges and public buildings.

• In November 2024, Governor Cooper led a delegation of state and local leaders and officials to Washington, D.C. to present a request for $25.57 billion in federal aid to support the recovery process from Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina. While in Washington, the Governor met with President Biden, Senator Thom Tillis, Senator Ted Budd, Congressman Chuck Edwards and other federal officials.

• A preliminary assessment by the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management estimated total damages to be $53.6 billion, more than three times the amount of Hurricane Florence in 2018. The Biden Administration agreed to cover 90% of disaster recovery costs for Western North Carolina following the Governor’s request.

In 2023, Governor Roy Cooper announced the creation of a statewide Office of Violence Prevention located in the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. By coordinating efforts across state agencies and partnering with local leaders, the office focuses on reducing violence and firearm misuse in North Carolina. Working closely with other state agencies, including the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the office works to ensure a whole of government and public health approach to reducing violence. The office offers training and technical assistance, issues best practice guidance and model processes, facilitates information sharing across state and local leaders working to reduce violence, conduct public awareness campaigns, share data, collaborate with research institutions, and identify and apply for funding from federal and philanthropic sources. In 2024, Governor Cooper announced the release of North Carolina’s first Community Violence Prevention Strategic Plan, a milestone in the effort to reduce violence, harm from violence and firearm misuse across the state. The three-year plan was developed and released by the North Carolina Office of Violence Prevention.

• In January 2024, Governor Cooper issued Executive Order No. 303 directing whole-of-government coordination to improve reentry for formerly incarcerated people in the most significant effort targeted at strengthening reentry in state history. The Order aims to improve rehabilitation and reentry services for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in North Carolina through specific directives developed in partnership with each cabinet agency, the Office of State Human Resources and the Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission. This Executive Order builds on the existing mission of the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction (DAC) while unifying state agencies under the shared goal of improving reentry services. In December 2024, Governor Cooper announced the release of the first Reentry 2030 Progress Report.

• This report, which was directed by Executive Order 303, provides a scorecard of progress made towards objectives, strategies, and metrics established by the Joint Reentry Council in its Reentry 2030 Strategic Plan, which was released in August. Additionally, the Report contains updated state reentry accomplishments, along with recommendations to the General Assembly for legislative actions to improve reentry in North Carolina this upcoming 2025 Session.

• In 2018, Governor Cooper directed the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) to undertake a comprehensive inventory of the quality of information North Carolina shares with the federal background check system known as the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). In 2019, Cooper announced that as a result of that work, 284,289 individual instances of criminal convictions that had previously been unreported in the NICS database were added.
• In 2019, Governor Cooper signed an executive directive requiring state agencies to take increased action on closing crime reporting gaps between state and federal agencies and expanding firearm safety education.
• In 2023, Governor Roy Cooper announced the NC S.A.F.E. (Secure All Firearms Effectively) initiative to urge North Carolinians to take action to safely store their firearms and save lives. This call to action highlights firearm safety in response to mounting numbers of deaths of children and youth from firearm injury, along with a surge in firearm thefts across the state. The NC S.A.F.E. (Secure All Firearms Effectively) initiative provides resources on best practices for firearm storage and safety.

In June 2020, Governor Cooper launched the Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice (TREC). TREC focuses on addressing existing policies and procedures that disproportionately affect communities of color and developing solutions to ensure racial equity in North Carolina’s criminal justice system.

In 2023, the State of North Carolina was ranked by Forbes as a top-50 Best Employer for Veterans in the country, clocking in at No. 46. North Carolina was the only state government to receive recognition in the Best Employers for Veterans 2023 rankings, which consisted of 150 employers.

To help make North Carolina a welcoming place for servicemembers who are transitioning into civilian life, Governor Cooper established the Governor’s Working Group on Veterans Affairs, which focuses on job creation, workforce enrichment, health and wellness, legal and financial services and benefits for veterans.

• In 2024, Governor Cooper hosted a veterans roundtable to discuss employment initiatives and how the state can better support members, visited Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune where he viewed construction on base and met with military leaders and service members, and visited Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point where he participated in the North Carolina Commanders’ Council Meeting and joined officials on a tour of the installation.
• Governor Cooper proclaimed Employ a Veteran Week, hosted a Military Appreciation Month celebration, and advocated for investments in early childhood education centers and public schools in servicemember communities.