Steering Johnston County’s Future — My Second Sit‑Down with County Manager Rick Hester

Jonathan Breeden: [00:00:00] On this week’s episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast, we have our second episode with Johnston County manager, Rick Hester.

In this episode, we talked to him a little bit about him growing up in Elizabethtown, his time working for Johnston County. He started with Johnston County in 1987, the development of water and sewer districts in the county, the start of zoning in Johnston County in the late 1980s and the early 1990s.

The county’s funding and what the county does for the Johnston County School System, for the Sheriff’s Department and the Department of Social Services, and a little bit about how important agriculture is for Johnston County. So listen in. I think you’ll find this conversation enlightening and fascinating, and you will learn more about your county.

Welcome to another episode of Best of Johnston County, brought to you by Breeden Law Office. Our host, Jonathan Breeden, an experienced family lawyer with a deep connection to the community, is ready to take you on a journey through the area that he has called home for over 20 years. [00:01:00] Whether it’s a deep dive into the love locals have for the county or unraveling the complexities of family law, Best of Johnston County presents an authentic slice of this unique community.

Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another edition of The Best of Johnston County Podcast.

I’m your host,  Jonathan Breeden, and on today’s episode we have the second episode with county manager Rick Hester. So if you didn’t catch the first one, go back and listen to the first episode that ran a few weeks ago where we talked to him about his growing up in Elizabethtown, his playing baseball at Clemson and in the Texas Rangers Organization.

His in coming to Johnston County in 1987 and still being here, serving the citizens of this county till this time, and a little bit about the $350 million budget that he’s responsible for drafting for our county each year. On this episode, we’re gonna talk to him a little bit again, about where he is from and, all of that stuff.

For the, for those of you that listen to the first one. And we’re gonna talk a [00:02:00] little bit about the individual departments that he oversees on a daily basis that makes up Johnston County. There’s 20 departments, and we’re not gonna have time on this episode to go through all 20, but we’re gonna go through the ones that I find the most interesting.

And all of these departments affect your life on a daily basis and you should know about them. But before we do that, I wanna ask you to like, follow, subscribe to this podcast wherever you see it, whether it’s on Apple, Spotify. YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, or any of the other Instagram or any of the other best of Johnston County social media pages or Apple where you can find a podcast or wherever you’re getting this podcast, YouTube as well, so that you’ll be aware of future episodes of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. The Best of Johnston County Podcast comes out every single Monday and has now for well over a year, and we’re well into over 70 episodes.

So go back and listen to some of the previous ones. I think you will find them interesting and the conversations we’ve had. Somewhat timeless.

Welcome, Rick.

Rick Hester: Thank you sir for having me. [00:03:00]

Jonathan Breeden: Right. So anyway tell everybody who you are and what you do.

Rick Hester: Alright. I’m Rick Hester, Service County Manager, as you said, I’m. From Bladen County originally and moved here in 1987. So, it’s great to be here. I I love watching this show and I think you should go national.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, I told you, I think you, my wife. I have one neighbor and one of my good, my son’s good friend’s. Moms are the only people who listen to every single episode.

Episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. I, my parents don’t even listen to every episode. But anyway I do appreciate that. And we did start this to try to put out positive information about Johnston County and that’s what we’ve tried to do. Sure. So, growing up, when did it strike you?

I know your father was a county commissioner. Yes. When did you think I’m gonna go work in county government?

Rick Hester: Well, I always was intrigued by it because of my dad and his, and I saw the time and dedication he put in as being a county commissioner in Bladen County. And so it was always in the back of my mind, but my goal was to be a [00:04:00] major league baseball player.

And so when that ended in 86, that’s when I was thinking about, okay, what I wanna do with the rest of my life, I’d like to be in public service. And so I didn’t, you know, I thought county manager already had kind of a little bit of knowledge about it. Not much, but a little bit. But you can’t just go right into being a county manager, you know?

So, I mean, so I spent 12 years in Johnston County in the planning office and the county manager’s office, and learned a lot and was in position to do this in, in about 1999.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, I think it’s neat that you and I didn’t know until we recorded the first episode that you started in the planning office.

Rick Hester: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: When you think about the sheer growth of this area. I mean, you became an expert on zoning and land use and all of that for 12 years before you became the county manager, and that is probably one of the most important things that you have to focus on even now.

Rick Hester: Well, I’ve been here so long that we went out in the community.

We didn’t have [00:05:00] zoning in the late eighties. There was no zoning in the mid eighties. There was no zoning in the county. And so the commissioners at the time said we, probably need to look at having zoning. Regs. So we went out in the fire departments, opened their doors for us to have community meetings and schools, and we went out and had community meetings about zoning.

I remember ’em vividly at night and so, and I think I’m close to being right on this, but in 89, I think it was the four townships that Touch Wake County were established with zoning. And then a couple years later, countywide zoning came into play.

Jonathan Breeden: I did not know that.

Rick Hester: Yeah, sure.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, zoning, I know people get, upset about it, but it is crucial.

Rick Hester: It is

Jonathan Breeden: to having a livable working community. I was recently in Houston. I’ve been to Houston now twice in the last six months.

Rick Hester: Yeah,

Jonathan Breeden: for varying reasons. Having not been to Houston in 20 years. And if you’ve ever been to Houston where [00:06:00] the zoning was completely messed up, you can see what it looks like when it’s not done correctly.

And if any of you’ve been in Houston, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve got churches next to. Gas stations next to adult clubs, like it is just a mess down there a little bit. And you end up with a lot more sprawl as well. Yeah. And we don’t have a major city in Johnston County. Right.

But, you know, I think zoning is important.

Rick Hester: Yeah, I do too. So that was a big deal in 1990 timeframe for that. And one of the other things that came along about that time was, you know. We didn’t, there wasn’t official road names for all these roads in the county. Went through all that process, had these public meetings and community, I call ’em community meetings and, to establish formal road names for the county.

So all the green signs out here, you see on the road. I mean, that came about in the sort of the 90, 91 timeframe. And I remember clearly when they were [00:07:00] installed.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh man.

Rick Hester: And uh, then not long after that, we didn’t have a lot of water out in the county. Public water. Probably it was mostly in the towns and there was a little bit out here in the Cleveland area, I believe.

But so, USDA Rural Development, which was farmer’s home back then, I believe. They had a program where they would loan money and do grants for communities that wanted to establish a water district. So we started one in Hope. Well, we call it the Hope EPIs district. That’s two churches in that community.

And from there, 15 more of ’em follow that. Now we have a county wide water district. The purpose of those was there was so many people that were having trouble with their wells, just pure drinking water. I mean, it was a, we had folks come into meetings with water, I mean with uh, jars looked like apple juice, and that was their water.

So those programs were in place for good drinking water. Not to, you couldn’t use it to try to accelerate growth or, you know, they, you si had to size it a certain way and all that, so. Those are some things [00:08:00] that I really have some great memories of that I, I really think later on looking back were important.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and if you think about it, I mean there’s, there are some people as we sit here at

Rick Hester: yeah,

Jonathan Breeden: 40 42, and by the time this runs, it’ll be 40 36 and it’s Highway 42 is becoming highway 36 and February of 2025. That’s a whole nother debate for a whole nother day with it is US 70 becoming I 42. But you know, there’s still some people.

In this county that resent the commissioners in the nineties for doing the sewer project here at 40 42 that allowed for this commercial growth. And there are some people that are like, if that group of commissioners did not do this sewer district, this wouldn’t have happened. And we wouldn’t, it wouldn’t look like this.

And we would have our old county back.

Rick Hester: Yeah. And I, I wasn’t involved in that particular thing because I wasn’t in the, you know, the details of any of that. So. I really I won’t even fake it. I really don’t know a lot about that, so.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Yeah. I [00:09:00] mean, it’s just kind, I’ve heard people talk about it. Yeah.

I moved here in 2000. Yeah. The sewer was already here. The county water was already here, and 40 42 was on its way. You know, Johnston County had, was it 60,000 residents in 1990?

Rick Hester: When I moved in 87, we were about pushing 70,000 somewhere in that ballpark. Right. And now, so now we’re two 50 ish. 250.

Right. I mean, that’s unbelievable. Probably. 200, 2 50 and two or three more since we’ve been talking.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, a lot of people move in. I mean, golly, I think Donna White, one of our State House members told me that 13 people a day move into her house district and her house district is basically, I.

Part of Cleveland Clayton and corn holders. Yeah. And that’s it. Like just that northwest quadrant of the county.

Rick Hester: Sure.

Jonathan Breeden: And she said 13 people a day move into that district.

Rick Hester: Yep. I don’t doubt it.

Jonathan Breeden: I mean that’s, it’s unbelievable. So, so let’s talk a little bit about what some of the, county departments, that’s what we’ll talk about.

Let’s talk about water and [00:10:00] sewer. That’s under public utilities.

Rick Hester: That’s right.

Jonathan Breeden: We all pay our water bill.

Rick Hester: That’s right.

Jonathan Breeden: does it, Is it completely self-funded?

Rick Hester: Yes, its own business, if you will, enterprise fund. You know, and that, that’s a challenge because, you know, as you said, the folks that use the system are paying for it through their rates.

So yes, that it was important to try to keep that separate from the general fund with all the things that are, the pressures that are on the general fund in terms of. You know, schools, supporting schools, county operations, paying debt and things like, so yes, it is self-supporting.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Does it have its own board?

No. Or are you in charge of it?

Rick Hester: I, they, the utilities director reports to me and of course, obviously I report to the full board, so. Okay. Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: So we just opened up a new wastewater treatment plant

Rick Hester: mm-hmm

Jonathan Breeden: at the landfill.

Rick Hester: That’s right.

Jonathan Breeden: We’re here maybe October, November of 2024. How much capacity did that add and how much capacity are we still short?

Rick Hester: Well, you [00:11:00] know, the, it was like 4 million gallons per day, and then there’s already plans in there to continue to expand it. The key was to cabin area that was, could allow for expansions up to even up to 30 million gallons per day in the future. I mean, that’s gonna take a while,

Jonathan Breeden: right?

Rick Hester: But it was important to have that area to be able to do that. So yes. Now one of the things with wastewater is not only the capacity sometimes, but it’s having the capacity and the lines. So in growing communities, that’s something you had to watch too, is it’s one thing, capacity there, but the lines have to be able to handle it. So that’s been some projects that we’ve been involved with, upsizing.

Some lines too.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Well and then the other issue is you can’t just build it as much as you want because you have to be able to discharge it into water and you can only put so much discharge into the news. That’s right. And stuff like that. Where are we on maybe getting able to discharge maybe into Kate fear?

You know, going on the other side of Benson that will help us up that capacity to deal with this growth. Yeah,

Rick Hester: there’s a lot of rules in that inner [00:12:00] basin transfer kind of thing. I’m not an expert on it, but I know that if you take drinking water from a another river, you have to, you know, replace it back.

Whether it’s wastewater or whatever. Okay. You have to be able to do that. The inter basin transfer has limits on what you can do there. Okay. Now we do buy some water from Harnett County.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. We buy water from Harnett County, okay.

Rick Hester: We do, We do buy water from Harnett County. There’s a certain limit you can buy up to, I think it’s 2 million gallons per day before you get into inter basin rules.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Rick Hester: So we’re under that. And we work a lot. I’m glad you said that about the waters, because we partner with a lot of other communities. For example we buy water from the city of Wilson and like I mentioned Harnett County. We’ve got an arrangement with the Raleigh. We, the main source for water in this county is in Wilson’s Mills at the water treatment plant that’s right there on the News River.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Rick Hester: That’s the big biggest source right there. And then, you know, but there’s limits to that too. [00:13:00] You know? What you can draw there,

Jonathan Breeden: right? So everybody talks about the growth and maybe we’re going too fast and there’s the whole drawbridge syndrome. I’m here, I wanna roll up the drawbridge.

I don’t want anybody else to come here, but people are continuing to come. But they can only come to the amount of sewer and water that you can provide in the county. Our municipalities are all small and we don’t have any major cities in this county, so the county is providing a lot more water and sewer and services than most counties. Its size because we don’t have these bigger municipalities. So explain how that works and the problems that causes.

Rick Hester: Yeah, I mean. In Clayton, you know, is becoming, I don’t know what their population is. They’re moving up there pretty good. They’re probably in the 30 plus thousand population.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, I didn’t realize they were that big.

Rick Hester: Yeah. They, and I don’t have my numbers with me. Right. So, but we are probably one of the few counties in North Carolina that has a water treatment plant and a wastewater treatment plant services. Most have different setups where they might partner with a big [00:14:00] town like you said.

But for Johnston County and a lot of the other towns Smithfield has their own water treatment plant. We all try to work together. The county is the largest producer of water and we partner with towns in the county. We sell water to the most of the towns. Some of ’em have their own wells though.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Rick Hester: We got all Got it. Going in different directions there.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, I mean, do we have the capacity. To maintain the growth rate that we’re at. Are we gonna run into Garner and carry a little bit, but Garner in particular where they just, and unfortunately pine level last year, where they just can’t issue any more permits

Rick Hester: because they can’t service it well, I think we’re gonna have to continue to expand what we have and stay ahead of the curve with that, but I think we’ve got a good plan in place for that.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Well, cool.

Rick Hester: Now the biggest, the biggest challenge probably Jonathan, is water. I. For the long term, you know, and we had to plan for peak, we had to plan for those days where it’s peak usage and that’s a big deal, you know, [00:15:00] versus average, you know, like summertime we have a no rain for a couple of weeks and a lot of irrigation.

That drives up to a, peak number. We had to be. Prepare for that, or else we have to put in stringent water use and we try not to have to do that, you know? So, but so we’re, we’ve got all these different partnerships. We’re looking at some shorter term things we can do, and also long term one of the discussions and there’s no been, no decisions made, but.

12 or 15 years ago, the county bought that rock quarry down in the Princeton area and that was done for the possibility of a future water treatment plant there. Now, you know, obviously that’d be very expensive and a lot of planning involved and a lot of. You know, a lot of planning involved for that, but that’s a potential long use kind of thing.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, yeah. And I’m hoping that, that actually comes to fruition because I, I think it’s a good idea. I know some of the commissioners don’t think it’s a great idea.

Rick Hester: Sure.

Jonathan Breeden: But [00:16:00] it seems like a good idea to me is a place to where we can hold a lot of water. And we could work there and we could serve, because I don’t think people realize the western side of this county is growing too.

I mean, pine level east, east, eastern side, eastern side, right. Pine level is absolutely exploding. Princeton is growing as well. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Uh, I mean, I think what adventure development is doing there with the North State Food Hall and all that commercial development there. on that side of 95, at exit 97, it is going to have the Selma area and Wilsons, mills and Pine level are gonna just keep growing.

It’s not just Clayton and Corinth. Right. And McKees Crossroads in Cleveland anymore. I mean, this county’s growing everywhere. They’ve got growth in Benson right now, so, so it’s, I think we, we gotta look at it sort of holistically because everybody’s got the. Got growth and I think that’s a positive.

Some people say this as a negative, I think it’s a positive from a county like Scotland County that’s closing schools because they don’t have students and are raising taxes because they don’t have a tax base and they’ve got more adults not working than working. You know, that’s the last time where I [00:17:00] saw that is difficult.

You know what I mean? We don’t have those problems here. We have different problems, but I’ll take our problems over those problems any day of the week.

Rick Hester: Absolutely. And one of the interesting things about Johnston County is we’re one of the largest counties in North Carolina land size. We’re in the top five. This is a huge county. You know, so, you drive from uh, Benson to Kinley or from Clayton to Princeton. You know, that’s a pretty good, pretty good ride. So we’re one the large, I think s Samson County’s the largest county I. In North Carolina, I believe.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Samson’s, the largest landmass. We’re also the largest county by population without a major city.

I think we’re the 10th, largest county population wise, maybe in the state,

Rick Hester: Something like that.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And, And we’re the, and we don’t have a major city,

Rick Hester: correct.

Jonathan Breeden: I mean, I mean, Clayton’s growing, but like we don’t have Fayetteville or Asheville or Charlotte or, I mean, you think about. Wilmington, like New Hanover like, like, so that’s a unique thing too.

And we have a higher percentage of our population. Sure. Living outside of a city. About two thirds. Two thirds, which is more than most counties as well. Right. And that creates its own issues [00:18:00] because. You know, what this county is providing from water and sewer and sheriff and all that is way more, that’s what cities do.

And so this county is having to provide services like a city over a large land mass. Mm-hmm. And that’s not easy to do.

Rick Hester: Right. And it takes a lot of people, you know, like you take, we’re constantly looking like at pub, you know, one of the big priorities for the commissioners is public safety, which I think is, that’s so important when you think about law enforcement EMS 9 1 1 communications.

But you know, as the county grows, we’re continuously look at it where we have EMS locations. What’s the most. What’s the most strategic place to have those? A lot of those are partnered with fire departments. Correct. Which is great, but the fire departments are growing so much. Sometimes we. They eventually gonna need some vet space, you know, so.

Jonathan Breeden: Right, right. Well, and the county just took over, you know, the emss often were independent, small, they were businesses [00:19:00] and stuff. The county has now taken all of those over in the last five years. Absolutely. We do not have time with this podcast to go through all of that. Maybe we’ll get the, that’s a whole podcast.

Right, right. And we may need to get the, our EM instructor is retiring. Maybe we can get him on before he retires but, right. So they’ve taken that under, they are so connected largely to the fire departments. Cleveland Fire Department just opened up its third station.

Rick Hester: Sure.

Jonathan Breeden: On Cornwall Road. Very exciting.

Chris Ellington and them are doing a tremendous job there as well. But the sheriff’s department continues to grow. Oh, yeah. I mean, I personally think he needs another squad. I don’t know if he thinks that, but I do. I think with this budget thing, I think we need at least one squad or two, which would shrink the patrol districts and get more law enforcement officers out there because he is running more and more calls every year.

Right. Steve Bizzell, he’s been our sheriff since 1998. I think he’s done a tremendous job. I think he’s the best sheriff in North Carolina. And but he needs money.

Rick Hester: Yeah. And I think the sheriff’s always looking into that too. I’ll pass that along to him. Right? I mean, I really, I mean, I always

Jonathan Breeden: say we need more squads, right?

Because I want the, I want the patrol [00:20:00] districts, you know, like, like 40, 42 kind of has its own patrol district, but we need more, like you almost have the patrols like a city.

Rick Hester: Look, I’ll tell you, public safety is so critical. This thing I love about local government, I mean, what we do is we’re right every day. Like you said, local government doesn’t impact people’s lives. We hope it’s all positive. And I had a personal incident myself. I had a medical episode a couple weeks ago at my house, and so I’m lucky I’ve never ridden in the back of an ambulance, but I did that night I didn’t call him, called 9-1-1. It took, that’s the first step in it is that 9 1 1 call. Next thing you know, I had a first responder and an EMS person at my house. Taking care of me, putting me in the back of that ambulance, taking care of me, talking to the hospital on the way, telling them so they’ll know what they’re dealing with. And I was like, wow.

How seamless was that? You know, I didn’t particularly care to have gone through that. Right. But it was like, man, this is incredible.

Hey dude.

Jonathan Breeden: [00:21:00] Oh, I mean, I, I, I, you know, it’s funny, I, a few years ago I had a, we were cooking and we had a bunch of smoke go off, and the fire smoke went off and it’s connected to the alarm system.

And next thing I know Chris Ellington is at my door with a firetruck. Yep. And I was like. I didn’t call you. He said, your alarm system called me. And I was like, I felt so bad that they had come because I had smoked something. I was trying to cook and tried to blow the smoke out. And here, here they came.

Uh, I mean, I really, I really did appreciate that. I never forgot that. Uh, Absolutely. And he wasn’t even the chief then. He’s now the chief, but I’ll never forget that.

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Jonathan Breeden: So, you know, as we talk a little bit about the sheriff’s department he does a tremendous job. We talked about water and [00:22:00] sewer.

Rick Hester: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: Another thing is the schools, they’re the largest single line item. I think in the county budget. Last year we gave them over a hundred million dollars. I disagreed with that decision, but I’m not an elected county commissioner. What is some of the things that, why do they get a hundred million dollars?

What are some of the things they’re doing with that money? I know you’re not on the school board, but you look at their request every year.

Rick Hester: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: And they’re always asking for more.

Rick Hester: So traditionally, I think in North Carolina counties, way back really the requirement was counties to provide the capital funds, repairs, big renovation projects, things of that nature, and any kind of new construction.

And then over the years, you know, there’s been more local governments have put more money into the operating side. So each year by May 15th, schools are required to present or to provide their proposed budget to the county. A budget that they have voted on and said, this is what we wanna send along.

So that’s by May 15th. And so that, that information got, and by then I’m pretty close to sharing a [00:23:00] full budget with the board. So we try to have that number in the proposed budget if possible, because of the timing of it. And then so the commissioners, you know, they kinda weigh that out and look at, you know, all the different.

There’s so many variables with their budget. It’s hard to even, I don’t even know if I could even regurgitate all of ’em. Right. But there’s a lot of things in their budget on the. On the current expense operating side and also on the capital side outside of a referendum, but just money to keep the facilities in good shape, renovations and that thing.

So,

Jonathan Breeden: yeah, I mean, I know that the the counties traditionally their job by statute really Yes. Is to provide the buses, the building

Rick Hester: That’s right,

Jonathan Breeden: the janitors to clean the building. The desks that are in the building, whatever security the building has. And that’s really it. But I know here lately, I know we now provide over 50 assistant principals with county money, I believe.

There’s also the [00:24:00] county supplement to the teacher’s salaries. That’s right. That’s right. Which is, that is a local teacher supplement. Right. Which is. 13, 14%. Yeah, I should, I’m not sure of the exact number but that’s so that we can help recruit and retain teachers. Yes, yes. The county is also.

Responsible for fixing these buildings and, you know, boilers and chillers. That’s right. I mean, can be a million dollars roofs. Yeah. You know, so there’s a lot of that as well. You know, there’s the, and I know that the school board is always saying that we have all this deferred maintenance and we need more money for this, that and the other.

And then the other thing I guess that happened was. There was a bunch of Covid money and we ended up getting some positions paid for by Covid money. And then the Covid money ran for the federal government, and the school board came to the commissioner and said, we wanna keep these positions. And the commission agreed to keep most of ’em, I guess.

Rick Hester: I’m not sure. I, I don’t know that they had any recurring costs in there.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Rick Hester: But I, But I don’t, sorry, I don’t have that. Right. Well, I mean, you’ve

Jonathan Breeden: looked at it more than I have. I mean Yeah. But I,

Rick Hester: I may be wrong. Yeah. We’ll be looking at it.

Jonathan Breeden: So, yeah. so it did go up. $25 million from, or I don’t know, about [00:25:00] $25 million from 2023 to 2024 budget.

but the student numbers had stayed flat and so that was a big jump. Well, you also, well, you were serving

Rick Hester: more students. Yeah. And you also got, you know, that current expense, I call it current expense the operating supplemental funding. It also flows to the charter schools too, through the school system.

Jonathan Breeden: That’s right.

Rick Hester: So X amount goes to the school system and then a percentage of that goes out to News Charter or some of the other charter schools. Right. We have a LA, we have the one Clayton as

Jonathan Breeden: well. So they don’t keep that whole

Rick Hester: appropriation,

Jonathan Breeden: you know? Right. Okay. Alright. Well, cool, cool. So, right, and we have more and more kids going to charter schools in Johnston County.

And like

Rick Hester: you said, there’s so many different. Alternatives now homeschool,

Jonathan Breeden: right?

Rick Hester: Well, yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. You have the charter schools, you have home, you have the homeschool population is growing. You have private schools like Daley’s Academy at Flowers Plantation as well. I know that there are other charter schools looking.

At the Cleveland [00:26:00] community. I know where they’re talking about trying to put one out here

Rick Hester: Yep.

Jonathan Breeden: Near the Hardee’s in Cleveland Elementary School. And so I, I wouldn’t be surprised to see that one here Sure. In the next two or three years get built as well. I do wanna

Rick Hester: add one thing in there and it kind of relates to it, but you know, we’re talking about school funding and all the different things that the commissioners are responsible for.

We’ve talked about reevaluation, I think in the previous one, but in the last six years, the board has. Funded all these things and dropped the tax rate 11 cents in the last six years. So just to want to throw that out there. Yeah, well, ’cause right now we’re at 67 cents and it was 78. Now I get it.

Some people say, well, reval comes and you know, that’ll all work itself out. ’cause if this comes out in April. We haven’t even gotten to the hard budget stuff, but I did wanna mention the last six years in non reevaluation years, the board has dropped their rate.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and I think, and I think the rate’s gonna get cut substantially this year with the reevaluation.

And, you know, when it’s all said, done, at least 65%. Greater value to [00:27:00] tax than what we had from the 2019 numbers. And so, and that’s how counties get money, right? Like, I don’t think people have to understand this, but like counties can tax property and they get sales tax and they can charge some user fees and that’s it.

Like there’s not a lot of other funds. You get some federal funds

Rick Hester: through dss. We do. We do. And the food stamps and stuff like that. But there might be some investment income when the county. We invest money temporarily to draw, you know, to earn interest on that. So that’s another way.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. But really most of its revenue comes from taxing the property.

That it has

Rick Hester: property taxes.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Well, one thing that has helped this county is that the industrial expansion.

Rick Hester: Sure.

Jonathan Breeden: I mean, the first Novo expansion was $2 billion with a B. and That’s an unbelievable, I went and took a tour of that place. That is absolutely unbelievable.

Rick Hester: It is.

Jonathan Breeden: You do not think you’re in Johnston County. Like it is unbelievable that place. And at that point, that $2 billion for just that building, which is 97 acres under [00:28:00] roof, was more than the entire taxable base of the town of Clayton. The houses, the Walmarts, everything.

I don’t think the taxable base of Clayton was $2 billion when that was being built Maybe now, now Novo is gonna build a second one that’s about as big as the first one because they gotta make Ozempic. And so that’s gonna be another billion or $2 billion and one company doing business here and expanding, and that helps tremendously for the county.

Rick Hester: Well, the best part about it is those job opportunities for people.

Right. They’re high paying jobs.

Jobs and grifols too,

Jonathan Breeden: right? No, I mean they’re high paying jobs. They’re right here. Yes. And the other thing is that building is paying taxes on $2 billion. Sure. Doesn’t go to school. You know, it doesn’t really call the fire department.

It might it doesn’t need hope. It doesn’t have to. Right, right. It doesn’t need welfare services. You know what I mean? So it is a profit center. For the county. I mean, counties aren’t making profit, but like I say, I see it as a, as a net positive, paying that money into the county so the county can do other stuff [00:29:00] in the community.

Rick Hester: And I think that the way the board looks at those things is. How many jobs that, you know, that’s the jobs that’s really the big thing right there. But you’re right. I mean, there’s investment there in taxable area, but the jobs is the big thing.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and, right. High paying jobs. Yes. Good jobs.

And right. If you’re listening to this and you’re interested in. And Biopharmaceuticals are just having a different career path. They’re always hiring. It is not a ton of training. You don’t have to they will train you at the Johnston County Workforce Development Center but whatever they need you to do.

And it’s really good pay, really good benefits. A lot of really good people work there. Oh yeah. I know. It’s aton of good. Like it’s really phenomenal. Yes. Really a phenomenal situation. Alright, what we’ve talked about. The sheriff, we talked about the schools. We talked a little bit about water and sewer.

We’re running out of time here. The last one I wanna talk about is one people don’t see, but I see is Department of Social Services. And sort of how it’s structured and what it does. So it has its own board? Correct. And its board hires, its director. That’s right.

Rick Hester: By statute, [00:30:00] it is a separate board with those responsibilities.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. So. They don’t, and that director doesn’t answer to you.

Rick Hester: Does not. Now she does keep me posted on stuff. Okay. All right. So we have a great communication. She keeps me in the loop. We have a county commissioner. Mr. Harris is on that board. I. So, you know, he keeps us posted too. Right? Because at the end of the day, the county does provide funding there.

Correct. So there has to be that kind of communication. But as far as the everyday operations and things of that nature, it is with its own separate board and they, I think they meet monthly.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Okay. And our Department of Social Services needs a new building and has had it, they need a new building for a while.

Is that building gonna come to fruition? Well, I,

Rick Hester: I think that, you know, right now they’re in about five buildings, you know, in Smithfield. I do believe that the, one of the priorities of the board is a new DSS building, the timeframe on that to be determined. But yes, that is probably the biggest need when it comes to county.

Facilities.

Jonathan Breeden: [00:31:00] Right. Okay. Well that’s cool. Yeah. And I guess are, is there a plan to build a county administrative building and take the administration out of the courthouse? Well, let’s talk of that about 10 years ago, but I haven’t heard that lately.

Rick Hester: Well, the county purchased land out there. You know where the new public safety center and the detention center are?

70 East toward Princeton, bought some land across the street from there for future county facilities. So the land has been purchased. To be able to provide that at such time the board decides to do that.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. And at one point the board was talking about maybe going to the landfill and building some buildings, but they’re not gonna do that.

Rick Hester: No, I don’t think so. I think the, I think the wastewater treatment plant is taking up a lot of space there, and it’s a good place for it because they can flow there right Back to the river and all that stuff. So, but anyway, yeah, I do think the la the board’s position, the county well with that property across from.

The public new public safety center for future county facilities. It’s just a matter of timeframe and what does it cost, how do you [00:32:00] plan for it, things of that nature.

Jonathan Breeden: Alright. So what would you like to see? I mean, you, you advised the board does what it wants you and I’ve had many conversations, but I’m like, they need to do this.

And you’re like. They can do what they want. I just work for them. You know what I mean? What, what, What is your vision here for the next two to five years? What are people gonna see? What do you want to see them? What do you want people to be looking forward to?

Rick Hester: I think what you see is, and sometimes, you know, because people talk to me about growth and it depends on who you talk to about whether or not, you know, I think I tell people all the time because they’ll say.

Can we slow the growth down, but can we get a target? And I was like, well, to get those kind of commercial entities, you gotta have the numbers, you know, for their analysis. So, you know, I think we’ll continue to see a lot more commercial growth in Johnston County over the next five years. I think. We’ll, DOT is doing a great job with additional road projects that are needed.

Matter of fact, when I was driving here today and, you know, the new intersection interchange there on, right there near the school coming on 10/10, near the uh,

Jonathan Breeden: Westview Elementary

[00:33:00] School.

Rick Hester: I mean, that’s been a great addition. I know it’s been there a couple, three years.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah.

Well, right. They, yeah. Well, they just fully opened the intersection there with the exit off of 40, a few months ago. Yeah.

Rick Hester: But what one thing that I, I see. And I’m so, and you’ve, you’ve interviewed Adrian O’Neal.

Jonathan Breeden: Yes. He’s phenomenal. He is absolutely phenomenal.

Rick Hester: He has been. He was amazing. Hire. Came from state parks and I talked to him this morning and the kind of things that he’s looking at doing, I love and all over the county.

You know, opportunities to purchase land for future open space greenways. And those are the kind of things that I think we’ll see a lot more of.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and I hope the board will keep moving forward with the c with the Cleveland Park out here. And you know, I’ve, I’ve always thought that my grandchildren might.

Play in that park, but I would like to see that park maybe move a little faster than it is moving over the next few years, and maybe this board will figure out a way to, to fast track that a little faster than it’s coming, you know? But I’m glad that the park is going to happen.

Rick Hester: Well, the [00:34:00] regional park here in Cleveland this summer, they’re gonna be starting some work out there with some pickleball courts, maybe a basketball court or two parking lot areas. You’ll see a sort of a phase one there.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. And that’s gonna be neat. I mean he talked about that and, we may have to have Adrian come back on ’cause he was on Yep. About a year ago. And we may have to come back, but I know they were gonna do the parking lot and maybe a basketball court they’re gonna put in a drainage pond and some, something like that.

And maybe pickleball, fish pond, a fishing pond. That’s it. Yeah.

Rick Hester: And one of the, Adrian has such great relationships, like with Triangle Land Conservancy. We partner with them on projects to conserve land. Right. I mean, it, he’s done a great job.

Jonathan Breeden: No, Adrian O’Neal has, has been a tremendous, he’s the parks rec director in Johnston County.

He was the first person to ever hold that position.

Rick Hester: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: He has done a tremendous job. I thanked the board repeatedly for him being hired for him getting a budget.

Rick Hester: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: You know what I mean? So that he could start to. Put all these different entities together and he was the right person

Rick Hester: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: At the right time.

Rick Hester: That’s right.

Jonathan Breeden: [00:35:00] And you don’t always get that.

Rick Hester: That’s right.

Jonathan Breeden: But we got that in Adrian O’Neal, in my opinion.

Rick Hester: And he also partners and talks with school, the school folks, about ways we can maximize use of ball fields and, you know, those kind of things, so.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, he does. He’s And he’s so nice.

Rick Hester: He is.

Jonathan Breeden: That’s, he’s disarming to people.

And he just says he comes at it from. How can we make this work?

Rick Hester: That’s right.

Jonathan Breeden: And that’s kind of exciting. Alright, well the last thing we ask everybody, and golly, we could talk for hours and hours and hours and we’ll definitely have to have you back, is what do you love most about Johnston County?

Rick Hester: I think it’s, I’ve said this before, it’s dynamic, it’s electric and uh, we’ve got the best of both worlds. We’ve got growth. We’ve also got. Agriculture is strong in Johnston County and that’s a great thing. But as people say all the time, people make it great.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, we do have the best people and we grow a ton of sweet potatoes.

Rick Hester: Yep.

Jonathan Breeden: And hopefully we’ll be able to have somebody on talk about the growing of sweet potatoes.

Rick Hester: Bryan Spivey would be a good one.

Jonathan Breeden: Who?

Rick Hester: Bryan Spivey.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.  Bryan Spivey. So we’ll have to try to reach [00:36:00] out to him.

Rick Hester: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: ’cause I know we grow a lot of sweet potatoes in Johnston County.

Rick Hester: Yep.

Jonathan Breeden: We would like to thank. Rick Hester from coming on and being our guest on this episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast.

As we mentioned earlier, go back a couple of weeks and you can listen to the first episode we had on with him, where we talked about more about county government, and a little bit about the budgeting as well. If you would be so kind as a like, follow, subscribe to this podcast wherever you’re seeing it.

It be on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, or any of the other social media channels. So you’ll be aware of future episodes of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. That would be great. Leave us a five star review, share this in your Instagram stories and tag us with The Best of Johnston County, and we would be greatly appreciative of that.

Until next time, I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden.

That’s the end of today’s episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.

If the [00:37:00] legal aspects highlighted raised some questions, help is just around the corner at www. breedenfirm. com.