Providing tax credit to corporations for existing employer-provided child care facilities

2025 Regular Session Introduced by Charles Clements and 1 co-sponsor

Designates Sparta's annual Fried Apple Pie Festival as North Carolina's official festival, ceremonial branding with no new funding or regulatory changes.

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Summary — SB 78: Official Fried Apple Pie Festival

Status & introduction
- Bill number: SB 78
- Title: Official Fried Apple Pie Festival
- Introduced: January 15, 2025
- Status (as provided): Passed 1st Reading

Purpose
- To designate the Town of Sparta’s annual Fried Apple Pie Festival as the official “Fried Apple Pie Festival” of the State of North Carolina.

Key provisions
- Adds a new section to Chapter 145 of the North Carolina General Statutes (proposed § 145‑52).
- Text of the new section adopts “The Fried Apple Pie Festival, held the first Saturday in the month of May of every year in the Town of Sparta” as the official Fried Apple Pie Festival of the State of North Carolina.

What the bill does not do
- The bill is purely ceremonial/statutory and does not create a program, appropriation, regulatory authority, or new regulatory obligations. It does not authorize state funding or impose mandates on local governments beyond the formal designation.

Who or what is affected
- Primary beneficiary: Town of Sparta (Alleghany County) and the festival organizers and participants.
- Secondary beneficiaries: local tourism, vendors, and cultural/heritage promoters that use the official designation in marketing.
- State agencies: none required to implement substantive changes; the Office of the Secretary of State or codifiers would update statute books.

Procedural/timeline notes
- The provision would become part of state law once the bill is enacted and signed by the Governor (or otherwise becomes law under the State’s constitutional process). The statutory language names the festival as occurring the first Saturday in May each year in Sparta.
- Because the change is declarative (an official designation), it would typically take effect upon enactment; there are no phased implementation dates.

Potential impacts and considerations
- Civic and tourism recognition: the designation provides a symbolic endorsement potentially useful for local promotion and grant or sponsorship efforts.
- No direct fiscal or regulatory impact on state budgets or operations is implied by the bill’s text.
- Local organizers may use the official status in branding; the law does not alter event operations, safety, licensing, or permitting requirements (those remain under local/state rules).