Harnett County, North Carolina, 2027-2033 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) Alert

Quick Answer

Harnett County’s 2027-2033 Capital Improvements Program totals $115.64 million, down $48.08 million (−29.4%) from the 2026-2032 plan’s $163.73 million, spread across 68 projects versus 67 previously. The decline is concentrated almost entirely in education: the Harnett County capital improvement plan now programs far fewer school dollars inside its own seven-year window, while the airport and parks programs grew. Project count held essentially flat, so the drop shows up as a smaller average project — $1.70 million now versus $2.44 million before.

How Did Harnett County’s Capital Spending Change Between the Last Two CIPs?

The county re-adopts its CIP every year, rolling the seven-year window forward one cycle. Comparing the 2026-2032 edition with the newly approved 2027-2033 edition shows a materially smaller programmed total on a near-identical project count.

Table 1. Harnett County CIP, edition over edition

Totals count only the dollars each plan programs in its own seven years — not spending booked in earlier years and not spending beyond the window.

This is a re-phasing rather than a shrinking pipeline. The project list is slightly longer, but several of the county’s largest items — including a new elementary school in northwestern Harnett carrying a $45.80 million budget, a $7.29 million elementary gym addition, and a $7.24 million airport terminal — now carry no dollars inside the 2027-2033 fiscal years, pushing their cost outside the counted window and pulling the plan total down.

Which Departments Saw the Largest Changes in Harnett County’s CIP?

Table 2. Largest department moves, 2026-2032 to 2027-2033

The figures above are the plan’s own department totals over each plan’s own years.

Harnett County Schools drove the entire swing: its −$58.02 million move is larger than the plan’s overall −$48.08 million change, meaning growth elsewhere partially offset it. Vendors in school construction projects should read this as timing, not cancellation — the county’s education pipeline still carries large unfunded and future-year items. Meanwhile Parks & Recreation more than doubled and the Harnett Regional Jetport added nearly $5.8 million, making airport infrastructure projects and parks and recreation construction projects the two clearest growth lanes in this edition.

What Are the Largest Projects in Harnett County’s 2027-2033 CIP?

Ranked by the dollars each project is programmed to receive inside the plan’s own fiscal years:

• Flatwoods Middle School — $25.64 million (Educational Facilities). Construct a new 154,000-square-foot school to accommodate 1,100 students and to alleviate existing and projected overcrowding at Harnett Central and Overhills middle schools.
• Runway Extension — $13.87 million (Airports). Construct a 500-foot extension of the HRJ runway, located at 615 Airport Road, Erwin, to provide adequate space to meet the demands of the growing aviation industry in the region.
• Harnett County Schools Maintenance Fund — $9.80 million (Educational Facilities). Provide a reliable funding mechanism for Harnett County Schools to replace critical mechanical systems, windows, and roofs before failure, beginning in FY 2027 with a gym roof repair, bard unit replacements, an HVAC replacement at one high school, and parking lot repaving at one middle school.
• Animal Shelter Replacement — $9.32 million (Public Safety Facilities). Construct a new animal services shelter facility at a location to be determined.
• Anderson Creek Nature Center and Library — $7.74 million (Public Spaces and Neighborhoods). Design and construct a multi-use facility at Anderson Creek Park, located at 1491 Nursery Rd, Lillington, as a collaborative initiative between Parks and Recreation, the Board of Elections, and the Public Library.

Together these five account for roughly the majority of the plan’s programmed dollars, and they span three distinct procurement lanes — school construction projects, airport infrastructure projects, and county facilities.

How Is Harnett County’s CIP Governed and Approved?

The CIP is prepared by the county’s Budget Office, a division of the Office of the County Manager, which supports both the annual operating budget and the multi-year capital program. [3] Requests originate at the department or agency level and are submitted to the Budget Office on a published schedule. [1] Each request is vetted by a CIP Management Team — the County Manager, Assistant County Managers, Finance Officer, and Budget Director — against criteria including safety, mandate, timing and linkages, economic impact, efficiencies, service-level maintenance, and financing; the Manager’s Office then recommends a proposed program to the Board. [3]

The Harnett County Board of Commissioners is responsible for adopting a CIP annually and may amend it as needed; the county’s own capital policy requires a program of at least seven years, reviewed and updated each year, and sets the capital threshold at $100,000 and above. [2] The approved 2027-2033 edition was adopted on January 5, 2026. [4] Critically for vendors, the county states plainly that the CIP is a plan, not a budget: before funds can be spent, a project must be authorized either through the operating budget or, for projects spanning more than one fiscal year, through a separately adopted capital project ordinance. [1] Milestones for the Harnett County CIP and the annual operating budget are set out in a Board-approved budget calendar adopted each August. [3] The FY2026-2027 operating budget was adopted at a Special Meeting on June 30, 2026. [11] Major school items have been financed through installment financing contracts and limited obligation bonds, as the Board did for Flatwoods Middle School. [10]

What Is the History of Harnett County and Its Infrastructure?

Harnett County was formed in 1855 from part of Cumberland County and is named for Cornelius Harnett, a Revolutionary War patriot who served as President of the Provincial Council and Council of Safety, sat as a Continental Congress delegate, and was principal author of the Halifax Resolves of April 12, 1776. [5] Lillington was chartered as the county seat in 1859, named for Revolutionary War Brigadier General John Alexander Lillington. [5] The county’s population stood at roughly 150,100 as of 2025, making it the 22nd-most populous county in North Carolina. [6]

The county’s principal utility system is Harnett Regional Water, which serves approximately 125,000 people across Harnett County and the surrounding Cape Fear region and is led by a county-appointed Director overseeing utility operations and long-range infrastructure planning. [7] Beyond water and sewer, the county owns and plans for public schools, Central Carolina Community College facilities, the Harnett Regional Jetport, the Harnett Area Rural Transit System, parks, emergency services and detention facilities — the department structure the CIP itself uses. Campbell University, in Buies Creek, adds a significant educational and cultural dimension to the county. [5]

Fun Facts About Harnett County

• The Tuscarora and Saura peoples were the first known inhabitants of the area now known as Harnett County; Scottish immigrants — many Highland Scots displaced after the Jacobite Rebellions of 1745 — were the first European settlers in the early 18th century. [5]
• One of the last battles of the Civil War was fought at Averasboro, near present-day Erwin, in March 1865, where Union General William Sherman’s forces defeated Confederate General William Hardee during Sherman’s march north. [5]
• Raven Rock State Park, founded in 1970, is the county’s primary tourist attraction, offering camping, picnicking, hiking, horseback riding, fishing and canoeing along the Cape Fear River. [5]
• Both the county and its seat carry Revolutionary-era names — Cornelius Harnett and John Alexander Lillington — tying local place-names directly to the founding era of the United States. [5]
• Cornelius Harnett was a Founding-era figure of national standing in North Carolina politics, placing Harnett among the several NC counties named for Revolutionary statesmen rather than later figures. [8]
• The county contains multiple sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places, reflecting a built heritage spanning its 19th- and early 20th-century settlement and agricultural history. [9]

How FirmoGraphs Can Help?

FirmoGraphs tracks published capital improvement plans across hundreds of public agencies and flags edition-over-edition changes like this one — a department that doubled, a program that re-phased, a project that moved from future to funded. That lets A/E firms, contractors and equipment vendors engage an agency while scope and delivery method are still being set, rather than at bid advertisement. Learn more at FirmoGraphs.

References

[1] Harnett County Approved 2027-2033 Capital Improvements Program — notebook — Harnett County Approved 2027-2033 Capital Improvements Program (pp. 8, 16) [2] Harnett County Capital Improvement Policy, Approved Budget 2026-2027 — notebook — Board of Commissioners meeting packet 071426 m (p. 140) [3] Harnett County Budget Office — web — https://harnett.org/budget/ [4] Harnett County Capital Improvements Program (CIP) — web — https://harnett.org/budget/capital-improvements-program-cip.asp [5] Harnett County (1855) — web — https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/harnett-county-1855/ [6] How many people live in Harnett County, NC — web — https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-people-live-in-the-us/county/harnett-county-nc/ [7] Harnett Regional Water — web — https://www.harnettwater.org/ [8] Cornelius Harnett — web — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Harnett [9] National Register of Historic Places listings in Harnett County, North Carolina — web — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Harnett_County,_North_Carolina [10] Harnett County Board of Commissioners, Regular Meeting Minutes, March 3, 2025 — notebook — 030325 m (p. 1) [11] Harnett County Board of Commissioners adopt fiscal year 2026-2027 budget — web — https://bizfayetteville.com/government/2026/7/24/harnett-county-board-of-commissioners-adopt-fiscal-year-2026-2027-budget/5699