LAURINBURG — While the future for East Laurinburg might not be clear at this time, one thing is for certain — it won’t be annexed into the city of Laurinburg.

The Laurinburg City Council met on Tuesday for its first budget retreat of 2021 and the first topic on the agenda was about East Laurinburg.

“Everybody is aware of the newspaper articles about the status of East Laurinburg from a financial standpoint with the LGC at the state,” said City Manager Charles Nichols. “We’ve had discussions with Sharon Edmundson who is the deputy treasurer for the state and she is wanting a position from the council saying that the city of Laurinburg doesn’t have any interest in annexing or taking on East Laurinburg.”

The town of 336 residents has not filed an audit to the state since 2016 and because of that, the town could lose its charter. Nichols explained that East Laurinburg was created because of Waverly Mills, which located there so the company wouldn’t have to pay city property taxes.

“From how things would change in East Laurinburg, we already supply water and sewer,” Nichols said. “It’s the same rate as a non-city customer so that would continue. We do collect I think a $20 per parcel that we give back to East Laurinburg for their trash service, that they contract out. So we collect those funds for them.”

However, Nichols added if the city took over East Laurinburg there could be a lot of liabilities, specifically due to the state of the roads. Nichols was asked if there were any positives in taking over the town.

“From our standpoint, the property values are constantly going down and then the liability of the roads and the infrastructure there,” Nichols said. “They’re not on our electric, they’re not on our electric grid. It wouldn’t become our territory if we annexed it in. I don’t know any benefit we would receive — it would probably put some burden on our existing taxpayers.”

If the town were to lose its charter it would just become a community in the county similar to Laurel Hill.

The state has given East Laurinburg until June to get the financial books caught up and the audits completed. If the town does not do so, the Local Government Commission board would make a recommendation to the General Assembly to remove the town’s charter.

The council voted unanimously Tuesday to not annex in East Laurinburg.

Reach Katelin Gandee at [email protected]. To support The Laurinburg Exchange, subscribe here: https://www.laurinburgexchange.com/subscribe