By Michelle Crouch
Co-published with The Charlotte Ledger
In 2020, Charlotte businessman Michael Estramonte set out to build a nonprofit treatment center to create more space for kids in mental health crisis.
The idea quickly won support from state and local lawmakers. Since 2023, the Katie Blessing Center has secured more than $40 million in public money, including $35.2 million from the state.
Supporters say the project’s success reflects the state’s desperate need for more psychiatric beds for kids. The 70,000-square-foot center, scheduled to open in 2027, will house 72 inpatient beds, a behavioral health urgent care and outpatient services, making it the state’s largest pediatric behavioral health facility.
But for veteran campaign finance watchdog Bob Hall, the size and speed of the state’s investment in a private facility also raised a question: What role, if any, did campaign contributions play in winning political support for the center?
Hall’s analysis of state campaign finance records shows Estramonte and 19 of his relatives, business associates and relatives of associates contributed nearly $1 million to political campaigns of state and local politicians between 2023 and 2026, which is when elected officials were considering funding for the center.
“I can count on one hand the number of people who could put together that much money,” Hall said. “Then all of a sudden, he’s getting these huge grants that others can’t get.”
Hall told The Ledger/NC Health News he filed a complaint with the State Board of Elections last week alleging some of the people listed as donors and who are connected to Estramonte may not have been the true donors — an allegation Estramonte strongly denies.
Although campaign finance complaints by law are confidential, Hall shared a redacted version with The Ledger/NC Health News, along with electronic confirmation that the board had received it. It asks elections officials to investigate the possibility that some of the donations violated campaign finance laws.
After the complaint was filed, The Ledger/NC Health News reached out to donors connected to Estramonte listed in state records. Three said they made the contributions recorded under their names. Multiple others couldn’t be reached or did not return phone calls before publication.
“I know of every donation that I made, and I made those decisions on my own and with no expectations,” said Tracey Hummell, chief operating officer of Starmount Healthcare Management, Estramonte’s company. Records show Hummell gave $88,000 to candidates between 2021 and 2024.
Estramonte: Allegation “not based in facts”
In written answers to questions, Estramonte said he became more active in public policy beginning in 2021 and hosted political fundraisers for candidates from both parties. He said he never made a contribution in anyone else’s name or asked anyone to contribute with an understanding that they would be reimbursed.
“Any allegation of that nature is an allegation not based in facts or evidence,” he wrote. “Any decisions to contribute were made by the individuals themselves.”
Estramonte, a chiropractor, is the CEO of StarMed Healthcare, a Charlotte company that grew rapidly during the coronavirus pandemic by opening sites for COVID-19 testing and COVID vaccine administration. He also owns Starmount Healthcare Management and a Charlotte chiropractic clinic.
He has described himself as an entrepreneur who likes to solve problems that the traditional health care system struggles to address.
In an interview before Hall filed his complaint, Estramonte said the center became a passion project for him when he learned about children waiting for weeks in emergency rooms because of a shortage of psychiatric beds.
The issue became personal, he said, after several close friends struggled to find treatment for their children.
A surge in political giving
Hall, the retired executive director of Democracy NC, has spent decades combing through campaign finance reports and filing formal complaints when he finds irregularities. His complaints have prompted investigations and resulted in consequences for members of both parties, including former Democratic House Speaker Jim Black and former Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.
Hall said the size of the state’s investment in a private facility prompted him to take a closer look at contributions that could be tied to the project. He argues that the $35 million for the Katie Blessing Center could have been directed to other pressing health care needs, such as supporting rural hospitals and clinics.
Hall’s analysis of public records shows that giving by Estramonte, his family members and 13 Starmount associates and their relatives — most of whom have no previous record of contributing to a North Carolina political campaign — totaled $931,308 between 2023 and 2026.
Among the named donors are Estramonte’s mother, Kathleen Rooney (Katie Blessing Rooney, for whom the center is named), who is listed as giving $59,000; the daughter of a Starmount human resources director, identified in the records as a yoga and meditation app employee, who is listed as giving $21,200; and Estramonte’s executive assistant, who is shown as giving $10,650.
The contributions sometimes arrived in clusters. For example, on April 17, 2023, 13 Estramonte relatives, employees and associates are listed as giving $6,400 to Democrat Gov. Josh Stein. And on March 21, 2024, Estramonte and five people connected to him are listed as giving $6,400 each to former Republican Rep. Jason Saine, who at the time was senior chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
Asked about those dates, Estramonte said he hosted fundraising events where multiple people made contributions. “I did not direct or require anyone who worked for me or any of my family to make a contribution or dictate the amount of any contribution,” he said.
Contributions coincided with funding
Stein was the largest single recipient ($209,000), but top Republican legislative leaders also received substantial sums, including Saine ($102,000), Sen. Michael Lee ($74,000), House Speaker Destin Hall ($69,000), Senate leader Phil Berger ($65,000) and Sen. Dave Craven ($56,000).
Estramonte’s companies also began hiring lobbyists in 2023. Starmount Management spent $97,771 on six contract lobbyists that year, according to state records, and $142,508 on seven lobbyists in 2025.
The increase in lobbying and political giving coincided with a series of public funding decisions. State lawmakers awarded $5 million to the Katie Blessing Center in 2023-24 and $12.5 million in 2024-25, before allocating another $17.7 million in their most recent budget, which was signed into law this month. The center also received $2.5 million from the city of Charlotte and $2 million from Mecklenburg County in 2024.
Sen. Woodson Bradley, a Mecklenburg Democrat who advocated for state funding for the center, said she was still “very surprised” by the size of its funding allocation when she first saw the Republican-crafted budget. She said the money for the center was one reason she voted for the spending plan, adding that the facility will be “life-changing for families.”
Filling a gap
Estramonte said he spent months explaining to state lawmakers why North Carolina needed more pediatric psychiatric beds and how a public-private partnership would stretch public dollars.
“They loved the project,” he said.
He said it’s not surprising that the center got state funding because it aligns with the state’s long-standing push to expand access to mental health services.
Estramonte said the facility won’t just serve Charlotte but will be a statewide resource, with about half of its residential patients expected to come from outside the region and an estimated 50 percent to 70 percent of patients covered by Medicaid.
The center has agreed to treat some of the state’s most difficult psychiatric cases, he said — the children the state has the most trouble placing.
Do contributions influence votes?
Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, said it’s not unusual for organizations to hire lobbyists and make campaign contributions when they are seeking public funds.
While those activities are legal, he said, they raise broader questions about whether large donations help some interests get more attention than others from lawmakers.
Research suggests campaign contributions rarely change how a lawmaker votes, he said. Instead, they can help get an issue on a lawmaker’s radar and encourage them to champion it.
“It’s very hard to find evidence of vote buying,” he said. “What we do find is that you’re moving that person from a passive supporter to an active supporter more likely to advocate for issues important to you.”
Jane Pinsky, former director of the NC Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform, said people who make campaign contributions have long been favored by N.C. lawmakers.
“You give enough campaign money, you get something,” she said. “Average citizens need to realize that this is our money being spent.”
If the state needed a new psychiatric facility, she said, it should have put the project out for bid and considered multiple proposals.
Rep. Carla Cunningham — a Mecklenburg Democrat who campaign finance records show received $15,000 from Estramonte and about $6,000 from his family members and employees — said those gifts had nothing to do with her support for the center.
“We need the beds,” she said, adding that 300 to 400 North Carolina children are forced out of state every year for psychiatric care. “This isn’t just a problem in Mecklenburg but in the entire state. I’m a parent. I know what that experience is to be at the emergency psychiatric triage and they don’t have a bed, or they have a bed two or three hours away from home.”
This article is part of a partnership between The Charlotte Ledger and North Carolina Health News to produce original health care reporting. You can support this effort with a tax-deductible donation.
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