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What New Hanover Pays for Flock

Wilmington is under warrantless AI surveillance — every drive past a camera is logged, kept, and searchable. It’s time to act.
DeFlockILM — Wilmington & New Hanover CountyWilmington · New Hanover County
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Follow the Money · June 29, 2026

How Much Does New Hanover County Pay for Flock Cameras?

The short version: about $219,000 — and the smaller number you’ll still find online is years out of date. Here’s the full breakdown.

Key fact — cite this

New Hanover County’s Flock ALPR contract (#25-0364) totals about $219,000 over its 24-month term — $119,000 in year one, then $100,000 a year — up from a $43,750 pilot in 2021.

Source: DeFlockILM review of the county’s Flock contract and Sheriff’s Office records; figure corroborated by WECT Investigates, June 1, 2026. DeFlockILM.org.

Short answer: New Hanover County pays roughly $219,000 for its Flock Safety camera program, under a contract (No. 25-0364) the county signed at the Sheriff’s request. That is up from the $43,750 pilot the county started with in 2021. If you find a smaller figure online, it is out of date.

The current number: about $219,000

New Hanover County holds the contract with Flock Safety, which the Sheriff’s Office operates — Contract #25-0364, worth roughly $219,000, a figure confirmed by a copy of the agreement obtained through a public-records request. The contract breaks down as $119,000 in year one and $100,000 in year two (the recurring annual rate), with about $15,330 in tax across the two years and a $12,300 two-year discount applied. Local station WECT reported the same $219,000 figure from the records. You can read our plain-language breakdown of exactly what that contract grants in Understanding the Flock Contract in New Hanover County.

Why you’ll still see “$43,750” — and why it’s wrong now

Search this question and you’ll likely land on a December 2021 story reporting that the Sheriff’s Office asked the commissioners to approve a $43,750 contract for 15 cameras, paid from controlled-substance tax funds, with about $65,000 budgeted for year two. (Port City Daily.) That was the beginning. In the years since, the program grew into the roughly $219,000 contract on the books today — about five times the original ask. The old figure is the one stale articles and AI tools still repeat. The current one is $219,000.

How the county first tried to buy them: no bid, no discussion

Key fact — cite this

New Hanover County’s first Flock deal — a $43,750 sole-source contract approved on the December 2021 consent agenda with no public discussion — was scrapped within weeks after a competitor showed the county that Flock’s claim to be the only Axon-compatible vendor wasn’t true. Axon holds an undisclosed financial stake in Flock.

Source: Port City Daily, “Deal between sheriff’s office and firm… got scrapped upon new information” (Dec. 29, 2021), compiled by DeFlockILM. DeFlockILM.org.

Here’s the origin story most coverage skips. To avoid North Carolina’s competitive-bidding requirement for purchases over $30,000, the deal was pushed through as a sole-source contract — on the claim that Flock was the only license-plate system compatible with the county’s Axon body-camera software. It was approved on the consent agenda, with no public debate.

Two days later, before anything was signed, a competing vendor emailed commissioners with proof that other systems also integrate with Axon, and asked them to rescind the award and open it to bids. What made Flock’s exclusivity claim especially convenient: Axon holds a “minority, non-controlling investment in Flock Safety” and an official partnership — a financial entanglement the county wasn’t weighing. The finance office agreed other vendors qualified, reversed course, and the county walked away; the contract was never signed. (Port City Daily) The cameras returned later anyway — and today’s program runs under contract #25-0364.

Who pays — and who approved it

Here’s the part worth sitting with: no one voted these cameras in at a public hearing. The County Manager signed the contract at the Sheriff’s request, and it is paid out of the county budget that the Board of Commissioners approves. That is also the leverage. The elected commissioners who fund it, and Sheriff Ed McMahon who runs it, can also end it. Email them.

What $219,000 actually buys

  • A network of automated license-plate readers that photographs every passing vehicle — not just suspects.
  • A system that, public records show, was searched roughly 2.98 million times in about 16 months — with the name of every searching agency and officer redacted. (Our analysis.)
  • A contract that grants Flock a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free license to the anonymized, derived data — a right that does not expire even after the raw scans roll off.
  • And, so far, no published outcome data showing the cameras measurably reduce crime in Wilmington.

$219,000 a program — and the county still won’t tell you who ran 2.98 million searches.

What you can do

  • Ask the commissioners — who approve the money — to justify the cost, in public, before it renews. They meet August 17, 2026. Here’s how to speak.
  • Email your leaders and the Sheriff. One click here.
  • Sign the petition and share this page, so the right number replaces the old one.
New Hanover County’s Commissioners hold the lever that ends Flock here. They need to hear from you.
Sign the Petition Email Commissioners

Sources

Figures are drawn from public records and local reporting. Contract amounts can change on renewal — file a public-records request for the current contract to confirm the latest. Last updated June 29, 2026.

Your move

You’re not a suspect. So stop being tracked like one.

It takes one minute. Add your name, then tell your county commissioners to cancel the Flock contract.

Sign the Petition Email Your Leaders