Head of NC unemployment office replaced in surprise announcement

Assistant Secretary for the Division of Employment Security Lockhart Taylor, a career employee at DES, is out. Pryor Gibson, a former lawmaker who had been directing a rural development program for the administration, is the new assistant secretary, effective immediately.

Taylor will "assume a different role at the Department of Commerce with separate duties and responsibilities," Secretary of Commerce Tony Copeland said in a news release announcing the change.

WRAL News is seeking more information on what precipitated the move. All the governor's press office had to say on the matter Wednesday was that "the governor has directed the Department of Commerce to take actions necessary to address this unprecedented crisis and get more unemployment benefits faster to people who need help now."

"This is a situation of management, of management rolling up their sleeves and being directly involved, said Sen. Dan Blue, D-Wake, who has known Gibson for 30 years. "Maybe this shake-up will bring a new approach to it, but again, you're not going to make the numbers go away, and these numbers will overwhelm any system."

The state has been slammed by unemployment claims due to coronavirus pandemic, and the mandatory business shutdowns now easing around the state. Many callers to WRAL News and other outlets reported long wait times as the DES struggled to staff up and deal with an tsunami of new requests.

State lawmakers, too, have been deluged with calls for help. As of Wednesday morning, the state said some 955,000 people had applied for unemployment since mid-March and that nearly $2.8 billion had been paid out to 608,000 of them.

The total claims volume – roughly 1.3 million – is even higher, in part because a federal stimulus program essentially requires people to apply twice.

There are also emerging concerns over fraudulent claims, and House members discussed legislation Wednesday that would put $2 million toward fraud detection, partly over concerns that a Nigerian scam ring has targeted multiple state unemployment systems during the COVID-19 crisis.

House and Senate lawmakers, who've held oversight committee meetings on the state's unemployment response, have generally been complimentary of Taylor's efforts, with some complaining the governor did not focus early enough on a predictable surge in applications.

"I guess somebody has to take the fall, and it was Lockhart," Rep. Julia Howard, R-Davie, said Wednesday morning.

Howard, chair of the House Finance committee, said she was shocked by the announcement.

"He and his folks have worked like Trojans over there for the last three month," she said. "I don't think anybody could have done any better than what he's done."

Sen. Jeff Jackson, D-Mecklenburg, hinted at a management problem on social media, tweeting Wednesday that "too many people have been waiting for too long for relief.

Jackson was asked whether the claims were slow due to "incompetence at the top levels, or is it more a systemic problem with computer and network hardware and software that wasn't up to demand, and insufficient trained staff to man the influx of calls?"

The senator replied: "At first it was the latter, then it became the former."

Jackson declined to be more specific when contacted by WRAL.

"The next person needs to be able to stay on top of things, said hairstylist Annette Holcomb, who went two months without unemployment help before getting her job back.

Holcomb said she just wants help, not excuses.

"They need to get it done," she said. "These people have been waiting long enough. I've been waiting long enough [through] no fault of my own."

"Maybe the new guy will make some changes so that those of us waiting two months now will get a payment," agreed Mark Johnson, who is still waiting for his first unemployment check.

Taylor told lawmakers in a recent committee hearing that he knew his office would see a flood of new applications, but he was surprised how massive it was. The state went from processing an average of 3,200 claims a week in 2019 to something closer to 20,000 a day.

Gibson was an adviser to former Gov. Bev Perdue, and he has been running Hometown Strong, a Cooper initiative focused on rural economic development. He was previous director of business services at the Department of Commerce, which also houses DES.

He served some 20 years in the state House, representing Anson, Montgomery and Union counties from the early 1990s until 2011.

“Pryor Gibson is a forceful presence to lead DES during this unprecedented economic stress,” Copeland said in the announcement.

Taylor's new role at the Department of Commerce was not laid out in the announcement. He has deep political roots in North Carolina: Both his father and his grandfather served as lieutenant governors.

He did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.