State government could save hundreds of millions of dollars by eliminating jobs that state agencies have been unable to fill for a year or more, State Auditor Dave Boliek's office has concluded.
Most agencies in state government struggle with high levels of job vacancies, caused in part by low pay and benefits that have been steadily shrinking in recent years. Boliek's report focuses on what are called "lapsed salary" funds, the money that agencies hold in reserve for new hires just in case they do find people to fill open roles. He offered legislators a preview of his findings during a hearing last week.
Other WRAL Top Stories
The audit found 4,515 positions that have been vacant for at least a year, including 190 job openings that have gone unfilled for more than five years. The most common reason given for the vacancies was low compensation, the auditor’s report notes.
The state should consider cutting positions that have been vacant for years and investing in other positions that are essential to the state, Boliek told reporters Thursday. Boliek, who took office last year, said the report fulfills a campaign promise.
“From the very beginning … we talked about looking at government efficiency,” Boliek said. “What I pledged to the people of North Carolina is we would take a look at it from the point of view of a return-on-investment, not a just cut.”
He added: “There are places where we need to reinvest where we can get a return on investment like nursing, other health care professionals across the state of NC, corrections officials.”
Earlier Thursday, representatives from the state Department of Adult Correction testified in a legislative hearing that prisons are operating under unsafe conditions due to a lack of staffing.
"Our vacancy rates have grown higher and remain at unsustainable levels, leading us with fewer staff to run safe prisons," Leslie Cooley Dismukes, the department’s secretary, told lawmakers. "This problem has compounded year over year, as salaries of our employees have not kept up with the cost of living, much less market rate."
In a separate speech Thursday, Democratic Gov. Josh Stein heavily criticized Republican state lawmakers for the low levels of pay state employees make. He noted that they should've gotten raises by now, but Republican lawmakers have failed to pass a new budget.
"Our teachers are among the lowest paid in the country," Stein told reporters Thursday. "Correction officers, 49th-lowest-paid. State Highway Patrol, 49th-lowest-paid. All of our public servants are not properly compensated for the value they provide to all of us."
Boliek's report Thursday isn't the first time state Republican leaders have suggested getting rid of vacant jobs in state government. The idea was proposed nearly a year ago by Republican state legislative leaders. The state House and Senate have each proposed finding extra dollars in a new state budget by laying off state workers, or by eliminating vacant positions.
WRAL reported last year there were about 14,000 vacant jobs in state government.
Leaders of the State Employees Association of North Carolina, a group that advocates for state workers, described Boliek's report as a pretext to justify further state job cuts. The group also said that many of the vacant are frozen under state law because a new budget hasn’t been approved.
“These are not unnecessary jobs,” Ardis Watkins, the executive director of the association, said Thursday in a letter to Stein and legislative leaders. “They are positions tied to real services. When agencies cannot hire, citizens wait longer, workloads grow, and outcomes suffer.”
Watkins urged lawmakers to approve funding to increase compensation of state employees to make the jobs more competitive.
“Continue to starve the workforce and bad outcomes will follow — more failures, more delays, and, eventually, real harm to the people these agencies exist to protect,” Watkins said. “That harm will not be accidental; it will be the foreseeable consequence of choices made today.”