DOGE in NC? Hundreds of state jobs to be eliminated in NC Senate budget plan that prioritizes tax cuts

In a plan that echoes efforts to cut federal government spending under President Donald Trump, a new state Senate budget proposal released Monday would also pay for new tax cuts by slashing a variety of government services and jobs in the North Carolina government.

The Senate budget presses forward with an already-approved plan for the state’s income tax rate to drop from 4.25% to 3.99%, which state budget officials say will lead to more than $1 billion in lost revenue. And it proposes even more aggressive tax cuts in the future than lawmakers have previously approved, with a final target of 1.99%.

State budget officials have said North Carolina will hit a deficit by 2026 if it continues on the current path with planned tax cuts. Unlike the federal government, the state government must have a balanced budget. So any deficit would have to be met by spending cuts, higher taxes, or other ways to raise revenue.

Senate leader Phil Berger said Monday he didn’t believe that forecast of an impending deficit — made by the legislature’s own staff — and felt comfortable with making the tax cuts even more aggressive.

He noted that the budget would spend more next year than it currently does, saying the budget cuts it orders are less about paying for tax cuts and more about “slashing bloated portions of the bureaucracy.”

Many state agencies, however, are struggling to perform basic tasks due to widespread vacancies that agency heads and others blame largely on low pay.

The Senate budget would give a 1.25% raise to most state employees. Teachers, correctional officers and law enforcement would get more.

State data shows the government had about 14,200 vacant positions in March, with about one in every five jobs unfilled. Safety inspections are behind schedule, lines are out the door at Department of Motor Vehicles offices, schools are short by thousands of teachers and prisons are severely short-staffed.

Under the budget plan, new cuts could be recommended by new State Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican who won election in November and has since seen the legislature press to give him immense new powers to reshape state government.

"North Carolinians want an effective, efficient, and accountable government," a Boliek spokesman said. "Should the law require the Office of the State Auditor to assess the efficiency of state government and make recommendations on potential downsizing, we’re prepared to do that through a measured, data-driven approach."

Berger said that unlike billionaire Elon Musk, whom Trump has empowered to personally order widespread cuts to the federal government, Boliek would only be able to recommend cuts for the legislature to put into effect.

That could lead to more deliberation and public input than Musk’s DOGE program.

“Unlike the DOGE effort at the federal level, where the executive branch actually purports to eliminate programs and pull money back, the auditor will not have that authority,” Berger told reporters Monday. “That authority will continue to be in the General Assembly.”

The plan is a starting point for negotiations at the legisature, and a final deal is likely months away.

'Just being cruel'

Critics of the Senate's budget say it’s not a serious plan and that layoffs and low raises will make state government even less efficient, by making it even harder to keep jobs filled.

“Why are we mandating that all of these agencies cut at a time when we need people, we need government, we need individuals in our offices, to help with all of the growing needs of North Carolinians?” Sen. Sydney Batch, D-Wake, the top-ranking Senate Democrat said in an interview Tuesday.

Batch also questioned why Berger would say he doesn’t believe the predictions that GOP tax policy is leading North Carolina into a deficit, but to then turn around and order spending cuts across all of state government.

“Either it's ‘We're at a fiscal cliff’ and you just don't want to be honest about it, or you're just being cruel,” Batch said. “I don't know which one. I guess they're not mutually exclusive.”

Hundreds of jobs would be eliminated by the budget plan, although at different points GOP budget writers have provided different numbers for exactly how many they intend to cut. By all accounts, many of the cuts would be accomplished by eliminating some of the 14,200 vacant positions inside state government. But some current state employees would also be laid off.

“We figure that would be up to the department heads,” lead budget writer Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, said Tuesday in response to questions from Democratic lawmakers about the details of the cuts.

Large cuts to higher ed

Some programs and their staffs would be eliminated entirely, including the Innocence Inquiry Commission — which has exonerated more than 20 people wrongfully convicted of murder, rape and other serious crimes, and which is unpopular with police and prosecutors. The budget would also slash tens of millions of dollars from the state’s universities and community colleges.

The Innocence Inquiry Commission savings would be just a rounding error on the budget, worth $1.6 million or 0.005% of the state’s $32.6 billion spending plan. The higher ed cuts would be substantially larger, potentially exceeding $100 million.

The budget orders cuts of $57 million from the community college system, plus at least $33.6 million in cuts to various centers and institutes at local universities, plus an unknown amount of additional administrative cuts across the system.

UNC System President Peter Hans hinted at coming austerity measures last week in a letter to the Board of Governors, saying some institutions had too many administrators and would be ordered to make cuts. Hans and the BOG have the authority to order those cuts regardless of what a state budget ultimately says.

“It’s not only that growing bureaucracies cost a lot of money,” Hans wrote. “They also sap initiative, creativity, and drive with too many layers and too much duplication. They make it harder for American institutions like the university to accomplish the grand designs we expect of them – which, in turn, undermines confidence.”

Senate Democrats weren't invited to take part in the budget-writing process; they saw it at the same time as the rest of the public Monday night. And they were scrambling the following morning to read through the 1,100 pages of proposals in time for the first committee hearing on the budget at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Sen. Lisa Grafstein, D-Wake, noted the tall task of understanding the budget on such a short notice. The bill itself is 439 pages long, and it’s accompanied by another 661 pages of more detailed notes.

“I haven't been through all 400-something pages quite yet, but I got as far as page 18, and I want to ask about that,” Grafstein said, launching into a series of questions about changes being made to NCInnovation, a group tasked with funding university research grants that’s facing a substantial overhaul in the proposed budget.