House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform Co-Chairs Jake Johnson (R-Polk), Harry Warren (R-Rowan), and Brenden Jones (R-Columbus) sent letters to officials from the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County requesting documents, communication, and data concerning crime and public safety.
The letters, sent to Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, Charlotte City Manager Marcus Jones, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Estella Patterson, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, Mecklenburg County Manager Mike Bryant, Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather, and Charlotte Area Transit System Interim CEO Brent Cagle, can be found on the committee’s website.
Rep. Brenden Jones (R-Columbus) and other members of the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform pressed Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) officials on the district’s defiance of state law, promoted resources, educational performance, enrollment, and finances during a contentious hearing on December 10.
Co-Chair Jones warned from the outset that the hearing would be uncomfortable. He told CHCCS Board Chair George Griffin and Superintendent Rodney Trice: “You are here today because you chose to wage war against the law. You chose to deceive the public, and now you are here because you got caught.”
The committee called Griffin and Trice to testify after a video in October showed Griffin bragging that CHCCS “was the only school district in North Carolina…that stood up to the General Assembly” on SB 49, The Parents’ Bill of Rights. The bill became law in August 2023 when the General Assembly overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto. In January 2024, the school board voted unanimously to disregard two provisions of the law: a requirement to notify parents before changing their student’s name or gender, and a prohibition on sex and gender curriculum for children in grades kindergarten through fourth.
Despite repeated assurances to committee members that the district was complying with the law, Griffin eventually acknowledged that he thought the law conflicted with federal anti-discrimination law.
Jones held up three books on a list linked from the equity office’s resources page that could introduce young children to topics that should not be in the curriculum for young students under SB 49.
Trice said he was not familiar with the books or the link, but he said a rogue employee could not have posted the link without approval: “We have a multidisciplinary team that reviews materials or resources, particularly if those resources are going to be shared with parents.”
Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools has a reputation as one of the best school districts in the state, and Trice said, “Certainly I would put the success of our students squarely to our parents. They’re very involved with the education and the direction of our school district. They demand high quality curricula, strong instructional approaches in the classroom. And beyond that, I would put our teachers up against any teachers in North Carolina or across the country for that matter.”
He was defensive of the district’s performance, but he did admit, “We struggled like many districts with closing opportunity gaps and achievement gaps in our district.” Committee staff analysis of state standardized testing found black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students performed comparably to their peers in other school districts, and well below Asian and white students in CHCCS. White students were the only racial or ethnic group in CHCCS to outperform the state average for that group. [see graphs below]
“For the better part of a decade,” Trice said, “we’ve seen … declining enrollment,” which he called the district’s “biggest challenge” because enrollment is “one of the primary ways that school districts across North Carolina receive funding to educate their kids.” Rep. Charles Miller (R-Brunswick, New Hanover) was among those who questioned the district’s financial situation considering the district’s shrinking enrollment.
Rep. Mike Schietzelt (R-Wake) put the district’s enrollment and financial challenges in context with the legislature’s budget fight: “There’s a lot of mounting distrust with the public school districts as reflected by the declining enrollment right now.” Noting that the House budget included a significant raise for teachers, he added, “We care about the teachers because we care about the kids, and it makes it really difficult for us to do our job when the leaders of these school districts can’t come in here and even give us a straightforward answer to straightforward questions.”
“What you’re doing is wrong, and you lied to this committee under oath,” Jones emphasized. “You’ve replaced reading, math, and science with guilt, shame, and division. You’re teaching kids to feel guilty, either oppressed based on color of their skin, their family values, or what they believe. And while performing gaps grow wider and test scores fall off a cliff, you focused on one thing, spreading your ideology.”
“Let me be real clear,” he said in conclusion, “This General Assembly will use every tool, every statute, and every ounce of our authority to protect children and to force you to comply with the law. If you don’t follow it willingly, we will hold you to the fire with every legal and legislative mechanism in our power. You’ve made your choice, and we’ve made ours.”
The House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform will hold a hearing December 10 at 9 a.m.
The committee will hear testimony from Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) Board of Education Chair George Griffin and Superintendent Rodney Trice.
CHCCS came under scrutiny in October when a clip surfaced online of Griffin bragging that CHCCS was openly defying SB49, The Parents’ Bill of Rights. The bill became law in August 2023 when the General Assembly overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto. The school board voted unanimously to refuse to develop policies that would notify parents when the school changed a student’s name or gender and keep gender identity, sexual activity, and sexuality out of the curriculum for children from kindergarten through fourth grade.
School board Chairman George Griffin in a video clip called it “ludicrous” to “wordsmith policies that legitimized discrimination.” Griffin added that CHCCS was “the only school district in North Carolina of 115 school districts that stood up to the General Assembly and said, ‘We’re not doing this.’”
Despite the strong language on video, Griffin’s written testimony states, “To my knowledge, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools has always been, and continues to be, in compliance with the law-including the Parents Bill of Rights.” Superintendent Trice similarly states, “To my knowledge, the District has always complied with this law.” Other documents provided by the district, suggest some there may be some wordsmithing involved in reaching this conclusion.
Both written testimonies also tout the district’s academic performance and commitment to non-discrimination. Again, actions speak louder than words as black and Hispanic students perform near the same level as their peers across the state, reaching career and college ready status on end-of-year testing at less than half the rate of white students in the district.
“School systems funded by taxpayer dollars cannot run amok and make their own rules. Chapel-Hill Carrboro City Schools needs to focus on educating kids in science, reading, and math, rather than teaching them woke ideology.” Co-Chair Brenden Jones (R-Columbus) said.
State Auditor Dave Boliek presented his report on the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) to the Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations Subcommittee on Hurricane Response and Recovery on November 20. Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2016, he said, “are two disasters, and quite frankly, the third disaster that this state has experienced is NCORR itself.”
Boliek detailed NCORR’s flaws to the subcommittee for two hours in a hearing at East Carolina University. Audit staff, according to Boliek, said NCORR had the worst accounting they had ever seen and that the program presented a logistical nightmare. He did, however, acknowledge that NCORR had fixed many of its procedural flaws beginning in 2022, particularly after Pryor Gibson stepped in last year. Coincidentally, legislative leadership formed the subcommittee in summer 2022.
NCORR Director Pryor Gibson said in his testimony, “There’s no question, there’s no excuses, there’s no sugarcoating the mess that was the first two or three years of NCORR.”
Created in 2018 to facilitate the repair and rebuilding of homes with federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding, NCORR came under scrutiny from the General Assembly in 2022 when the program was completing fewer than 10 homes per month.
“Don’t take your foot off the gas.”
Rep. Karl Gillespie
As the subcommittee had heard in its five previous hearings: NCORR had problems managing its budget, data, and processes. NCORR received $982 million for disaster response and mitigation. The agency originally budgeted $534 million in grants for Matthew and Florence to the Homeowner Recovery Program (HRP). That amount eventually grew to $709 million before the General Assembly provided a $297 million bailout, bringing HRP alone to a sum greater than the federal money originally planned across all grant programs.
Subcommittee members questioned Boliek about the inconsistencies he documented across NCORR internal accounting, its reporting to the federal government through the Disaster Recovery Grant Reporting (DRGR) system, and the state’s consolidated accounting systems. One invoice had a 129% difference in the payment posted to each of the three systems.
Boliek and subcommittee members noted the marked improvement in outcomes once Gibson took over at NCORR. In turn, Gibson assured the subcommittee that all remaining projects would be underway before the end of the year and completed before October 2026.
Gibson shared that he has passed on the lessons he has learned from NCORR’s failures to the teams leading Hurricane Helene recovery efforts. Many of their processes so far correspond directly to the Auditor’s recommendations.
Co-chair Rep. Karl Gillespie (R-Macon) had one piece of advice for Gibson as NCORR works to get the final 328 families back home: “Don’t take your foot off the gas, and let’s get this thing done.”
Members of the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform questioned the trajectory of the support awarded by North Carolina IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts) during Wednesday’s hearing with North Carolina Bar Association Executive Director Peter Bolac and NC IOLTA Executive Director Mary Irvine.
Co-Chair Rep. Harry Warren (R-Rowan) explained what IOLTA is for those who were unfamiliar:
“The State Bar and Supreme Court created NC IOLTA in 1983 to distribute interest earned on income from lawyers’ general trust accounts to fund legal services and other programs for the public’s benefit. When a client hires a lawyer, retainer fees, settlement fees, and upfront payments are put into a trust account for later distribution to the appropriate parties. Although the accounts earn interest, attorneys cannot ethically claim the interest, therefore, North Carolina and every other state have created a version of IOLTA to help with access to civil courts.” NC IOLTA’s grant funding jumped from a fairly consistent $1.6 million through the 2010s to $3.4 million in 2020 and continued to balloon to $12.1 million in 2025.
“At its simplest,” Warren said, “IOLTA uses that interest to help those who couldn’t afford legal services.”
Bolac and Irvine agreed that NC IOLTA funding is, in Bolac’s words, “for the provision of legal services to be available for all North Carolinians regardless of ability to pay.”
Several members emphasized the importance of IOLTA’s civil legal aid while raising questions about how it distributed the money, the recipients, and whether it was an appropriate source of funds in the first place. The General Assembly included a provision in SB429 to freeze IOLTA grants through June 2026 due to questionable organizations and grants.
“I have no problems with the goals of this program,” Rep. Grant Campbell (R-Cabarrus) said. “I’ve looked at eligibility requirements. I’ve seen many examples of positive impacts.” Campbell continued, “I’m not a throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater kind of guy, but we have found some examples where maybe the purpose of this program has lost its way.”
“We found some examples where maybe the purpose of this program has lost its way.”
Rep. Grant Campbell
Campbell cited the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, based in Washington, D.C., which explains on its “Becoming an Anti-Racist Organization” page: “The United States’ wealth and power is built on stolen land, from enslaved labor, and under the racist lie that White people were superior to Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color.”
Warren, in his opening remarks, noted that the Children’s Law Center of Central North Carolina aims to dismantle the “systems of oppression…that don’t support equitable outcomes.”
Irvine agreed that grants should not be used to fund political activism. Members wondered how IOLTA could police the use of funds. Rep. Mike Schietzelt (R-Wake) said, “It begins to matter when you fund organizations that engage in political activity, because it frees up resources to use for political activity.”
Bolac suggested IOLTA could stop funding organizations that engage in any political activity beyond legal aid.
Irvine told Rep. Allen Chesser (R-Nash) that only “a couple of times” has the NC IOLTA board pulled back funding from grantees who did not meet their grant commitments.
In response to member concerns about rural counties being excluded, Irvine said, “We’ve made a concerted effort to try to make sure that funds are getting to rural communities including by launching a relatively new project to support law students who are working in more rural communities.”
The dual nature of the State Bar and the unusual status of IOLTA funds raised additional questions. Bolac agreed with members that, although the State Bar is subject to the Administrative Office of the Courts in its administration of attorneys, its funding and existence are subject to the General Assembly.
“As we looked into it, we wondered, ‘Whose money is it anyway?’” Warren said. “Does the interest earned belong to the client? Should the money be considered part of the General Fund to be appropriated by the General Assembly?”
Co-chair Warren left open the possibility of another hearing with NC IOLTA to give members time for additional questions.
The House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform will hold a hearing October 22 at 9 a.m.
The committee will hear testimony from North Carolina Bar Association Executive Director Peter Bolac and Mary Irvine, executive director of North Carolina IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts).
IOLTA exists to support those who provide legal services to the indigent and programs that improve the administration of justice. Its funding comes from the interest earned on the accounts where retainer fees, settlement fees, and other advance payments are held. Committee members will investigate NC IOLTA’s funding, the composition of its board, and the pattern of awarding grants to left-leaning organizations.
In June, the General Assembly passed SB429 freezing the group’s ability to make grants while members learn more.
Co-Chair Harry Warren (R-Rowan) said, “IOLTA was created in good faith to help those who need help with the justice system, but over the years, it seems to have become a boondoggle for woke causes that try to thwart the General Assembly’s work. We look forward to hearing IOLTA officials explain their decisions.”
Report of the Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations
House Majority Staff
July 2025
Key points
- Lack of leadership: NCORR’s failures start with a lack of involvement, leadership, and accountability in the Governor’s Office.
- Risk aversion: NCORR designed its rules and processes to not risk having the federal government reclaim spent money, which led to local permitting problems, supply delays, and higher costs for individual homes.
- Mission creep: NCORR took on or was given tasks unrelated to the core mission of getting people home—from emergency rental assistance during the pandemic to resiliency planning for communities and upgrading the condition, energy efficiency, and storm resiliency of each new or rehabilitated home.
- Bad budgeting: NCORR failed to budget correctly, so pledged $209 million to affordable housing projects, buyouts of the most flood-prone homes, and community resiliency policy reports. Only in August 2024 did NCORR discover it needed more than $300 million to complete promised renovation and reconstruction projects for 1,759 unfinished homes.
- Far-reaching impact: The result has been universal frustration. Homeowners have lived in hotels or damaged homes for years waiting for work to be completed. Some of them will still not have work completed before NCORR closes shop in early 2026. The General Assembly provided $297 million between October 2024 and March 2025 amid pressing needs from Hurricane Helene’s devastation in western North Carolina.
Introduction
The North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) was created to help repair or replace homes damaged by Hurricane Matthew in 2016 or Hurricane Florence in 2018. Lack of leadership and accountability, starting with Gov. Roy Cooper’s inattention, undermined good intentions. Applicants progressed in the program without a clear path to recovery. Director Laura Hogshead’s stated desire to ensure North Carolina did not risk having to repay funds by running afoul of federal rules led to the agency making promises it could not keep while failing on its fundamental duties.
Failing on fundamentals
Lack of leadership and accountability
GOVERNOR’S OFFICE: Gov. Cooper deliberately kept himself out of the process. For example, Hogshead could not provide examples of Cooper asking questions or otherwise engaging in meetings. On the crucial question of accepting applications until April 27, 2023, more than 4½ years after Hurricane Florence and 6½ years after Hurricane Matthew, Hogshead testified only that “someone in the Governor’s Office” demanded the extension. NCORR received 767 new applicants in the final three months between January 26 and April 27.
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: Secretary of Public Safety Erik Hooks also kept his distance. Hogshead worked with Emergency Management Director Mike Sprayberry, then with DPS Chief of Staff Jane Gilchrist, but Hooks had almost no involvement with NCORR. After Sprayberry left, nobody at DPS held NCORR accountable, assisted in its mission, or provided administrative support.
Without Sprayberry, Hogshead alienated colleagues in state government, including Stephanie McGarrah, who is now in charge of housing recovery in western North Carolina.
RENTAL ASSISTANCE: NCORR’s role expanded to include Emergency Rental Assistance through the first federal Covid package in 2020 and the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 (ARPA). The amount of money in these two programs and the speed with which they needed to be completed distracted NCORR management attention from hurricane recovery, the main task for which it had been created.
SLOW COMPLETIONS: Between November 2021 and August 2022, NCORR completed fewer than ten houses per month. The Gov Ops Subcommittee on Hurricane Response and Recovery first met in September 2022, after which the pace of completions accelerated to roughly 60 per month through 2023. NCORR managed more than 100 completions per month from January 2024 through April 2025 before delays from its temporary lack of funding caught up to it.
BAD FAITH AND BAD WORK: The lack of accountability for NCORR and its lack of focus extended down to its monitoring of contractors and homeowners. NCORR awarded homes to vendors in large batches with few tools for accountability. It received more than 1,000 homeowner complaints for shoddy work including leaks, mold, electrical hazards, structural defects. There have been numerous complaints of poor workmanship, incomplete problem inspections, and acceptance of homes with unrelated damage. NCORR was hesitant to impose liquidated damages for fear of driving away contractors.
Poor process
FIRST THINGS LAST: At the start, NCORR attempted to rely on outside vendors instead of hiring a large staff. It selected Horne for project management and AECOM for construction management. NCORR restricted direct communication between the two firms, which meant important construction restraints were not discovered until homeowners were out of their homes and work was ready to start. Some families are still out of their homes due to septic system problems, local setback rules, heirship disputes, HOAs, and historic districts that likely would have been discovered and able to be resolved earlier. NCORR has warned that as many as 100 families may not be able to have work completed because of such complications, though some of them are still living in their storm-damaged homes.
HANDOFFS: Besides normal turnover in customer service positions, and especially high turnover from March 2020 through 2022, families in the NCORR system had to deal with another new case manager during the handoff between Horne and AECOM. In 2022, NCORR ended its contracts with both Horne and AECOM, eventually bringing its own staff to more than 250 people and entering a staff augmentation contract with HGA for more than 100 customer service and managerial positions. Homeowners frequently found themselves with new case managers, resulting in inaccurate or conflicting information when they were able to connect. Many felt trapped in bureaucratic limbo.
HIGH HOTEL COSTS: No other state had a similar TRA program to provide housing and storage while families were out of their homes. Emergency move-outs due to mold or other circumstances did not lead to greater observed urgency for home completion. Many families were in hotels for more than a year. As of January 31, NCORR’s most recent report on TRA expenditures, 66 projects had relocation costs in excess of $100,000. The most expensive was $278,981. NCORR eventually began paying stipends to families instead of directly paying hotels or landlords.
Numerous people also had their belongings ruined after storing them in NCORR-provided PODS that were never climate controlled and occasionally leaked.
ASSIGNMENTS: The agency asked the General Assembly, privately and in open committee, to change the law so it could assign higher value projects. Hogshead explained that the low limits prevented it from assigning many projects. Both chambers passed separate bills that indicated their support for higher assignment limits, and the clear legislative intent cleared the bureaucratic hurdles. Although NCORR did not assign many projects, the legislature’s actions removed an excuse for the agency’s lack of progress.
Missing forecasts
The final core function where NCORR failed was in forecasting its work and financials. This came to a head in October 2024 when NCORR asked the legislature for $175 million to complete the remaining 1,200 homes. By March 2025, the total amount of state funds needed had grown to $300 million even as the date for completing homes slipped from September to possibly December. Even with the additional funds, NCORR anticipates it will not be able to complete as many as 100 of the remaining projects because of permitting, ownership, or other issues.
Exceeding its mandate
“Resiliency”
STAFF: NCORR hired two people to research and recommend resiliency policies. As NCORR wound down in 2025, it tried to get those people transferred to the Department of Environmental Quality where the Flood Resiliency Blueprint is housed.
SPECIFICATIONS: NCORR added resiliency work to repair projects even in rooms reportedly undamaged by storms or flooding. The additional work led to higher costs and longer delays. It held all homes to a single standard for wind resistant siding, insulation, and windows, mandated electric appliances, and installed tankless electric water heaters. The water heaters in some cases required separate electrical installation with higher capacity, again increasing cost and time.
SIZE: Rather than matching the size and number of rooms in the original floorplan of homes, NCORR applied federal guidelines for new construction. Depending on the number of people in a home, the reconstructed property could become much smaller with fewer bedrooms or larger with more bedrooms than the home being replaced. Larger homes could exceed the capacity of the land for septic or municipal setback rules, meaning higher cost, more delays, and possibly exit from the program.
Excess customization
Although NCORR used a single standard for storm survival in homes, it offered families more than 26 floorplans, many of which it later attempted to have built as modular homes in factories but which the modular companies could not convert.
In addition to the choice of floor plans, families could initially choose among a variety of colors, appliances, and other options. NCORR did not honor all the stated preferences from families, adding to their frustrations with the program.
Conclusion
NCORR failed at basic tasks and took on more tasks than it could deliver. The result is a program that fell behind, took $300 million of state money to complete work that was supposed to be done entirely with federal grants, and still may not be able to complete all the projects in the queue. Responsibility falls not just on former NCORR Director Laura Hogshead, who resigned in December 2024, but extends to former Gov. Roy Cooper who ignored the problems through multiple legislative hearings and critical media reports.
NCORR failed at basic tasks and took on more tasks than it could deliver. The result is a program that fell behind, took $300 million of state money to complete work that was supposed to be done entirely with federal grants, and still may not be able to complete all the projects in the queue. Responsibility falls not just on former NCORR Director Laura Hogshead, who resigned in December 2024, but extends to former Gov. Roy Cooper who ignored the problems through multiple legislative hearings and critical media reports.
In a brief but contentious May 22 Hurricane Response and Recovery Subcommittee hearing, members pressed administration officials about the contracting process and potential conflicts of interest.
At issue during the 70-minute session with Division of Community Revitalization (DCR) Deputy Secretary Stephanie McGarrah, Western North Carolina Recovery Advisor Jonathan Krebs, and GROW NC Director Matt Calabria was how Horne won the $81.5 million housing recovery program contract. Further questions are likely when the subcommittee plans to meet again. Emergency Management Director Will Ray, who was also invited to testify, will address the subcommittee at the next meeting.
Krebs was a managing partner with Horne until April 2024 and made cash contributions to Josh Stein’s gubernatorial campaign. Members raised concerns about a $29,000 in-kind contribution from Krebs to the NC Democratic Leadership Committee reported in October, less than a month after Hurricane Helene. An invoice provided by the governor’s office showed the contribution was in March 2024. Krebs acknowledged that the fundraiser where he made that donation led to his further involvement with Stein and his current role.
McGarrah was very confident in the decision to select Horne and said, “It wasn’t even close—Horne was by far the best vendor selection.” She and Krebs gave conflicting answers about the timing and extent of his participation in the Request for Proposal (RFP) process.
Members asked how IEM was excluded for offering to provide financial information upon request. McGarrah said the 2024 court decision eDealer Servs., LLC. v. N.C. Dep’t of Transp. meant the agency could not ask for the information once the bids were opened.
DCR will ensure accountability on its own and with another vendor that will be hired to monitor Horne’s progress. “We’re not just going to take their word for it,” she said. “And that is another mistake I think NCORR made.”
The procurement process itself took “more than 1,000 hours” from 11 people just at the Department of Commerce, where DCR is housed. McGarrah complained, “There is a lot of red tape. It is one of the most tedious, difficult processes I’ve ever been through. I think we can make improvements to it.”
The House Oversight Committee will hold its third hearing in a series asking fundamental questions of agency secretaries and directors April 3 at 9 a.m.
The committee will hear first from Treasurer Brad Briner, then Secretary of State Elaine Marshall.
Co-Chair Harry Warren (R-Rowan) said, “Our members set the stage for this hearing series with thoughtful questions in the first two meetings. We look forward to carrying those through to each agency, giving us the opportunity to reset how we think about agencies and what they do.”
The House Oversight Committee continued to probe the core functions of state agencies on March 13. Information technology, human resources, and other enterprise-wide services took center stage in the morning. State Controller Nels Roseland discussed his agency’s central role in payments to vendors and employees.
DIT: “End of life” technology is a cybersecurity risk
Department of Secretary Teena Piccione said the has security vulnerabilities because “a lot of technology is end of life.” Co-Chair Jake Johnson (R-Polk) emphasized the importance of cybersecurity, saying, “It is very unlikely that an enemy combatant is going to storm the Outer Banks. I think it is very likely that every day we will see a foreign actor try to compromise North Carolina through a cyberattack.”
Piccione also emphasized DIT’s role in providing universal access to high-speed internet with satellite, cellular coverage, and fiber lines.
OSHR: It takes six months for state government to hire somebody
Committee members were surprised to hear State HR Director Staci Meyer declare, “It takes 182 days to hire an employee in state government.” Meyer pointed to the complicated application for state employment, and committee members pressed her on lapsed salaries from chronic position openings and the time it takes to reclassify newly opened positions.
Meyer said the State Personnel Act needs to be modernized. Until the governor approves them, however, she could not offer specific statutory changes for legislators to consider or rule changes that OSHR might pursue.
DOA: Currently underutilized office space and historically underutilized businesses
Secretary-designee Gabriel Esparza described DOA’s role as the business manager of state operations. He aims for the department to do its work quickly, efficiently, and on-budget.
In an example of how a single office can be pulled in different directions, Rep. Dean Arp (R-Union) questioned Esparza on the statutory requirement for agencies and local governments to “have a verifiable ten percent (10%) goal for participation by minority businesses in the total value” of building projects (G.S. 143-128.2). In his response, however, Esparza focused on the statewide uniform certification of historically underutilized businesses program (G.S. 143-128.4, G.S. 143-48.4), which he described as an outreach and education effort.
Rep. Mike Schietzelt (R-Wake) and Rep. Zech Hawkins (D-Durham) asked Esparza about under-utilized office space, particularly in the Triangle. Esparza offered selling the property and returning money to the taxpayer or making it available to local governments or nonprofits.
OSC: Responsible for the state’s “checkbook”
State Controller Nels Roseland cited the state’s AAA bond rating as evidence of financial strength. He said North Carolinians can have confidence in part because of his office’s record of paying the state’s bills and employees and its public reporting of the state’s financial condition.
Roseland pointed to Open Budget data available through DIT’s Government Data Analytics Center (GDAC) as an example of transparency, but Rep. Schietzelt asked if the State Controller’s Office could help provide transaction-level information online, like a check register.
Roseland reaffirmed for Rep. Allen Chesser (R-Nash) that his office only approves checks for funds appropriated by the General Assembly.
Up Next
The Oversight Committee will not meet March 20, but will resume its sessions with state agencies on March 27.