Boliek gives DAVE update to legislative oversight committee

On Tuesday, state Auditor Dave Boliek appeared before the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Justice and Public Safety to brief the committee on the soon-to-be-released report from the auditor’s office on the Division of Accountability, Value and Efficiency (DAVE). Bolek’s presentation relates to the recently announced dashboard, which tracks lapsed salaries and long-term vacancies (six months or longer) across state agencies. 

One job of the auditor’s office is to give an objective picture of what the numbers look like in terms of the state’s full-time employment and lapsed salaries, according to Boliek. 

“I want to be clear about one thing,” said Boliek. “This is a snapshot; all these numbers tend to be somewhat fluid. This is a snapshot in time that will give us today the opportunity to take a look at exactly what the issues are.”

The scope of the report spans from Feb. 6 to Aug. 6, 2025, according to data from the Office of State Human Resources (OSHR) and as reported by the state agency. The report audited 46 state agencies, including departments, offices, boards, and commissions. Of these, 37 state agencies had at least one long-term vacancy, and 21 state agencies had 15 or more long-term vacancies. The UNC Health System is not included in the report; UNC System universities and NC community colleges also submitted information to the Office of the State Auditor (OSA), which will be included in a future report. 

The Findings

According to the report’s findings, long-term vacancies account for 11% of the state workforce. As of July 31, 2025, 14,336 positions were vacant, and of those, 8,845 positions have been vacant for six months or longer out of more than 79,813 total positions. Of the more than 8,000 long-term vacancies, 13% were filled between Aug. 6 and Oct. 1. Another 9% of the long-term vacancies were planned for elimination between Aug. 6 and Oct. 1. 

Funding cuts or uncertainties accounted for 10% of long-term vacancies. Out of 8,845, 1,914 or 22%, were never posted by state agencies, indicating to Boliek a lack of intent to fill the positions and, in some cases, an intent to generate lapsed salary. Seven hundred and seventy-four positions, or 9%, are purportedly kept vacant to generate lapsed salary and cover expenses such as operations. Another 10% of long-term vacancies were unexplained by state agencies. 

In compiling the information, every single state agency was contacted and asked to submit its information. As reported earlier this week $1.04 billion in lapsed salaries were identified in long-term vacancies, which includes appropriated dollars, receipts, and federally funded positions. According to Boliek, some of these positions are made but not filled and serve as placeholder positions.

Jared Cronk, director of DAVE, presented the committee with the report’s results and recommendations. The project started with sending a request to state agencies for information, including details on all positions that have been vacant for six months or longer, as well as explaining the use of public funds to execute their powers and duties under law. The obligation of the auditor’s office is to report the findings to the General Assembly and to the public, according to Cronk. 

The project focuses on long-term vacancies as of Aug. 6, 2025, and the lapsed salaries resulting from those vacancies. Lapsed salaries are defined as dollars not expended during the period of time during which the position has been vacant. Lapsed salaries can be used for one-time, non-recurring expenses and cannot be used to fund permanent positions or increase the salaries of existing employees. The report’s objectives include identifying all long-term vacancies, including their duration, total count, and whether the position has been posted and applications received. 

Cost Savings

Cronk also outlined the potential cost savings of eliminating certain positions. 

“The state auditor is not in a position to cut positions or add positions,” said Boliek. “Our job is to take a data-driven approach, look, and get the actual facts. To be sure, not everybody’s going to like the facts. But the facts are what they are.” 

Eliminating:

• the 746 positions that agencies do not intend to fill results in a cost savings of $32.1 million
• the 213 positions that have been vacant for a minimum of five years yields a cost savings of $9.2 million
• the 1,377 positions that have been vacant for three years or more would result in a cost savings of $65.2 million
• the 2,945 positions that have been vacant for two years or more would result in a cost savings of $137.4 million. 
• the 95 positions that remain unposted or unexplained would have a cost savings of $4.9 million
• the $351 positions with funding concerns that were never posted would have a cost savings of $13.5 million
• the 27 positions that were never posted or filled due to administrative purposes would have resulted in a cost savings of $1.3 million.
• the 477 positions open for one year or more with no applications would result in a cost savings of $25.2 million
• the 888 unexplained positions would yield a cost savings of $47.9 million
• the 5,275 positions vacant for one year or more would result in a cost savings of $250 million. 

“I want to be really clear about this,” said Boliek. “There are likely, and should be, deliberations from this body across the state government on where adding full-time employees delivers return on investment to the state of North Carolina and the citizens of this state. Our office has not shied away from those recommendations.” 

Similar recommendations were made to the Division of Motor Vehicles, and full-time employees were added to the department. 

“It would be unfair for any report or any person to say that the state auditor’s office looks only to cut positions,” said Boliek. 

Boliek explained that he wanted to allow every state agency to contextualize its vacant positions after reading a draft of the report, which was submitted to every state agency listed in the report. Those submissions from state agencies are due by Jan. 7. Boliek anticipates delivering a full narrative report, which exceeds 500 pages in length, and to release it to the public this month. 

“Or commitment is to be data driven, and as part of that, we want to include every single state agency’s contextualization of their positions; to do otherwise would not be fair,” said Boliek. 

Recommendations made by the auditor’s office to the GA oversight committee included to make improvements to lapsed salary tracking and reporting, that agency budgets should reflect actual expenditures for providing services and fulfilling responsibilities, that salaries should be competitive with neighboring states, that administrative delays should be reduced by streamlining workflows and increasing accountability, that tracking and oversight of hiring, and that vacancies should be improved and positions eliminated based on defined criteria. 

The full report is expected to be released to the public this month, with the universities and colleges report to follow this spring. Finally, an additional DAVE Act Dashboard update is expected this summer. Committee members were also given a demonstration on how to utilize and navigate the dashboard.

“Boliek gives DAVE update to legislative oversight committee” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.