State Auditor Dave Boliek's January report found thousands of vacant state jobs and over $1 billion in unspent salary funds. In the upcoming short session, some legislators will likely use those numbers to justify eliminating positions.

SEANC is pushing back on those claims.

The most common reason agencies gave for those vacancies? Low pay. And many of those jobs are frozen under state law simply because the legislature hasn't passed a budget.

"These are not unnecessary jobs," SEANC Executive Director Ardis Watkins told WRAL. "They are positions tied to real services. When agencies cannot hire, citizens wait longer, workloads grow, and outcomes suffer."

Watkins put it bluntly: "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."

Boliek joined The SEANC View podcast this week to discuss the report. We also discussed the need for transparency and truth in budgeting and how audits inform hiring, corrections funding, DMV operations, and contract oversight. We appreciate his willingness to come on the podcast and answer the tough questions.