Latest / The SEANC View / DOGE efforts in North Carolina with Rep. John Torbett

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DOGE efforts in North Carolina with Rep. John Torbett · The SEANC View

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Music.
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Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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I'm Jonathan Owens, your communications director. We've got a full room here today.
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Artis Watkins, executive director, is here. Suzanne Beasley,
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our government relations director.
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And Sam Klein, our podcast producer. And we have a special guest, the president, El Prez.
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President-y. Kirk Montgomery is in the house today. Thanks for joining us, Kirk.
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Thank you, John. We've roped him in to be in here. We have the executive committee
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tonight, and you shouldn't have come in so early. You wouldn't have got trapped into this.
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Well, you know, it's been a minute since I've been to the office,
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and I was like, I need to show up. And let them know I'm still here as the president.
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And if you show up, we stick a microphone in. And we're like,
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hey, why don't you come in this room, Kurt?
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Nothing to be afraid of. I do want to say, though, that when you introduced
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Suzanne, it cracked me up again. I'm telling you, you can't remember our names. You struggle.
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You've known us forever. I told you that it's like a stutter,
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my mind catching up to my head when I'm reading it. Performance anxiety at some point.
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Yeah, exactly. Old age.
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And he's the only other than Sammy. Well, it's awesome to have everyone here
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today. We do have a special guest, and Kirk joined us for that interview as well.
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We had Representative John Torbett come on and talk a little bit about his,
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what are we calling it, scoge effort?
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He said it's H scoge. I mean, he didn't call it anything.
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It's House Select Committee on Government Efficiency.
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So H-Scoge, we have to figure out what to call it, even though they don't have a nickname.
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We have to. Well, he was a great interview and very kind to give us a few minutes
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to explain what the whole effort is about.
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So you'll hear that in a few minutes. But before we get into that,
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I just want to check in and see what happened down at the legislature this week, Suzanne.
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Well, it's been a busy week. We have the Bitcoin bill rolled through Commerce this week.
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It's going to be up in. Say what that is briefly. Investing some of your retirement pension fund.
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Up to 10%. Up to 10% in Bitcoin, which is a very volatile investment.
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Yeah, cryptocurrency, exactly. So that will move to pensions and retirement
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next week. And we will be there. Keep you informed.
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Yes, we had some tweets about that issue as well. You can go read from a couple of days ago.
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It got kind of heated there for a little bit, but it'll come back again probably
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next week, right, with a committee. Yeah, I'm sure.
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I'm sure it's a hot topic. Any movement on the DEI bill that we were talking
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about last week? No, no, no.
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It was originally calendared to be heard this past Monday. It was removed from the calendar.
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We're hoping to get Representative Jones, the sponsor of that bill, on the podcast.
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I think he said maybe, maybe in a couple of weeks. So he's kind of got some
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other things going on right now.
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But that'd be good so that people can understand. We talked a lot about that
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DEI bill and the significant concerns out there.
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There's just a lot going on right now at the legislature.
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And I think I heard another podcast. People were saying it was kind of like
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drinking from a fire hose right now. All the bills coming out.
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It's a great way to put it. Yeah. But we're on it, right? We're watching everyone, everything.
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We're here, y'all. Anything else we want to talk about that before we go to
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the... Just there's no movement on the budget yet. I think people are wanting
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to know. Yeah, we always try to update that.
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But then it should be very soon, the governor. I mean, I'm sure there's conversations
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happening behind closed doors.
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But yeah, we don't have the official numbers yet and the governor's budget's
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got to come out. I know one thing we need to address.
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It'll be today when this comes out. Tomorrow, today is Thursday,
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by the way. But tomorrow, the health plan is meeting, right?
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The health plan board of trustees. It's kind of huge.
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So you'll see what they decide on your premiums in the scenic scoop that'll
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come out tomorrow. But we're recording on Thursday, so we don't know exactly
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what that is at the moment. Oh, we do? Okay.
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The stakeholders met. The stakeholders met on Monday. So what happened at the
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previous State Health Fund Board of Trustees meeting is they gave themselves permission.
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They being the board. Yeah, the board, to use a tiered approach to increasing
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premiums for state employees.
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So tomorrow they will get a little more in detail what they're going to do.
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Obviously, our position on that is don't pick the low-hanging fruit when we've
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got transparency issues with contracts.
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This is basically being framed at the health plan level as a choice between
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going to the General Assembly and asking for money they're not going to give
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to fill this half-billion-dollar hole in the health plan or increasing premiums
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on the users of the health plan and doing so by deciding how much their premium
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goes up based on how much they make.
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Those are not the only two choices. The choice that should be used is go to
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the contracts that are secret that we know are up to four times what it takes
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to make a profit running a hospital.
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Tell those folks, you're not doing that anymore. In the name of transparency
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for the taxpayers, efficiency for the taxpayers, in the name of not ripping
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people off, we're not doing that.
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That's an option. Can I ask a quick question on that too, Artis?
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So with that being said, I'm just wondering, you know, since now,
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since the treasurer actually knows what what those contracts state,
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is he not the one that should be making those changes?
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So, the contracts are between Aetna as the third-party administrator. We use a middleman.
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Aetna's a middleman. So, Aetna has that network, and they agree to pay a certain amount.
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So, Aetna would have to renegotiate that. But Aetna could do that at the urging
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of a customer as big as the health plan.
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Aetna could do it any minute. Some people were saying, oh, we couldn't operationalize that quickly.
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The way we know you can, in fact, operationalize that quickly is that in the
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past, there have been hospitals.
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Y'all might remember Wayne County, Mission in Asheville.
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There's been times where the hospital said in the middle of a contract,
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we don't think we're being paid enough.
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And so they took the middleman and said, yep, we're not going to see your people until you pay us more.
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So what we're saying is just do the reverse and say, we need to pay you less
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because we're overpaying you by so much.
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And that needs to start tomorrow right here because you need to do your part
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in solving this half billion dollar hole that was created in large part because
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we're overpaying people.
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Yeah. And Kirk, the reason I brought that up, it came to mind,
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and I'm glad it did, was you actually appeared before the Board of Trustees,
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was it last year, and spoke about this issue. Yeah, it was November,
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wasn't it? It was November, yes. Yeah.
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And you're a volunteer leader, but you're also a member. You probably have your
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hand on the pulse, maybe a little
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bit, of how the members feel about this issue. What are you hearing?
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Are you hearing concerns about the, obviously they're concerned about the premiums, right?
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A lot of the employees are actually thinking, you know, a premium may not mean
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a lot to some people, but it could be food on someone's table or gas in their car.
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Last week before payday, you got to get to work. And so they got to get to work.
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If they get paid monthly, you know, they have to stretch that dollar out.
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And so if they have to pay $20 or $30 a month, that may make a big difference in their livelihood.
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We really want to stay focused on this and try to do what we can for state employees.
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Just as Artis and Suzanne has stated, you know, there's other avenues that can
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be taken. It does not have to ride on the backs of state employees.
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And in fairness to the treasurer's office, I want to make sure we get this out there.
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Treasurer Briner's office and Tom Friedman, executive administrator of the health
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plan, they're working on dealing
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with that longer term. And I appreciate that. I think that's great.
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Problem is, our folks don't have that long. They don't. This problem's been there forever.
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But everything's got to move quickly. And again, when the hospitals want more
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money, things are able to move really quickly.
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I saw a story, and I don't know. So obviously they haven't voted on it,
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so we don't know exactly what the increase would be.
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But I think I saw a story that they were looking at instead of $300 a year.
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Yeah, they're not paying their panel. Yeah, so it almost doubled.
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The point is, yeah, it's a lot of money.
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It's cumulatively across the year, it's a lot of money.
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But like President Montgomery was saying, to a state employee,
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to so many state employees, not the ones on the board of trustees of the health plan, unfortunately,
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but to most state employees that amount is
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significant money and that just kind of sometimes seems
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to blow people's mind how can that much it's
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not much money why can it make that big a difference when you need gas to get
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to work last week of the month unfortunately there's not a voice on the the
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board anymore from a rank and file it's getting you know getting paid what most
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state employees get paid absolutely not well so read your scoop for that information and i'm,
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I think we should just go on right into Representative Torbett.
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Yeah, I mean, it's a great segue because it's about efficiency and it's about openness.
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Well, enjoy the interview, and we'll be back at the end for a few comments and
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the question of the week.
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Today we have a special guest, one of the big dogs at the state legislature, if you will.
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And he's shaking his head, but he's being modest. But Representative John Torbett
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is from Gaston County, and he's a major player in the leadership at the House,
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and he has been endorsed by Impact, and he was nice enough to join us today.
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Suzanne will probably run through all the committees that he's a chair or part
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of. She probably knows that a lot better than I can.
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But the one we're going to discuss mostly is the Select Committee on Governmental
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Efficiency that you're chairing with Representative Keith Kidwell.
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That's actually the first question. I hate to do it in the introduction.
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Is it SCOGE or DOGE here?
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Neither. Neither. It's the House Select Committee on Government Efficiency.
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Well, we were super excited to call it SCOGE.
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A lot of people are calling in a lot of things.
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Yeah, we're going to have to find a catchy acronym for that.
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This is true. Okay, I'll go back. That's assignment number one.
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So Representative Torbett was kind enough to give us a little time.
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So I'm going to get out of the way and let Suzanne kind of take it from here.
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Thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. Thank you.
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Thank you, Representative. We're so happy to have you with us today.
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Representative Torbett has been a scenic friend for a very long time,
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and we've appreciated the work relationship we have with you.
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You are a vice chair, big appropriations committee.
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You are a general government appropriations chairperson.
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You are a state and local government chairperson and joint legislative oversight
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committee on education. So all very important committees, and we appreciate your service.
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Thank you. Okay. So you've already got a- Here it comes. I know. I know. I'm teasing.
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You never know. So you've already blown my mind because I thought for sure it
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was scoge and that we were ahead of the game to know that and not call it Doge.
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But now it's true. We don't have a nickname for it.
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Sad but true. But the only thing state employees know right now about your committee
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and your work in this Doge-type effort is what they've seen at the federal level
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with Elon Musk because that's obviously getting a lot of attention.
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And one of the main things that is being repeated in that effort is federal
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employees are almost being described like they're superfluous,
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like we don't even need these people.
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In fact, I'm going to read you something because I was so blown away.
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Elon said this on a podcast. Elon Musk said this on a podcast.
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He said in terms of reducing federal workers and then them being available in
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the private sector, low to sometimes no productivity roles in the government
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sector, moving to high productivity roles in the private sector.
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So that's implying not just that government jobs may not be important,
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but almost a laziness factor there.
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And so I know there's state employees who are really nervous about what y'all
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are undertaking. And we wanted you to have a chance to come here today and say,
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look, here's what we're doing.
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Certainly. But how do you respond to something like that? I don't.
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You know, Elon has every right to be wrong.
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Obviously, he was when he just made those stats. I come from corporate America,
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like Elon does, not near his level.
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But I understand that corporate America would be nowhere without the employees
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that do the business each and every day for those complex companies from small.
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To medium to large businesses.
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So I guess the true gem is the employees of those.
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However, you also have to regain a certain amount of profitability or you go
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out of business. And to do that, you have to be efficient.
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And the way we do our government here in North Carolina is we'll take the budget process.
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As you all know in this room, a budget is a continuation budget,
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which means a project, a program, a contract, anything government does may start
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off with a in R after them, which means the funds are non-recurring.
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They just run for one budget year and then have to be looked at again.
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But once something falls into the R bucket or the recurring bucket,
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then you don't really see that anymore when you're doing the next budget process.
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So there are things that we're still paying for that were programmed in the
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budget 20 years ago, but nobody can give you a good accounting or a good, how's that working?
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Is it still performing the way we thought it would 20 years ago?
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Is it still performing today?
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So that's one area that we're going to explore and look at. And that is Herculean in itself.
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The other thing is contracting, for example. The same thing with contracts.
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Contracts may have been left years ago and are still being carried forward,
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funded even today without us receiving good marks or efficiency qualifications
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that prove that's still working.
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So we have to define how we're going to rate efficiencies in those genres of government.
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When it comes down to employees, we're hearing each and every day that we can't bring employees on.
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One of the reasons is because what the government has marked themselves,
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not doing some of the things government used to, used to have like pretty good,
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excellent retirement package and people like would want to come to work for
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their government and you could keep good marks on how their performance was and all that.
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We're not seeing that today. I'm not saying it's not out there.
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We're just not seeing it. So
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we need to go in there and check on the efficiencies of our departments.
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And if they are over-utilizing employees, maybe we can find folks over here
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that are under-utilizing their folks and shift those over and just better balance
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efficiencies across the board.
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Yeah. And I think, as we've said on this podcast, I don't think there's anybody
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that would credibly say, yeah, don't look at government.
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Don't look at whether taxpayer dollars are being spent appropriately.
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I am heartened to hear y'all are going to look at the contracts.
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And I have a question about that in a minute.
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But before I get to that, one of the things Suzanne and I've watched over the years is,
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is the number of state employees is a fraction of what it was,
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say, 20 years ago. A fraction.
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Approximately 74,000 people. And what we were told for years and years,
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not by you or anybody you're working with, was we're going to cut things,
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but the people who are left, we're going to be able to compensate better so
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that we can attract people, we can keep them.
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We just need less of them, and then we'll be more efficient and we'll pay everybody really well.
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And that has not happened. So I think one of the other things that our members
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listening to this or any other state employees who might listen,
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they'll be thinking, oh, my word, is this going to mean we do a bunch more trimming
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and then nobody does any better?
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And we still have that problem you mentioned, which is people not wanting to
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come to work for the state, which used to be a really, really highly respected and sought after job.
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Yeah. And I want to also let your listeners know that I'm not coming in with
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any preconceived outcomes. In other words, when I came to the General Assembly
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in 2011, after the 2010 election, we were coming into a hole, a huge hole of debt.
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And we could mathematically say how much we have to reduce the size and scope
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of government to fill this hole over here.
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We could, you know, 2% or 4%, those types of things.
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I'm not looking at any kind of preconceived notion that my goal is to find 2% cuts or 3% cuts.
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My goal is to find the ways to make us most efficient as we possibly can and
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get rid of junk, just for lack of a better term, and make it better for the
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taxpayers in North Carolina and every North Carolina.
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Whether that will equate, I'd like to see, yeah, if we find efficiencies here,
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maybe we can increase the pay over here.
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Maybe we can get teachers more pay. Maybe we can get employees more pay.
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Well, like I said, they are the
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bread and butter of what we do with state government. And you know what?
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If we have employees handling the problems and the issues that our citizens
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call us to help with, I bet we'd have happier citizens and just a better run government. Right.
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Well, and you talk about coming from business and every time the rankings of
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states that are most popular for business among the factors near the top of
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the factors is infrastructure and quality of life.
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And so definitely if you don't have enough and good public workers,
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you're not going to have the infrastructure. You're not going to have the quality
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of life. I guess kidding a little bit on Elon, it's not rocket science.
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If you know where your foundation of what you want to do, in this case,
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it's the employees of the state of North Carolina and taxpayers of North Carolina.
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And to get everything operating like a fine oiled machine and then capture those
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efficiencies you may find.
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And then if you find efficiency, you can move them around to better balance
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out other parts of the state government and just see where we get to.
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So it sounds like you're still working on like parameters for what you'll look at. We are. We are.
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It is so big. I'm trying to like categorize it.
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And I've said this before, maybe put the mental folders, not real,
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but mental folders of kind of or buckets.
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I'm a business guy, so I use folders. So you put the things as photos,
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which kind of separates a larger picture down to a more manageable picture.
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Yeah, I think that's what's scary to people. They don't know.
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And at the end of the day, though, like I said, I don't think anybody is out
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there saying, yeah, please don't look.
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Because state employees, what they told us in 2011, since you mentioned coming
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to the General Assembly in 2011, I don't know if you remember this.
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We gave, sorry for all the paper noises.
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I know Sam, our producer, is cringing right now. Scenic gave a report to the
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General Assembly. It was called Take Pride in Carolina. It's a budget savings report.
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Now, what we were told from the early 2000s, when we would say state employees
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need a raise, retirees need something, where do you want us to get it,
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is what we heard. There's no money.
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I mean, even when there was clearly plenty of surplus, there's no money.
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And so we said, well, let us look.
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And so like everybody else, we went through and tried to find money. Efficiencies.
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But then we realized we're not the ones that really know.
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It's the ones working in state government. And we asked folks to give us input. Now, true.
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Some of the input occasionally was, Joe, three cubicles away from me, is kind of slack.
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That Martha, she only comes in. Yes, that's exactly right. Sorry,
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Martha, if you're out there.
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It's not on Martha. But our past president's name is Martha.
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So that's going to be really. Sorry, Martha. Another name.
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Matilda. Matilda. I don't think we have one. So the good news,
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though, was of the substantive things we got from state employees,
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some of them were really shocking. But when we looked into them, true.
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And we're going to give you a copy of that. Thank you.
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We're reminding ourselves of what people said back then. But one of the things
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we are going to do as an organization is ask folks, tell us where the issues
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are, because I can tell you state employees will tell you in a minute where
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they think money's being wasted because they're taxpayers. Right.
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Great minds thinking alike, we are building a website now that will have an
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opportunity to call in and make those suggestions.
18:53
Hey, you know, have you looked over here? Have you tried this?
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Hey, I was dealing with DMV and can you speed that process, that kind of thing
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to provide from taxpayers, from employees, from anywhere?
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Yeah. Like a tip on that or something. Yeah, I think there's usefulness in that.
19:08
And anonymous, I guess some people might call something like that.
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We get a lot of folks that call us, and they call us because they don't want
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to put themselves directly in a line of line.
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I'm sorry, and I apologize for it, because there seems to be an increasing amount
19:22
of fear of retribution, and it shouldn't be that way. It's always been there.
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State employees, I think we're a healthy, paranoid lot.
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Because people feel like if they call, maybe even if it's an anonymous call,
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the number might be able to be traced and who it is.
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But I think you will get a fair amount of comment.
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Some of it will be about Matilda, but some of it will be really useful.
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But again, we're happy to pass along anything that we hear because this whole
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thing, I'm kind of invigorated by this because it was really interesting the last time we did this.
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And there's one politician who dog-eared a page in that report and who never
19:59
let go of one of these issues, and it was Dale Falwell.
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So when he later became treasurer, he said, he shocked me.
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He pulled the report out and he said, I've never forgotten that y'all said these
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contracts on the state health plan that nobody can see that we're overpaying
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and that that's not okay.
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And I was, you could have blown me away that somebody had not only read it, but kept it.
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And so to see this kind of effort broadly, I think is something that people
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are going to, once they understand, it's my understanding anyway,
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your goal is not to just go in and say, yep, we cut government by a bunch.
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We did our job. We're saving taxpayers money. I haven't used my chainsaw back
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home cutting up trees for about 10 years now. So I have no plans on firing it up.
20:42
Yeah. No chainsaws. No chainsaws. But also a lot of my colleagues,
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as I do myself, I believe in a zero-based budgeting process.
20:51
Not all of government every year, but to work maybe a rolling process in.
20:56
So over a decade of time, you have thoroughly gone through your government each
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decade and try to keep it on that highly efficient, effective, and expeditious path.
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So this is kind of a way to address some of those concerns from my colleagues
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about a zero-based budgeting process without necessarily having to go through
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the exact zero-based budgeting process.
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And so the contracts, not just state health plans.
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Or retirement because the investment manager contracts in the retirement system
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are for billions of dollars and nobody can see the fees embedded in them.
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We talk a lot about the returns in the system.
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We don't talk about what the returns would be without layers of fees because
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none of us can know how many layers there are.
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But aside from those two that we talk about a lot, our members have mentioned
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and we've shared with you DOT contracts.
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We get calls from people at DOT like you wouldn't believe what's in some of these contracts.
21:44
Prison nurses, having traveling nurses. We've sat through meetings at the General
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Assembly, I don't know how many times, under multiple governors,
21:51
multiple agency heads, where the legislature was told this is so cost inefficient,
21:56
that we're paying a lot more than we would to actually employ these folks.
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And so that came up for me out in the field as recently as October of 2024.
22:04
Didn't that mean in a way of email? Sure will. I can look at it that way.
22:07
Yes, I promise. We'll send you all this stuff.
22:09
We'll send you lots of things. But, you know, the IT contracts,
22:11
I know our president being an IT guru, IT contracts, That comes up a lot.
22:15
There's so many contracts and consultants and things. But I guess my question
22:18
for you, because I really have no idea how if somebody told me,
22:21
you're queen for a day, go fix it.
22:23
I have no idea how I would start with the contracts.
22:26
Like, how are you all going to evaluate whether something is most efficient and a good deal for us?
22:31
Well, the first thing is we got to define, did the contract have a term,
22:35
term meaning an end date to when that contract would be producing?
22:39
And so we're going to check and
22:40
see if the outcome from the contract is performing as it was supposed to.
22:44
If not, we're going to ask why. And if it's a good process, we'll keep it.
22:49
If it's not a good process, we'll throw it out with the trash on Friday.
22:52
But we have to look at all those. And what's the cost estimate?
22:56
Is the cost in line with other similar?
22:58
We have the auditor that's working with us that will help us with that.
23:01
He has additional manpower. He can bring to bear that. If we see things that
23:06
look really just skewed, we'll go to Auditor Bolduc and say,
23:10
you know, hey, look at this right here for us.
23:12
So we have some tools that we can bring to bear.
23:15
But just looking through every contract and just examining it and make sure
23:18
that it's performing as it was supposed to perform.
23:21
And if it's not IT contracts, oh, my Lord. Sometimes we bring that on ourselves,
23:26
the increase in price, because we have a thing called change order and ads and ads and ads.
23:32
But, yeah, we have many, many times in state gone into IT contracts and could
23:38
probably done a little bit more homework before we entered into certain contracts.
23:41
And some of the contracts, you know, they look good on paper because when you
23:45
go through the process and you go through the bid process and everything,
23:48
saying you're thinking you're getting the best deal for what you're paying for,
23:52
but nine times out of 10, you're not.
23:54
And then they do have reoccurring stipulations in those contracts as well.
23:58
But one question I wanted to kind of ask you about is that I understand what
24:02
you're saying about efficiencies, but with efficiencies, how do you regulate
24:06
that to where you're not overburdening anyone?
24:09
If you're sending efficiencies and you're making adjustments on certain jobs,
24:13
how are you going to ensure that the other employees who are still there are
24:16
not overburdened because you made those efficiencies?
24:19
You know, that's a very good question. Coming from business,
24:21
if you're in it every day, you can kind of see.
24:24
You can tell that your employees are working at their peak or they're overloaded
24:28
or they're having to stay over late just to get a day's work done.
24:30
I think a lot of that's been pushed on teachers, for example.
24:33
Teachers are doing way beyond just teaching, educating their kids.
24:37
So that's kind of a prime example I look at is how some of those additional
24:42
burdens were put on the backs of teachers.
24:44
Same thing with state employees. Is it, you know, you are trying to do a specific
24:47
job and that job comes with a description when you sign on.
24:51
So what are you doing beyond the scope of that description?
24:54
That would be one way we could probably look at that. And just kind of piggyback
24:58
off what you said about Martha, in a sense, you may have an employee.
25:02
Matilda, I'm sorry, my apologies.
25:05
You may have an employee over here who's doing 150 percent, but Matilda is over here doing 10 percent.
25:12
But the point about it is that the person that's doing the 150% still needs
25:16
to have someone there to come up to speed rather than Matilda does or not,
25:20
even though you may say, okay, Matilda is no longer needed, but you still need
25:25
to offset that other 50% that that employee. Correct.
25:27
But I can assure you that person doing 150% will feel much better about her
25:31
job once we define that Matilda needs to up the game a little bit or we will
25:36
find someone that can, you know, carry the load.
25:38
Yeah, I get what you're saying. Yeah, the position doesn't need to go.
25:41
The person needs to go in those situations.
25:43
But, yeah, that makes sense. And that's probably a relief here because there
25:46
is a lot of overburdened state employees right now who are carrying a load of more than one position.
25:53
Certainly. You mentioned prisons a minute ago. I just saw some numbers the other
25:56
day. They're like a 60-some-odd percent staff.
25:59
And, man, that's 30% off. That's a huge hole in a very serious,
26:03
serious working environment.
26:05
So we really need to be. And don't be afraid to look at it.
26:07
If you need to put money on it, put money on it. But sitting there hoping that
26:10
the hole fills up or wishing that the hole would fill up without taking direct
26:14
action to fix a problem. That's on us.
26:17
Yeah, and that will definitely be something that state employees,
26:21
especially in corrections, will be very excited to hear. So here's something.
26:25
There's areas where we're not spending money on the front end that costs so
26:30
much money on the back end.
26:31
But some of those do involve lives. And probation parole comes to mind because
26:35
a very elite group of those folks were involved in Charlotte when they were joining U.S. Marshals.
26:41
That's correct. We lost some folks. Yes. And I was asking them afterwards about
26:46
their equipment and stuff like that.
26:48
I had no idea that our folks in those roles were not equipped.
26:52
And the folks that do probation parole every day, because if you're going to
26:55
somebody's house, you have no idea any day, anywhere, what they're waiting for you with.
27:00
And they don't have the kind, and I'll say it wrong, but the kind of body armor
27:05
that would protect them from being pierced from some of the,
27:08
I think, long guns is what they call armor. Armor-piercing projectors.
27:11
Yeah, so they don't have the quality of stuff. And it's not because of the department,
27:15
because, you know, I'm ready to blame the department on any department if it's,
27:19
but they said the department's not getting the money for that.
27:21
But I don't know that legislators know that. No, and I can tell you,
27:25
you talk to our police force, a lot of times they go into a situation where
27:28
they are terribly outgunned and they have to bring in additional reinforcements
27:32
with the necessary armament to counter what they're up against.
27:36
But you think of just the guy or the girl that's, you know, riding around in
27:39
a squad car and gets to call, serve a warrant or go knock on the door or answer any kind of call.
27:46
You know, there's a special place in heaven for those folks when we get our
27:49
dessert, because I just I can't fathom doing that job.
27:52
But we have to do better by our law enforcement, make sure they have the tools
27:55
that can be brought to bear.
27:56
And I joke with him. I said, guys, if it was a world according to John,
27:59
like if you were in your car pulling someone over, you wouldn't get out of your car.
28:02
You'd put you on the speaker, tell those guys to get out of the car,
28:04
come around, put their hand on the hood.
28:06
And I'd write you a ticket and just lay it out the window and you'd pick it
28:09
up. But I'd never get out of my car, walk up to a car, especially after dark.
28:13
But that's how they're trained to do. God love them for taking on that profession.
28:17
And, you know, here's the remarkable thing. So I'm with you.
28:21
God love our law enforcement that...
28:23
But those moments with the car are not constant. And in the prisons,
28:27
that's a 12-hour shift of at any second somebody could, you know.
28:31
I think you have to be, each and every second, you have to be cognizant of what
28:34
you're doing, where you're located, and your surroundings.
28:37
And just that high level of stress.
28:40
The average lifespan is in the early 50s. Wow. Isn't that crazy?
28:45
Literally. Around the country, not just North Carolina. Which I'm assuming Sam's
28:48
probably still a member. He's retired now. But he was a police officer.
28:52
And when he left the police department, he went to work for the state as a correctional officer.
28:56
And he always used to say that, you know, as a police officer,
28:59
20 percent of my time was spent with the bad guys. 80 percent of my time was not in the prison.
29:03
It's the opposite. 80 percent of your time spent with the bad guys, 20 percent of your time.
29:06
And this day and time, I only think they're getting the 20 percent.
29:09
But I'm kind of wondering where I was going with that is one of the things we've
29:13
heard for years from folks working either in prisons, probation,
29:16
parole, stuff like that. Well, probation parole has it now, I think.
29:18
But the law enforcement benefits across the board, the same as law enforcement gets.
29:22
I think the prisons could get filled in terms of jobs.
29:26
That would be me. If they saw something like that, just for what it's worth, as you're looking at.
29:30
Some things might cost money to do that end up saving you money because when
29:34
people get hurt, people are getting hurt right and left.
29:36
Yeah, my thing here lately is that there's a lot of talk about depopulating
29:39
our prisons because you don't want to be overpopulated.
29:41
Well, I get that, but, you know, I don't want to depopulate prisons with people
29:45
that really need to be in a prison. We've been depopulating them. Yeah.
29:48
We've been closing them. I think you will start to see a shift as population grows.
29:53
And unfortunately, the rate of crime continues to grow simply by population.
29:57
I think you'll see additional conversations about building new technologically
30:00
advanced housing facilities or prisons or the bad doers.
30:04
More so than what we have now, which could also make it easier on the folks
30:08
that have to work in the prisons, too, if you build them right.
30:11
Well, that leads to the next question we had. Would the vision be that those would be privatized?
30:16
I don't know. That would be a discussion that we had to have.
30:18
And I assure you, my colleagues are a bunch of great folks from all over the
30:21
state, and we talk through these very issues daily.
30:24
And you'll see bills come out reflecting some of those conversations,
30:28
and you see the budget built that will also reflect some of those conversations.
30:31
The thing we have to do is be cognizant of where we are as far as revenue goes
30:35
and to make sure that we don't go beyond our means. We can't constitutionally
30:39
do that, but also we shouldn't do it just in the smart practice of people's government. Okay.
30:43
Well, because, I mean, we've tried private prisons in North Carolina before,
30:47
and we had to pull them back.
30:48
The state had to take them back. The state had to take them back.
30:50
And now we have components privatized at the gatehouses and things like that.
30:54
Some of the least contact with the offenders. Yeah, the perimeter patron.
30:58
I believe in the free market, I honestly do, but I do think there are certain
31:01
things that the government needs to be the center point of the performance of that auction.
31:06
Because you hold liability at the end of the day? Presidents would be one of them. Yeah.
31:11
Education, though, for example. I think, God love them for what they do,
31:14
but I think we have too many LEAs.
31:16
We have 200-something around the state, and there's not a lot of centralization
31:19
at the state level, so we can't really understand exactly how each one is performing enough.
31:24
And there needs to be just a little bit more, as far as data collection goes,
31:27
a little more centralized stuff.
31:28
So there's certain things that we have offloaded in the past that we may be
31:32
looking at reloading on the front, just for like the data and performance-based
31:36
analogies and stuff. But at this moment, are y'all looking, because this is
31:41
my fear, because it's the low-hanging fruit.
31:43
Everybody always thinks privatization looks great because short-term,
31:46
they're sweetheart deals for a couple of years usually.
31:48
I mean, we've done a lot. I've had no conversation about privatizing anything.
31:51
Well, good. Just keep it like that. That's good. Y'all are doing great so far.
31:54
But the other thing I wanted to know about, and then I'm done with all my questions,
31:58
and I don't know if y'all have more, but I'm just, I'm loving this.
32:00
I'm loving picking your brain here. But so we all saw the Andrew.
32:04
Just leave me with a little.
32:08
If either of us has any left, we'll be lucky. But I think a lot of us saw that
32:12
opinion piece Andrew Dunn did about economic incentives.
32:15
It was in Charlotte Observer and News Observer saying, look,
32:18
the state has spent this enormous amount of money. It was like $230 million
32:23
to create 99,000 jobs over like the last five years or something.
32:27
And then he specifically mentioned that pact of evergreen plant in Canton that
32:31
got $12 million, turned around almost immediately, reneged on all of that.
32:37
And then the state, quote, settled it with them for half.
32:40
They paid back half of what they got and then left. And that kind of thing burns up taxpayers.
32:46
That just burns them up when they hear about it. But they don't hear about it
32:49
too often. So I was curious on these economic incentive deals and whether they
32:53
pan out. Is that something y'all are going to be looking at?
32:56
We need to. We need to make sure that it's the best outcome for the people that
33:01
are paying their hard-earned tax dollars to the state.
33:03
Each plan is different. Each industrial component is different.
33:06
Each industry, you're talking about bringing jobs to North Carolina, is different.
33:09
So I hate to use the term, but it could be just the art of the deal.
33:12
And maybe we just need to focus a little bit more on the structure,
33:15
how the deals are to better the people of North Carolina.
33:18
There's going to be some bad deals. There are. And I'm not making bones about
33:21
them or taking up for anybody. But we need to do the best we possibly,
33:25
possibly can, especially on the incentive front, because I hear both sides of the argument.
33:29
We shouldn't incentivize. We should incentivize. We shouldn't.
33:31
And we've been having the same discussions for well over, I've been in positive for 20 years.
33:35
I was going to say, I remember we were talking about this in 2001.
33:40
So, yeah, that will be a focal point as well. Anything that expends a people's
33:43
tax dollars inevitably will come across our desk.
33:47
Okay. People will be glad to hear that. When does the committee get to get started
33:50
on your work? Yeah, we're formulating now.
33:53
You'll probably see a little piece come out. We're trying to build the committee
33:56
with the representation on the committee.
33:58
Speaker Hall was kind enough to allow us to go ahead and get cranked up before
34:01
the interim because just of the workload itself.
34:05
And it will take us probably six weeks to get everything uploaded.
34:08
And if we wait till session's out, then that's six lost weeks.
34:12
So we're building that now, still working behind the scenes.
34:15
We're gathering information and trying to, like I say, put them in different folders.
34:20
So in the coming days and weeks, then you probably see more and more about it.
34:26
Is it just going to be you representative Kidwell or y'all get to have a whole
34:29
committee? No, we're going to get a pickup truck and we're driving around the
34:32
state. No, no, I'm teasing.
34:34
No, we'll have a... It would need to be a bulldozer because... A bulldozer.
34:40
That's actually not a terrible idea. People would probably talk to y'all if
34:43
you did that. No, it will be a full-up committee.
34:46
I don't know how many members the Speaker intends to put on that's his assignment.
34:50
And he's asked for our opinion of people to come to us that would like to be
34:53
put on it. There's been, we'll say, a wide interest on that.
34:56
But also, if you follow the tracking of bills that are being filed,
34:59
some of the bills being filed are doing the same thing that we will inevitably look at.
35:03
But those bills haven't passed, of course. Right. Still got a ways to go.
35:07
If you want a random, unelected person, I'm a volunteer. You've got some brief
35:11
time. I was actually going to say, you know, I know that, you know,
35:14
we're on the ground all the time.
35:16
So Scenic is obviously a resource, but don't hesitate.
35:19
One thing I'm going to look at you all as partners in this. So you guys are
35:23
the bread and butter of our workers out there in state government.
35:25
And I'm sure they understand that. And we need to understand that as well.
35:29
We appreciate that. We might not
35:30
always agree, but at least work with a professional collaborative effort.
35:35
That's how life is. You don't always agree. You hear that, honey? Uh-oh.
35:41
Dr. Torbett is referring to Mrs. Torbett, who is here, and I couldn't see her
35:46
right then, but I might have rolled her eyes. I always agree with her.
35:50
You should. She is always correct. You should. You've got a good one,
35:54
and you know it. Absolutely. I know that you know it, so it's okay.
35:59
Our president knows it, too. Well, thank you very much for joining us,
36:03
Representative Torbett.
36:04
And for the record, I had nothing to do with that bulldozer joke that y'all made.
36:08
It's not a joke. That is what Representative Kidwell is calling himself.
36:11
I did not write that joke.
36:13
I'm glad there's some levity amidst the work that we do.
36:17
Amen. Amen. Because I think we would lose our minds if we didn't. I enjoy it.
36:22
Some of you will say, well, you need to take this seriously.
36:24
I take everything seriously. but also know that you've got to break away and smile and laugh.
36:29
Well, that's why I had the music playing when you came in here.
36:32
Music is my release. It is mine too, so I understand that.
36:37
I lost it for several years. It's like I was too busy working,
36:41
and I kind of got it back. You can't ever lose it. Do you still ride your motorcycle?
36:46
I ride it upon occasion. I jokingly say I ride it once a year to go get it. Inspecated.
36:50
Inspecated to not ride it for another year. So, but yeah, I break the,
36:54
and I, and make it clear. I don't ride a motorcycle.
36:56
I ride a Harley Davidson. Yeah. Harley, yes, sir. Just kidding, guys. Just kidding.
37:02
So yeah, I was going to say, are the other ones that inferior? Yeah. Really?
37:07
She's going to be clear about it. We're Harley people. Just say.
37:10
What was it? Dale rode the, uh, I don't know. He did like motocross, right?
37:14
Oh yeah, he did. Yeah, he did. Hey, let me tell you about Dale. Dale. Oh, do Dale.
37:19
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We could have a whole podcast on. We served together.
37:22
Where we were friends and he and he dirt biked i mean he was
37:24
he was really good professional i mean very very good
37:27
so i have a black and chrome harley davison road king
37:30
and i kept it he'll keep it spotless i mean spotless so
37:33
he invited me up to a dirt run about 30 40 minutes north of where we live i
37:37
said sure i'd love to come watch up there and i got there and he taught me how
37:40
to help him get started with a you know a foot on a on a bucket or something
37:44
and then go from there and cut cuts down start time and stuff that's pretty
37:47
good stuff so we're staying there we're there for like three or four hours.
37:51
And they're running all through the woods and the trees and all over the place.
37:54
And after it was over again, hey, thanks, man. Thanks for having me.
37:57
I had a great time. Walked out. My black and chrome bike was brown.
38:02
Brown from clay dust. Oh, yeah. And I was so angry.
38:09
That's so funny. Did it ever come clean? It did come clean with several spray washes.
38:15
Spray wash, shine that chrome back up. Absolutely. But it's tedious.
38:19
But, yeah, that was my one Dell story I'll tell.
38:23
We'll have you back and tell more. That was a great thing.
38:27
And if there's stories on anyone else, you feel free to come back and tell those,
38:30
too. Oh, well, then there's no.
38:33
But, again, we're really grateful that you joined us today. No,
38:36
thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
38:38
And thank you all for what you do. Thank you. I truly mean what I say,
38:41
that I look at y'all as partners in this process of help us get to a good,
38:45
efficient, effective government.
38:46
We look at these all the time, so it's not like we're not doing the best we
38:49
can. But we believe we can just go a step further.
38:51
Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
38:54
President. Good to see you, sir. Thank you for what you do.
38:57
Music.
39:03
Torbett. A lot to learn there. We'll see what happens with that committee.
39:07
That's a big, we're very appreciative to Representative Torbett and we're in
39:10
talks with other representatives, hopefully senators, to get more people on
39:15
the podcast because that is the way to learn what's going on in the General Assembly.
39:19
So it's a huge thing he took his time and came over here and did that. We're grateful.
39:22
A very personable man too, huh? That he is. Oh yeah.
39:26
That he is. You see why he gets elected. Now let's go to John's Wacky Weird question of the week.
39:38
I just have to say that we have a new toy in the podcast world here.
39:43
We do have a new soundboard, and Sam is loving her new buttons that let her
39:47
inject the music into the podcast.
39:51
They're so much fun. In the interest of saving money, we were talking about
39:55
that the whole episode, it seems. My question of the week is,
39:58
what is your favorite Scenic discount or what is something from Scenic that
40:02
you use to save money? And I'll go first.
40:05
I always use the BJ's membership. I think we still have that. I hope we do.
40:10
But BJ's Costco, we have Sam. I think we have Sam's. You stole mine.
40:17
You're like, I'll go first and the president can wait. I only use the BJ's one.
40:23
But yeah, my wife likes to go to BJ's. So that's the one. Wait,
40:27
we have a Costco? Yeah, we have. I got BJ's and Costco.
40:32
I just re-up. Or when you need 100 of something.
40:35
I like Costco. Yeah. Suzanne, what do you use to save money with Scenic?
40:40
I'm trying to think of the, there's a tire store. Costco.
40:46
It's not. It's like direct tire or something like that. Discount tire.
40:50
Discount tire. That's it. So I use my discount there.
40:53
And I often say this to people. If you use your discounts, you will make up
40:57
what you pay in scenic dues.
40:59
If you buy a set of tires, you've paid your scenic dues. See,
41:02
if you're listening and you're not a member, I bet you want to be now.
41:05
We're just discount kings and queens around here. We can make,
41:08
yeah. I don't know if we can legally say that, but we can make money being a
41:12
scenic member. Oh, Lord.
41:14
Artists, what do you like? I mean, I think it's well known I like to go to a theme park.
41:19
Well, I did until, you know, the kids were actually grown.
41:23
And finally, I think maybe they would go right now, though, if I asked them
41:27
to. But Scenics always had theme park tickets.
41:30
And there were many, many times that I saved money using those Scenic tickets.
41:34
You know what's interesting about this?
41:36
I'll take a tangent here, the theme park tickets. There's not a theme park in
41:39
Sanford. You're going to try to say something about them. We have a great theme park in Sanford.
41:43
But I always get the question, it's like, you're the credit union,
41:47
you sell those theme park tickets?
41:49
I'm like, actually, no, I'm not with the credit union, but we do sell the theme park tickets.
41:54
Everyone just expects it to be the credit union, because we've always partnered
41:57
with the credit union. And we're still partnered with them. Yeah.
42:01
So we advertise them. So we're trying to do a better job of getting our logo
42:04
on some of them flyers to make sure.
42:06
Go State Employees Credit Union while we're at it. But yeah,
42:09
I need to take advantage of the theme park tickets more. Sam, what's your favorite?
42:13
I like my vision insurance and my dental insurance. Yeah.
42:17
I cost a lot of money to have glasses and contacts. Cost a lot of money.
42:22
So the vision insurance definitely helps. And I had to get my wisdom teeth taken
42:27
out last year, and the dental insurance definitely helped with that.
42:30
And we're not legally allowed to sell you these things because we're not. It's just my favorite.
42:35
Yeah. We can sell them. We can't say if they're better or worse than anyone
42:39
else's, but you should check. Yeah, you should check our website.
42:42
We're allowed to tell you that. You should check.
42:45
Compare it. Oh, what about all the regulations at the insurance department?
42:49
Yeah, we're just saying they're out there and you should check.
42:53
The vision insurance in particular I use at least once a year.
42:57
Get my contacts and classes.
42:59
It's a good one. Check it out, state employees.
43:02
Kirk, what's yours? I'm sorry I stole it. Do you have another one or do you
43:05
want to save that one? I'm just going to put it this way.
43:07
All the discounts are great. There you go. Oh, that's a politician.
43:11
Pick a favorite one. Yeah. And so I'm not going to pick everyone else. That was a politician.
43:15
Every option that you heard, I have used. Yeah.
43:18
But to find out more about it, become a member. There you go. Look at that. He's a pro.
43:23
Scenic.org. Check out our discounts, our insurance products,
43:27
our advocacy, and our podcast especially.
43:31
And we'll see. Well, hang on before we leave. Okay. After we talked to Representative
43:34
Torbett, I know we promised him we would ask people to send in anything they had.
43:40
If they didn't want to send it straight into the legislature,
43:43
if they want to send it into Scenic, so, you know, some people feel like that
43:46
feels a little more anonymous to them.
43:48
We are happy to take any suggestions you have that you know of to,
43:53
you know, where something could be more efficient in your work as a state employee.
43:56
We do have that email address set up now. Podcast at scenic.org, right?
44:01
Podcast at scanc.org. We'll put it in the description for this episode.
44:05
Send us your savings and take advantage of our savings. Thank you.
44:10
Music.