Latest / The SEANC View / Health Care Shakeup: Atrium-WakeMed Merger Sparks Statewide Outcry

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Health Care Shakeup: Atrium-WakeMed Merger Sparks Statewide Outcry · The SEANC View

0:11
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
0:15
I'm your host, Jonathan Owens, with Artis Watkins and Suzanne Beasley.
0:20
And there's another podcast that I like that always has a segment at the very
0:25
beginning called What a Week.
0:27
And I think that's appropriate for us this week. We had a huge week,
0:31
lots of things to talk about.
0:33
It's May 8th. We're recording on a Friday for once, which is allowing us to
0:37
get all kinds of topics in.
0:38
So let's just dive right into it. Our roots started a little earlier than maybe we expected.
0:43
Last Friday, Atrium announced that it was, I guess we'd call it a merger.
0:48
I don't know if it's really a merger with Wake Med, a huge hospital in the Triangle area.
0:54
Atrium is the largest hospital conglomerate in the state, and they're from the Charlotte area. Yeah.
1:00
That set off huge uproar from all over.
1:03
State Treasurer Brad Briner released a statement early on, you know,
1:08
questioning whether this is a great idea for the state health plan because so
1:14
many of the state health plan members are in the Triangle area.
1:17
And when hospitals merge like this, it always leads to higher prices.
1:22
And then we also released a letter to the Wake County Board of Commissioners
1:27
who has to approve parts of this merger, like not really the nuts and bolts
1:32
of it, but artists can tell us a little bit more about exactly what they have to do.
1:36
But it became a huge issue because the Wake County Board of Commissioners were
1:42
meeting on Monday night, and they were going to vote on it.
1:45
So basically, we had maybe two days over a weekend of heads up over this.
1:51
And State Auditor Dave Bullock also released a letter coming out against this merger.
1:58
So it was a huge deal on Monday.
2:01
Tell us about it, Artis. Well, I mean, first of all, to get into the intricacies
2:06
of how it works for the Wake County Board of Commissioners and whether or not
2:10
they, what they have to do to
2:12
approve it and whether they really play a role, the bottom line is this.
2:16
The Wake County Board of Commissioners chair, Don Mile, made public statements
2:20
about, you know, it's not even our decision to make. Well, yeah, it is.
2:24
That's 100 percent not true. Wake County commissioners can make or break this deal.
2:30
And so what the public is pretty clearly asking them is put the brakes on this
2:35
and at least hear from us, because I don't think the county commissioners from
2:38
the things, the limited stuff they're saying out loud, I don't think.
2:42
They fully understand what this is going to mean, not just for the people of
2:45
Wake County, but usually public officials care not just about their county,
2:49
but about, you know, everybody in the state. For Wake County, it's a terrible deal.
2:54
It's a terrible deal. You would have more monopolization of the health care
2:58
in Wake County, which is already one of the most expensive places for health
3:02
care in the most expensive state for health care in the nation.
3:05
So Treasurer Briner, obviously, as the person who has the state health plan
3:10
in his agency, properly said, look, this is going to be a huge issue for the
3:16
health plan, a huge cost driver.
3:18
And remember, if something impacts the state health plan, it impacts everyone,
3:23
because the state health plan is about one-tenth of the commercially insured
3:27
population in the state.
3:28
So he spoke out and Auditor Bullock spoke out and said, oh, I have problems
3:34
with this. There's no transparency around this.
3:36
And then Mayor Janet Cowell of Raleigh, who used to be treasurer a couple of
3:40
treasurers ago, and is the first one that had the health plan under the office
3:45
of state treasurer, spoke out and said, this is not good.
3:48
You know, I want you to take time as well. It was weird, though.
3:52
So Monday night, they postponed the vote for 90 days.
3:55
Tuesday, WakeMed and Atrium, who they're wanting to merge with or let by them
4:00
or be taken over by, they had a press conference together and said,
4:04
look, we've been working on this for two years. Well, that just made it worse.
4:07
Like, why do you give two days notice, a weekend, two days notice,
4:11
of a meeting where you're going to make a seismic change in health care in this
4:17
state that you've been working on for two years and you think the public should
4:20
just swallow that real quick?
4:22
And I got to tell you, here's something that is the biggest deal about this.
4:26
In the year 2000, so 25 years ago, North Carolina had 53 independently owned
4:32
hospitals. We now have 20.
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That's according. I got that figure from an article, a very well done article
4:38
about this whole situation in the assembly.
4:41
Yeah, I was just reading through that less than 10 percent in North Carolina are independent now.
4:46
And so if you want to connect the dots, why are we number one most expensive?
4:51
So going back to the commissioners for a second, I thought it was even even
4:56
more shocking that it was just on the consent agenda. Like, it wasn't even on the real agenda.
5:01
They could have just up or down voted it with a lot of other issues.
5:05
Do you think the commission had a heads up on it or were they blindsided by this, too?
5:10
I think they had a heads up. Let's just say that, OK? Yeah. I'll leave it there.
5:13
I mean, they had to, right?
5:15
But in our experience with the boards that we have to deal with for state employee
5:20
issues, very seldom do folks not have an idea that things are coming.
5:25
Sometimes folks don't feel free to talk about it. That's, yeah.
5:29
Yeah. There's a lot of things at play here.
5:31
Shout out to Dale Falwell, who was treasurer for eight years and trying to take
5:36
on exactly this kind of thing that the hospitals were doing,
5:38
the consolidation and so forth.
5:40
And he screamed about this with us beside him, and no one cared.
5:46
Right. So this happened previously in New Hanover. They had,
5:49
if it wasn't the number one rated community owned hospital in the nation,
5:53
it was pretty close down in Wilmington. and they had a takeover there.
5:58
Their county commissioners voted that Novant Health could come in and run the system.
6:03
And almost immediately, they had
6:04
public outcry over prices, and they're continuing to have public outcry.
6:09
There's lawsuits that have been filed over all kinds of things with regard to
6:12
the hospital being insufficient down there.
6:15
There's a lot of, the bottom line is, there's just a lot of public real discontent with the hospital.
6:20
And in Asheville, you had a similar scenario where Mission Hospital was taken
6:25
over by HCA, one of the biggest conglomerates in the country.
6:28
That has been one thing after another, including the nurses wanting to unionize
6:33
because of how they felt they were treated by the company.
6:36
There's been a lot of public complaint up there. I don't know of a situation
6:40
off the top of my head where this kind of thing has happened to a community
6:44
hospital where it ended with everybody happy.
6:46
And Bryner, he's just been throwing facts out from what I've noticed of all of his correspondence.
6:52
I see one here in this assembly story, and it is a really good story.
6:56
He said Wake Med runs at a 4% profit margin.
7:01
Atrium is at 11% and Mission Hospital is at 10%. And that makes the case right there, right?
7:07
I mean. Well, OK, so what he was trying to address, Wake Med said,
7:11
look, we have to do this. We have to merge.
7:13
We have no choice because we are broke and we need to we have to replace our
7:17
aging facility there in southeast Raleigh.
7:21
We don't have the money to do that unless we have a big partner who's got deep pockets.
7:25
And Treasurer Briner runs the local government commission. He knows exactly
7:29
what they have. And he came out and he said, what?
7:31
That's not factual. So, you know, he pointed out you could do that just fine
7:35
by yourselves. And he was a little confused as to why they're claiming poverty.
7:40
And, you know, overall, they're supposed to be nonprofit hospitals to begin with, right?
7:45
Yeah, for what that means in this day. I mean, Atrium is a nonprofit hospital.
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And when this first came out Friday, I think your first statement was they're
7:55
CEO makes $25 million a year.
7:59
Well, it was a 49% increase, I think, in his salary and into the C-suite,
8:06
the entire C-suite of Atrium.
8:08
So one of the strange things about all of the really, really strange things
8:13
was WakeMed, which has a long history of representing an underserved community.
8:20
Saying, look, Atrium aligns with our values.
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And in treating and serving underserved communities when everyone was scratching their heads saying,
8:29
okay, these are the guys that just gave themselves massive raises and the CEO
8:35
makes a salary second only to Bank of America CEO in Charlotte.
8:40
All those companies in Charlotte, but the hospital serving the underserved population
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has the guy making the number two biggest CEO salary in Charlotte.
8:48
So people were scratching their heads over that, but there's also been considerable
8:52
consternation over Atrium's billing practices.
8:55
So that's another thing, because who's going to be hit hardest by billing practices
9:00
that are, at this point, questioned? It would definitely be underserved populations.
9:04
So people are really just scratching their head over, what are you talking about?
9:08
You say you're broke, you say you need a partner that's just as committed to
9:12
the underserved populations as you, and then none of it makes sense.
9:17
So take that for what you will, but know that if you live in Ashe County,
9:23
if you live in Elizabeth City, you may think this does not matter.
9:28
It's not going to affect my life. It would.
9:30
As health care, these monopolies chomp everything up, then you're looking at
9:35
a situation where health care goes up across the state.
9:38
That's why Treasurer Briner has, in fact, John, like you said.
9:41
In his very factual way. He's not an aggressive person.
9:45
It's not his style. But he is, I think the Assembly even said he's being a bit
9:50
Falwellian on all this stuff, but with a completely different style.
9:53
He's incredibly factual and, well, treasure Falwell in fairness.
9:58
Used facts, too, but Treasurer Falwell had a very aggressive style.
10:02
Treasurer Briner is using his style just to say, I'm not just going to sit here
10:05
and watch while this gets done.
10:09
I'm hoping what it leads to, though, is transparency of the prices,
10:12
because that makes me want to know what is the state health plan paying atrium
10:17
compared to what the state health plan is paying any other hospital. Right.
10:20
Yeah. Now, from here, I guess the commissioners voted to put the,
10:26
I guess, to table the issue for 90 days while they can seek public input, right?
10:32
Yeah, but what's strange is they did that. And then, like I said,
10:36
the chair of the commission said...
10:38
Chair of the Board of Commissioners said, look, we don't really have the decision-making authority.
10:41
What he said out loud during that meeting was, yeah, we'll table it for 90 days
10:46
while, or pause it, they said, for 90 days while the public can make their case
10:52
to Atrium and to WakeMed.
10:54
You know, we responded, we are not, we don't want to, we don't care what Atrium
10:58
or WakeMed thinks about the public's thoughts at all.
11:01
Like, less than zero is how much I care about what Atrium and WakeMed think
11:05
about, what we think. the Board of Commissioners in Wake County needs to listen
11:10
to its people, and that's who
11:12
needs to care because they do have the final decision-making authority.
11:15
John, let's let them know, people know how they can reach out to the Wake County
11:19
Board of Commissioners because they need to.
11:21
That's important. I know I've got, I'm from Wake County.
11:25
I live in Johnston County now, so they are not my commissioners,
11:28
but I have a lot of friends who are not state employees, and,
11:31
you know, I shared this stuff on social media, so,
11:34
you know, everybody needs to do that, too, because if you live in Wake County
11:37
now's the time, and there were people who were alarmed, who had no idea,
11:41
didn't realize how big a driver the state health plan is for costs,
11:45
but, you know, didn't know that this was even happening in their county.
11:48
So encourage anyone, you know, to, you know, be heard. Speak your piece.
11:53
We'll set up on our website page with all the contact information for the commissioners.
11:58
They actually have a tool on their site.
12:00
It's kind of hard to find. I
12:01
actually had a lot of problems finding it myself, so we'll make it easier.
12:06
It is tricky, John. You're right. Yeah. So, yeah, you had to go to a page and
12:10
then to a link, and it was really complicated. I even had to ask you how to
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do it. We'll make it easier on our website.
12:17
So you can just go to scenic.org, and you'll find it there.
12:20
I think that everyone in the state, not just in the Raleigh area,
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should care about it because it's going to make, if you're on the state health
12:27
plan, it's inevitably going to make some impact in your wallet if prices go up at WakeMed.
12:33
According to the treasurer, a big one. Yeah.
12:36
And listen, that also means contact your legislator no matter where you live
12:39
and tell them this thing's happening between Wake Med and some other hospital
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and it's going to make my costs go up.
12:46
Health care is already out of control. What are you all going to do about it? Yeah.
12:49
And I don't you know, there's there's debate now over whether the legislature
12:53
might try to do something and over what they could do if they wanted to.
12:58
Trust and believe the legislature has found a way to do to get involved in pretty
13:02
much anything they want to get involved in. Yeah.
13:05
You've got to put this on their radar. Speaking of former Treasurer Dale Falwell.
13:10
He was quoted in an opinion piece
13:13
by Andrew Dunn in the Charlotte Observer today about the whole issue.
13:17
He said all of these executives in this proposed transaction would laugh all the way to the bank.
13:23
This could all be corrected in one afternoon with the courage of the elected officials.
13:27
He hasn't lost his fight, right? Well, I mean, he's not incorrect.
13:31
Yeah. It's not like the General Assembly back in the day was helpless.
13:35
When he was trying to put some limits on the unchecked power of hospitals to
13:41
just charge prices they don't have to be public about to the state health plan
13:46
using public money. He's not incorrect.
13:48
So this same article mentions draft legislation that came up in March about
13:53
cutting a property tax exemption for nonprofit hospitals from 100% to 50% of appraised value.
14:01
Now, remember, nonprofit hospital sounds like you'd be picking on somebody if
14:07
you didn't give the full exemption to a nonprofit hospital.
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But those nonprofits are, you know, they're making money.
14:16
Atrium, like we just said, is a nonprofit hospital.
14:19
Paying its CEO $25 million a year. Julia Howard.
14:23
A House member from Davie County, said in committee, I think somebody, I'm sorry,
14:28
said in committee when referring to whether or not the legislature should look
14:33
at changing that complete exemption on property tax for non-profit hospitals
14:38
from 100% to only 50% exemption,
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she said, look, I think somebody told me I shouldn't say this,
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but we were all bombarded with calls from lobbyists. She quickly added to laughter.
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I'm not going to pick on the hospitals. I'm not going to even mention it.
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Another lawmaker shot back. Yes, you were told not to bring that up.
14:57
And that exchange happened, according to Michelle Crouch from North Carolina
15:01
Health News, during a House select committee on property tax reduction and reform.
15:05
That's a very, that's an alarming exchange, but it's, I mean,
15:10
it's real because it's just reporting out loud what we know.
15:12
The hospital lobby is incredibly powerful, an incredibly deep and well-funded bench, you know. Yeah.
15:19
Do you think there would be an appetite for something like that now,
15:21
given this public fight over, maybe the issue has kind of raised its head again? Yes.
15:28
I think, I mean, hopefully, yeah. Well, you know, it's funny.
15:31
We were at a forum yesterday and somebody said, oh, okay, so you're going to
15:34
fix the healthcare issue.
15:35
And I said, you know what? I think the healthcare issue has gotten to the boiling
15:38
point in North Carolina.
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Again, we're the number one most expensive place in the country on health care.
15:44
And what ends up happening eventually is people realize they can't take anymore.
15:50
Employers, small employers, realize they can't afford health care for their employees.
15:54
It's suppressing everybody's wages. It's the number one health care costs are
15:58
the number one cause of bankruptcy in this state.
16:00
It's hurting people too much. So.
16:04
You know, when it affects just the people, things don't tend to happen legislatively,
16:08
but it's affecting the system now, the overall system.
16:12
It's affecting the economy in ways that are not, you know, health care can't
16:16
be your economic driver, you know, because that means your businesses are getting
16:22
soaked by one industry, basically.
16:24
And so we need a really vibrant, diverse economy. And right now,
16:29
we're way too heavy in North Carolina on the sector of our economy that is health care.
16:35
Especially when those profits are taken out of your town, you know, or out of your state.
16:41
So, obviously, we're going to keep watching that issue. But let's go to the budget debate.
16:46
And there's been a little bit of movement this week. I don't know if there's
16:50
been anything public released, Heather, Suzanne.
16:52
So the only thing I've seen, like, publicly released was House Majority Leader
16:57
Brendan Jones did a video for social media,
17:00
and in that video, he tells anyone listening that there's 8% in the House proposal
17:08
for teachers, but did not indicate a number for state employees.
17:13
We're just kind of in the conversation, but was not clear on what that would
17:17
mean for state employees.
17:19
Honestly, we are still at that point where it depends on who you ask at what
17:23
time of the day, on what day.
17:25
You know, here we are with the budgets. You know, some in leadership are feeling
17:29
like things are moving a little bit and they're feeling positive about it.
17:33
And two hours later, they'll be like, well, that went down.
17:36
So, you know, we're back at, you know, throwing proposals back and forth between the two chambers.
17:42
So there's still some things to work out. And here's the thing at the end of
17:46
the day, and one of the big budget writers told us this this week,
17:51
that the tax package is still the big thing that they're going back and forth over.
17:55
And until that is done, nothing else can actually fall into place.
18:00
So, yeah, whether you consider that movement or not is, you know,
18:03
something's moving, but it's not moving like in a direction where we're finalizing
18:08
anything, at least not this week.
18:09
So I think that ties in with my next topic, which is the lobby day we had on
18:15
Wednesday, because most of everything that we discussed with legislators were
18:20
around the budget. And we had a pretty good crowd.
18:23
I think there was probably at least 100 people showed up to lobby for their
18:28
co-workers who couldn't come. What did you guys think?
18:32
I thought it was it. I was excited to see the turnout. out.
18:35
And I think, you know, what we've got to remember, and legislators knew this,
18:39
is we can't shut down state government to come in and have a huge showing,
18:43
you know, like teachers did on the Friday before.
18:46
But what our group did was got themselves down there and showed up ready to
18:51
have sincere and genuine conversations with lawmakers who were actually in session
18:56
that day. They were well-received.
18:59
We did manage to get in a lot of good conversations with key legislators.
19:04
So I consider it a successful day. We were seen, we were heard, we were.
19:09
You know, it received in a positive light. We didn't have any cool rappers,
19:13
you know, providing music for the event.
19:16
I could have busted out a few rhymes. I guess you could have.
19:19
I was really proud of our folks.
19:23
They showed up with business on their mind and went to the legislature to handle
19:28
that business. It was a good day.
19:30
It's been a long time since we've had that kind of lobby day,
19:34
and it's difficult for folks to show up.
19:36
So we did have a good number of our retirees show up.
19:40
And they were, you know, lobbying not only for themselves for a long overdue
19:43
COLA, but, you know, they were also showing up for active employees who couldn't
19:47
be there because of the staffing crisis we have in North Carolina.
19:50
And they, you know, they understand that that's affecting retirees too.
19:55
There are fewer state employees paying into the retirement system now than there
20:00
is money going out. So that's an issue.
20:03
Active employees are also an issue for retirees.
20:06
And for the General Assembly, you're going to pay one way or the other.
20:09
You're either going to pay a higher employer contribution rate to keep the retirement
20:14
system afloat, or you can just pay for services which the public already needs. Right.
20:19
And those, their paychecks will put that money in the system and you won't have
20:23
to do as big an employer contribution.
20:25
I mean, it seems like a no-brainer. back to
20:29
what you were saying you know comparisons with the teacher rally
20:32
we got a lot of comment not a lot we did have
20:35
a few comments on everything we posted from the day which we posted a lot so
20:40
there was a lot of opportunities but you know folks saying why there are only
20:43
a few dozen people there and they have to realize this is like there's a difference
20:48
between a protest and a lobby day which is what we were doing a lot of times
20:53
A lot of associations and organizations have what's called a lobby day,
20:57
where they bring members to the legislature and have conversations about their issues.
21:03
Whereas, you know, I mean, we could probably get that many people on the mall
21:07
for a protest if we really. Well, real talk. That's why we were. Real talk.
21:10
The teachers were supported and they were a part of an overall May Day movement.
21:17
There were rallies all over the country that were huge. Chicago,
21:20
I think, had such a big one. It got a lot of the press.
21:23
But, you know, God bless them. They have people come out there and support them.
21:26
And the public will do that in different groups, some of which may not have
21:29
been really helpful to their cause.
21:31
Look, we want teachers to do well. We have members who are teachers.
21:35
We want everybody, though, in the school system and everybody everywhere else to do well.
21:39
And the problem is there's too many winners and losers being plucked out.
21:42
And even among teachers, the raises that we're hearing are more for rookie teachers
21:47
and veteran teachers who you'd want to keep in the system.
21:50
They're not going to be the ones getting those big raises. But at any rate,
21:53
the teachers came down and they had tons of people who are not teachers supporting them.
21:57
They had school systems all around the state willing to close down so they could
22:01
come do this. And that's wonderful.
22:03
I'm glad they had that kind of support. And I think people should have every
22:06
right to come say their piece. The fact of the matter, though,
22:10
is, you know, people aren't going to come out.
22:11
I don't care how progressive a group thinks it is and how much for workers'
22:16
rights they say they are.
22:17
They actually don't show up
22:18
when it's about state employee rights for whatever reason. There's that.
22:21
And then there's also the fact that, to be honest, we had some people who said
22:25
they had to take off Friday when the schools were closed in their area.
22:29
So they couldn't take off again the next Wednesday because they had already
22:34
had to take off a day from work.
22:36
And with everybody being so short-staffed, it's not looked upon well if you
22:41
take two days off in one work week because of rallies, whether they're yours or somebody else's.
22:47
But you know what? Actually, there are some brave souls out there.
22:50
I actually had three teachers in the group that was with me at the legislature. That's awesome.
22:55
Yeah. And I'm sure they were lobbying for those veteran teachers so they don't
22:59
get left out. Yeah. We had people from Cullowee to Wilmington.
23:03
It was a huge group. I was surprised that how many people outside of Raleigh came to Raleigh. Yeah.
23:09
Look, I want teachers to do well. I want everybody to do well.
23:12
And NCAE used to want that a few years ago when there was a mini budget with
23:16
bigger raises for state.
23:17
Employees in CAE said, why would we not treat everyone equally?
23:21
So I'm all for that. Let's treat everyone equally. But we could do that.
23:24
There's things we could do. It's not choose teachers or choose state employees.
23:29
Don't take the bait on that BS. There's many ways to not spend money in other places.
23:34
For instance, you know, you can take any of these little carved out things for
23:39
special corporate interests. Like we were just talking about the 100% property
23:43
tax exemption for non-profit hospitals that make a tremendous profit.
23:48
There's so many things like that. There's so many sacred cows.
23:52
All you got to do is dial some of those back so that you can actually pay the people.
23:57
And I think there is, well, I know there is some appetite with some legislators
24:02
because I've had conversations about there being a more level attempt to,
24:07
you know, give raises across the board for everyone in my conversations.
24:11
I don't think that took hold, though. No, but I'm saying the conversation is out there.
24:16
I personally have had some conversations about more level between all state employees.
24:24
We would absolutely support that. And obviously, depending on what that amount
24:28
of money looks like. Yeah.
24:30
Well, the only other thing I had to talk about was just the public service.
24:35
Recognition week, which was this week, and the summit that Artis took part in yesterday.
24:41
She was a part of a panel of State Auditor Dave Bullock was on the panel.
24:46
Jocelyn Mitnall-Malette from DMVA.
24:49
Yeah, our Secretary of Military and Veterans Affairs. And the city manager from Raleigh was on there.
24:56
Yes, she was excellent. And there was a few other people.
24:59
And yeah, I thought it was a pretty cool event. Artists spoke her mind as usual,
25:04
and it was like, she's not afraid to stand up for her state employees.
25:08
There were students there from state and Carolina in the master's in public
25:13
administration programs, and I think it's so important to get young people into
25:17
public service and to understand what it's about,
25:19
but you also don't want to give them lollipops and rainbows as the only idea
25:23
of what they'll be facing.
25:24
And we really, I think the issue where I made the statement that was the most
25:28
controversial was when I said, make public service cool again.
25:31
And some people were like, I didn't know it's not cool now.
25:35
And what I meant by that is, look, it used to be such a state job used to be a very sought after job.
25:43
Respected job. And it's been a very concerted effort across the country about
25:48
public employees to kind of make it seem like working for the government,
25:53
working in public service is lesser than.
25:55
And the reason is very intentional so that you can pay them less.
25:58
I found it interesting at our
26:00
lobby day, there were some younger folks who came to town and joined us.
26:04
And I talked to several of them who love their jobs, love their jobs with the state.
26:10
And they actually were concerned. I mean, they talked about the fact that they
26:15
don't have health care coverage when they retire anymore.
26:18
None of them were looking to leave their jobs, which I think is interesting
26:21
about younger people because a lot of times they seem to move from job to job.
26:26
But that was a big issue with them. And I mean, we've already known that was
26:30
a kick to recruiting folks, but it was really telling to hear some Generation
26:34
Z young people talk about not having that at retirement. So that's in their
26:39
hand. They know how important that was.
26:41
And they love their jobs in public service.
26:44
Anything else? No, I mean, we had a busy week and I think...
26:48
I'm considering it a successful week. I'm ready to take a day off.
26:53
Thank goodness for the weekend.
26:54
Well, thank you, Wake Meditatrium, for the lack of a weekend last weekend.
26:58
For real. Because we had to work all weekend on that once it popped out on Friday.
27:03
That was fun, though. I kind of liked it. I kind of like those issues like that.
27:07
You're a little twisted in that way, John.
27:09
So I'll probably add in a little bit of sound from our lobby day.
27:14
I think we had some interviews. Maybe we'll add to the end of this.
27:17
I don't have a question of the week, but I did think of one while we were going.
27:21
So let's just, I'll just ask it now. Do you think we'll have a budget in the next two weeks?
27:26
Yeah, no, no, no.
27:28
I'm going with no, but I'm also jaded. I'm going to go with maybe.
27:32
I think there's some weird, yeah, there's some weird air over there right now.
27:38
Like, I think they're weary. Like one month into it, they're weary.
27:42
And I get it because we're weary too. We're right there with you, legislators.
27:45
We're weary. But I'm still at that point where it depends on who you ask,
27:49
on what day, at what time of the day.
27:52
As to where they are. So I think it's just still kind of all over the board
27:55
at the moment. We were swiping at each other yesterday publicly.
28:00
Oh, speaking of that, we didn't mention this. You did, Artis,
28:03
you did get to, you and the officers met with Senator Berger for a few minutes.
28:08
Yes, President Powell and the other officers.
28:11
Senator Berger was really gracious. He spent a lot of time with our officers
28:14
and they had some great comments.
28:17
And, you know, members and especially member leaders are always the best.
28:20
They're way better lobbyists than we are because they're living it,
28:24
you know, they're living the issues.
28:25
And they did a great job. And he, again, he was just very generous with his
28:30
time. He intently listened.
28:32
And, you know, that's when you're getting to talk to top guy on the Senate side,
28:36
there's not a lot more you can ask for if they're going to take time with you and really listen.
28:41
So we thank Senator Berger for that time. And we thank Speaker Hall's staff,
28:45
who Speaker Hall didn't happen to be in the building at that time.
28:48
He was returning from an event he had to go to. So our officers were able to
28:52
speak to one of Speaker Hall's staffers, and that was also a very good conversation, very lengthy.
28:58
They were generous with their time. So thanks, Speaker Hall's office as well.
29:02
And thank you, Suzanne, for setting all that up.
29:04
Okay, sure. Yeah, great. Teamwork. Great job.
29:08
So we'll leave it at that. Thanks for joining us this week. Listen to some of
29:12
the interviews here after this segment, but otherwise, have a great week.
29:27
I like this kind of microphone. It's State Employee Appreciation Day. Yeah.
29:36
Are you feeling appreciated? I appreciate me.
29:39
I thought not. I figured that's why you're here. And it's Public Employee Appreciation
29:44
Week for every single public employee, city, county, state, federal, public employees.
29:50
This is your week. And it's a great time to come down here and speak your mind.
29:58
You know, there's not a budget.
30:01
You know, last time there was one, you paid for your own raise.
30:05
Do you know how you paid for your own raise? Because there was so much money from those vacant jobs.
30:12
It went right back into the general fund.
30:16
That's your money because you're doing the job of more than one person.
30:21
And the tiny sliver of it you got was that raise two years ago that you really
30:26
don't remember now, do you?
30:29
And don't get me started if you are a retiree. If you're a retiree, speak up.
30:34
When was your last raise? Does anybody know? 2017.
30:39
2017. There were less aches and pains in the morning last time you had a raise.
30:45
A whole lot. So you're here on behalf of your brothers and sisters who could
30:50
not be here today because they have to keep the state going.
30:53
And retirees, you're here for those that cannot make that journey to Raleigh for whatever reason.
30:59
Office of State Human Resources, Stacey Meyer. Would you say a few words?
31:05
Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for this invitation to be here.
31:10
I want to just thank the team at Scenic. They have been amazing.
31:15
They have supported our office.
31:17
I am so grateful that every step of the way,
31:20
when we are at the legislature working really hard to transform state human
31:26
resources, that your team at scenic artists and Suzanne and Wendell,
31:31
they're right there beside us.
31:33
And I want you to know that this week, that is public service recognition week,
31:38
the work that you do keeps North Carolina going.
31:42
It impacts every citizen. It impacts every visitor.
31:47
You are getting this work done. And when there are vacancies,
31:51
we understand that you're doing the work of more than
31:54
one person and sometimes it's more than two people so
31:57
we do recognize that and i want you to know that
32:00
you are being heard jim roll from colorway long probably the longest uh drive
32:06
here right no probably second longest a little bit from the west a little further
32:12
west coming western carolina district one right correct correct and uh what
32:16
brought you here today well Well,
32:18
trying to bring the message to Raleigh, there's time to move forward instead of backwards.
32:23
We've been going backwards for 10 years.
32:25
Teachers were here a short time ago explaining how far back we've moved in education.
32:32
We need to bring our message of how far we've moved back in retirement benefits,
32:39
compensation in general.
32:41
The reason we have a vacancy rate of 30% or more in positions of state used
32:49
to be, I worked for 30 years for the state and it's,
32:55
The attracting point were the benefits. They couldn't pay the same amount as
33:00
a private sector could pay, but the benefits were there.
33:03
Now the benefits have eroded to the point that it's not attractive anymore. Yeah.
33:09
And so how long have you been retired? Eight years.
33:13
You've never seen a cost of living. I've never seen a cost of living raised during that time.
33:19
And, you know, those baldnesses just don't go very far.
33:23
We made our way over to the legislative building about 10 o'clock,
33:27
and one of the first legislators that my group from the eastern part of the
33:31
state ran into was House Rules Committee Chairman John Bale from the Goldsboro
33:35
area, and he was gracious enough to give us a few minutes of his time,
33:39
and he answered lots of questions.
33:42
Let's take a listen to that. We've moved pretty far in the last couple weeks
33:45
to get there, and so after last night, I feel pretty confident that we're going
33:48
to have a new spending plan. We'll retire. We'll see how something happens.
33:53
Plan, but now what that something is that you've got a bunch of people that
33:57
have to make some decisions, but we're going to get in there.
34:00
I feel a whole lot better about it today as I walk in. I feel better about it
34:05
Friday. I felt really good about it last time.
34:10
That's good to hear. That's great. Members from the West had a good discussion
34:14
with Representative Lindsay Prather of Buncombe County.
34:18
She has a unique story in that she is a state employee herself.
34:21
Yes. Yeah. I've been a state employee ever since I graduated from college.
34:25
I was a North Carolina public school teacher, and I now work at a public university as well.
34:29
So these issues are personal to me. You work at UNC Asheville?
34:33
UNC Asheville. That's right.
34:34
Our state employees, not only are they not getting raises, particularly the
34:38
ones that don't have the step increases, but they are essentially getting a
34:41
pay cut because we've seen an increase in health insurance premiums.
34:45
They're having, you know, obviously inflation, right, gas prices,
34:48
all of those things are going up, but their pay is not going up.
34:51
I'm worried about our state retirees as well.
34:53
They have not had a real COLA in years.
34:57
And again, the price of everything is going up, but there's less money that
35:00
people have to pay for those things now.
35:02
A group of members from Wake County met up with Representative Erin Paré,
35:06
who is one of the main budget writers, the House side, and she's from Holly
35:11
Springs, and they had a good discussion with her.
35:14
So thank you for stepping out. Yeah, I was just saying, I'm
35:17
feeling good about where we're where we are and
35:20
i was explaining that the house proposal was much
35:24
unfavorable that as and starting early on than what we saw on the other side
35:30
of the the water fountain and yeah i think i think that we're i think you'll
35:34
be happy with what comes out as long as everything continues along sure but
35:40
you never you don't from one day to the next it literally can change.
35:44
Right now, it's really, really obvious.
35:48
We are guerrilla style today out in the wild. We're at the State Capitol building for Scenic Lobby Day.
35:56
I had a great turnout today, I think. A lot of people came out.
36:00
I'm sorry. We have Wendell Powell here with us, the scenic president,
36:03
as well as Artis Watkins.
36:05
All right. I'm happy to be here. I think it was good. Don't you think so,
36:08
Wendell? I think it was awesome to see everyone come out.
36:11
We had a lot of people from our various districts across the state.
36:16
It was good to see that they were pumped up and enthused.
36:19
They were looking forward to talking to the legislators or their representatives.
36:23
Well, and I think it was cool that they came from, like you said,
36:27
from all over the state, but also from every kind of workplace you can think of.
36:31
Oh, yeah. Even though it was unfortunate, a lot of our people couldn't make
36:35
it because they had to work.
36:37
You know, unfortunately, the staff shortages, a lot of staff just could not come out.
36:41
We definitely cannot shut the state down. You know, DMV can't shut down.
36:46
Prisons can't shut down.
36:47
Wait, you can't just lock the prison up and leave? Oh, you could,
36:51
but it will be some consequences and repercussions.
36:55
Yes. We had some good discussions with John Bell, Representative Rules Committee Chairman.
37:01
Folks from the East spent a lot of time with him.
37:05
Folks from the West spent a lot of time with Representative Prather,
37:08
Wednesday Prather. They did.
37:09
Yeah, I saw that. And, well, the officers actually got to spend some time with Senator Berger today.
37:14
Yeah. It was a good conversation to talk about, you know, some of the disparities
37:18
and the issues that we're facing in the different agencies and as,
37:23
you know, state employees.
37:24
And understand the vacancy rate and what's not having a raise or having a budget is doing to us.
37:31
Yeah. I mean, yeah, and the word is that they're probably finally hammering
37:35
something out at this point. Looks like there definitely will be a budget.
37:38
And the question is, what's in it for state employees? I think that it was not
37:42
any secret around there today that you're going to see sort of the same thing
37:46
we saw in the original House and Senate budget, which is much higher for teachers,
37:50
but only really more for rookie teachers than for the veteran teachers,
37:55
it sounded like. Yeah, that's pretty much what it sounded like.
37:58
I mean, you know, anything's a start. I mean, the thing is, we haven't had a
38:02
good raise in some years, and our employees are looking forward to something.
38:06
I mean, cost of living has gone up.
38:08
You know, our retirees, this is crazy. You have people who retired at $20,000
38:13
as a retiree, and this is 20 or 30 years ago.
38:17
So you can imagine what inflation is doing to them and cost of living is doing
38:22
to them right now. I don't know how they're getting by, to be honest.
38:26
It's scary and makes you really think about, man, where am I when I retire and
38:31
what does my package actually look like?
38:34
So it's a big commitment that they need to make to our retirees.
38:38
Yeah, I did some interviews, and Sammy as well, of some of our members and also some legislators.
38:45
But one thing that struck me was Jim Rowell from District 1.
38:49
He said he had retired about eight years ago, and he still had never had a cost
38:53
of living adjustment. That's right. That's exactly right.
38:56
But that's correct because it's been nine years since he had a COLA. Yeah.
39:00
So right before he retired. Yeah.
39:03
That's one. Tough, tough. But we did see something exciting.
39:08
Armored truck pulled up.