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NC Legislature takes aim at DEI Initiatives · The SEANC View

• 0:00
  Music.
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  Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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  I'm your host, Jonathan Owens, the communications director here at Scenic,
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  joined, as always, by Garth.
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  I mean, Artis Watkins, the executive director here at Scenic,
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  and Sam Klein, our podcast producer.
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  We just wanted to jump in and have a quick episode on what's going on at the
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  legislature and keep everyone informed.
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  Today is February 27th. It's a Thursday.
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  And Artis, what's going on at the legislature? Well, you know,
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  we mentioned last week that the fiscal projections were out and that we were
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  looking at a half billion dollars, roughly, of excess revenue for this year.
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  And after that, Governor Stein believes we'll be facing a fiscal cliff,
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  as he called it, in the years out from that, which he blamed pretty directly
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  on some tax cuts and some other things.
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  The legislature took great issue with that and said, well, no,
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  first of all, we don't think there's going to be a fiscal cliff.
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  And we think the tax cuts have been good policy that actually will increase
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  business and will increase revenue.
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  Now, what'll happen? Who knows? But I will tell you, the legislature is correct
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  in so much as there was a lot of talk that there wouldn't be any money in the past 10 years,
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  multiple times where the next year somehow we had even greater excess revenue than the year before.
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  And so a lot of this budget stuff almost seems random.
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  It's not. These things are all interconnected. But I don't know how much you
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  plan right now with all the changes in D.C.
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  Yeah, I've noticed that as somewhat of maybe an outsider to all the work you guys do down there.
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  Seems like every year it's like, oh, no, how are we going to do this?
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  And then there's always a surplus of some sort.
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  I mean, I know there's been some lean years, especially around the housing crisis
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  and times like that. Oh, it's been forever. But yes.
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  And again, I do think what happens in Washington, D.C. is going to dictate a
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  lot of what happens here and in every other state.
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  It looks like Medicaid money yesterday or the day before was a pretty good indication
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  that the states better buckle up.
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  What the House resolution and Congress pretty much said, what,
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  cut $880 billion from Medicaid.
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  Right. And those cuts most assuredly trickle down in terms of...
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  I saw some news thing I was watching said that, I guess, their theory is to
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  block grant money to the states to handle things like that instead of paying
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  for right out of... Right.
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  But the question is, then what do the states do in terms of coverage?
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  Yeah. So you'd have to completely revamp. I think that discussion was more about
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  education than it was Medicaid.
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  But yeah, but on the Medicaid front, if you're getting less money from the federal
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  government as a state, you do have to look at it and say, OK,
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  there's less we can cover.
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  And so where do we make those changes and where do we make cuts?
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  One of the problems I foresee there is do you have enough personnel right now
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  to actually get into that and make that kind of overhaul of a system that big?
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  And another reason that matters to state employees who probably aren't on Medicaid,
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  they probably don't qualify, but any money you take from the general fund has
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  got to be pulled somewhere else, right?
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  Right. At the end of the day, it all comes from the state of North Carolina,
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  and the less the state of North Carolina is getting assistance from the federal
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  government that is traditional, just routine assistance, then.
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  Yeah, the state's going to have to, or the locals are going to have to figure
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  out where they're getting it.
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  We're already hearing from some of our members, they're getting notices that
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  their local property taxes are skyrocketing. So, yeah.
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  So, I think I asked this last week, I guess brings in our next category we were
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  going to talk about, our item.
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  Do you think that this possible doge effort in North Carolina is kind of a response
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  to maybe pressures of future revenue downturns, or is that probably not part of it?
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  You know, I'm not I'm not certain why the speaker put that out there as an effort here.
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  Well, I am certain about things he said to the media, which definitely indicated,
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  yes, that there's this effort on the national front and he wanted to be supportive
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  and do the same thing here to make sure we're not wasting any money.
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  I don't think there's a soul in North Carolina would say it's a bad idea to
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  look at every place we're spending state money and see if that makes sense.
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  What the concern is, is that this gets into different state employees doing
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  jobs that provide public services for what amounts to peanuts in the grand scheme of the budget.
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  And that no one potentially looks at these massive contracts that go to bidders
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  that may or may not be getting us a cost effective product.
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  Yeah, on the national level, it seems that the focus has all been on,
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  you know, employees and trimming positions and saving money that way.
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  But the vast majority of what the federal government spends is probably contracts, right?
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  Of course. I mean, John, think about like going back to when you were a child.
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  What is the first thing you ever heard about public employees?
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  And it may be different for Sam being of such a different generation.
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  But the first thing I ever heard, yeah, there's be three of them,
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  two of them leaning on a shovel and one of them may be working.
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  Even like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene this week said that those aren't real jobs.
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  It's public employee jobs, not real positions. You don't have a real job.
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  I mean, that's very offensive.
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  I mean, I go ahead and say that. But yeah, it's unacceptable.
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  And I can't imagine the people in her district are happy about that.
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  It's unacceptable. I don't think we've heard that same vitriol from legislators
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  here that I know of, but maybe we will in the next few months.
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  We hear things from time to time just from folks on social media,
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  for instance, who will say we're wasting money on these public employees.
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  It's been hard for them to make that argument with a 23 to 25 percent vacancy rate.
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  Yeah. Sam, you had something. I feel like for me, one of the first things I
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  heard about public employees growing up, it was more positive in the sense of
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  they were very hard workers.
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  And it's a calling because I had a dad who was in the military,
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  which is federal employee. And then he was a police officer in Tennessee.
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  And my mom also was a nurse. And it was very much a calling for both of them
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  that I sometimes am ashamed I did not follow into like the calling. You kind of did.
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  Yeah. You're in U.S. fields that they put their lives on the line.
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  And I sometimes feel bad because I'm like, sorry, guys, I did not feel that.
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  You're doing your part in the ministry, hon.
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  But I feel like, you know, it's interesting that that's where you.
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  And I think that sounds like it's informed from your personal experience in
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  your household with very committed public servants in the household.
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  Where I think we have always struggled is it's just been easy.
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  If you're looking to score some political points and pick on somebody who's
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  kind of defenseless, public employees have always been a great place to pick on people.
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  And see, I mean, I always thought you should be very careful about assuming that people think that.
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  I mean, I know that people think that, but it's usually just the vocal ones.
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  But the first public employee that you really interact with and remember as
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  a child is a teacher. Right. And most people love their teachers.
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  I mean, you have good memories of your teachers. I don't think everyone has
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  a negative idea of public employees.
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  I mean, the very first person we have no memory of because they're the ones
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  that are doing the newborn screening on us at the hospital or dealing with the
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  newborn screening to make sure we're OK.
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  And we've gone over this on the podcast before, but I had a nurse tell me I
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  didn't know the reason those newborn screenings are taking so long is because
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  of the state vacancy rate.
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  So I think part of the issue traditionally has been that the public does not
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  know when they're being helped by a state employee. the only time they know
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  about a state employee is if something's gone wrong, somebody gave them bad service, or sometimes,
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  They think it's state employees and it is contracted, like some of these license
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  plate agencies. That's been something. Yeah, the big one.
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  If they're really frustrated by how long it's taking for a road to be completed.
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  Hey, most of those are contracted out now. DOT has been squeezed and squeezed
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  and squeezed down and more and more has been privatized.
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  And people are really upset about how long these things are taking.
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  That's not state employees.
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  I would just caution, and I'm sure Elon Musk is not listening to this podcast,
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  but I would just caution anyone looking to totally cut, you know,
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  state employees or public employees and federal level, you get what you pay for.
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  I mean. Well, this isn't a new notion. I remember years ago when Democrats controlled
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  the House and Senate and they, you know, we would ask for a raise for state
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  employees and they, well, where do you want us to get it from? There's no money.
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  Yeah. As usual, it was a question of priorities.
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  What do you want to spend it on? And so that's what actually led us to eventually
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  do that report, Save Our State, where I got tired of being asked, where's the money?
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  And so we started highlighting it, as so many people do, in the budget and said,
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  well, right here, for instance, or places where we have questions.
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  We know you've contracted all this out.
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  How much are you spending? Are you getting a good return for that?
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  Is it cost effective to do it that way?
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  So, yeah, I think state employees, public employees are just an Easy target.
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  I mean, it's loving and fruit, too, if you're looking at cutting something.
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  And that's not to say they should not look at state employees.
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  But the last thing, to be clear, the last thing we're saying is,
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  no, don't look at state employees because we're not scared of that.
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  We're not scared of that.
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  We're just saying if you look at that, which that sounds reasonable,
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  the only way you can make that reasonable is to, in fact, look at this massive
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  amount we contract out and make sure that those contracts.
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  And to be honest, it's not a lot to look at right now. There's not a lot of
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  them. You know, there's a lot of vacant positions.
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  So be careful cutting to the bone. So last Friday, House Bill 171 was introduced
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  from Representative Brendan Jones dealing with DEI initiatives in state government.
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  This followed, I guess, some statements from Commissioner of Labor and the state
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  auditor that they're going to be stopping DEI initiatives in their agencies.
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  Artis, what are these DEI initiatives? I don't know, and nobody is defining it.
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  We knew what it was in the UNC system, but UNC system stopped DEI.
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  What it is in the rest of state government, I have no idea. We've asked members
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  because we weren't getting calls about this in terms of knowing there was some
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  problem out there with DEI initiatives, that they were causing some kind of heartburn.
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  So we've literally asked our members, is there a problem with it?
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  And we're not getting back that there is some problem. So I'm sure Representative
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  Jones is trying to solve something here. I just don't know what it is.
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  Yeah, I know that in some other government agencies, not at the state level,
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  there are like DEI departments and things that are being defunded.
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  But I don't think those exist in state government, correct?
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  I mean, you may have some, you know, you're going to have EEO officers.
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  Of course, House Bill 171 says this definition does not apply to anti-discrimination
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  measures. That would include all of the EEO measures that exist right now.
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  So it's a head scratcher. Yeah, we had a question from one of our executive
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  committee members the other night that one of her co-workers was kind of given
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  these DEI initiatives on top of being the EEO officer.
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  And now does that mean that her job is going to be cut? No, I think she was
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  saying she was given the EEO stuff on top of it, which is normal because usually
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  agencies can't afford a separate EEO person.
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  So they give somebody the duties for EEO as part of their job. I don't know.
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  This is, again, they're clearly after something. Representative Jones is somebody
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  we've worked pretty well with.
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  I intend to ask him when I can get to him. He's had a kind of busy week this week.
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  I don't know. We had a reporter call and ask us about this.
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  And I asked the reporter, have you gotten anything more on this to figure out
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  what they're talking about?
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  Again, we can't find a problem that's some sort of big furor out there over
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  DEI, and maybe we're missing something.
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  And, you know, my understanding from her was she hadn't really heard back. Yeah.
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  So, you know, I don't know what has happened at the auditor's office,
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  at labor, or at the treasurer's office, because Treasurer Briner is the third
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  council estate member who said, you know, there's not going to be DEI in my office.
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  I don't know if there's been some sort of issue there. We haven't heard anything
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  from folks in those agencies. That's not saying they don't have a big problem
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  of which we're simply unaware.
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  But something needs to be shared in terms of other than we have a problem with
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  not hiring people on merit because that's what everybody wants.
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  Hire the best people for the job. Yeah. But the fact of the matter is North
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  Carolina is a diverse state.
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  Seems like hiring is a big focus of folks who want to do away with the.
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  But like you said, like we're bound, the state is bound by laws to not discriminate
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  and to not discriminate.
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  But I mean, I think maybe and this is where we would have an issue.
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  We've got some folks, whether it's an unintended consequence and nothing more than that.
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  When a bill like this is out there and it's not being explained as to why it's
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  a necessary thing, what it does in the workplace is creates a situation where
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  people feel more free to accuse people of having their jobs,
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  jobs that they qualified for, in many cases were overqualified for,
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  that they have that job because of their race or their gender or something like
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  that. Now, that is not cool.
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  We don't need anything like that to perpetuate itself worse than it already
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  naturally does. Same thing is sometimes somebody will say, oh,
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  yeah, of course he's got that job. He's a white male. Mm-hmm.
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  You know, white males probably don't appreciate that a whole lot,
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  but it's not OK to do that, period, unless you've got a darn good,
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  you've got a smoking gun telling you that was the reason.
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  Anyway, this whole thing kind of, it seems to show a lack of understanding of state employees.
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  And a lack of understanding about the vacancy crisis that we can't hire anybody to begin with.
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  Exactly. Like, you know, if people feel they're being shut out because they're
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  not a certain race, gender or something like that, three out of four jobs are filled.
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  That means one out of every four jobs is open.
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  Come apply for them. If you feel like you're being left out,
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  I doubt for sure anybody's going to get left out of that scenario.
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  So state employees are regular people.
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  They're practical people. When you've got three doing the work of four,
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  they have to band together more than any other workforce.
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  You know, when a workforce is understaffed, it has to band together and work together.
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  And what I hear from state employees is, I don't care what somebody looks like.
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  I care what they're made of. and especially in a prison setting,
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  probation, parole, somewhere where your coworker literally may be somebody you
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  have to trust to save your life. You don't care what they look like.
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  You care what they're made of. And so it feels like if there was some big problem
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  with what people were made of, we'd be hearing more about it.
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  I don't know. We do have problems in state government hiring,
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  firing, and promotion, though we're not getting enough funding for these jobs.
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  The benefits are being cut. And because there's not enough people,
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  safety issues are getting worse and worse and worse.
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  So maybe we'll get a little more clarity as this bill moves through the House
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  and I guess if it's taken up by the Senate.
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  Yeah, I mean, again, you know, I'm going to try to find Representative Jones
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  and find out from the horse's mouth, you know, what's what is this about and
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  what's the problem and, you know, figure out what problem this is trying to solve.
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  Because I do, I think surely if he knew an unintended consequence may for real
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  be that the people who are already getting accused of having gotten a job because
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  of some immutable characteristic of theirs are going to get accused of that even more often.
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  People might even feel more free to accuse them of that.
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  I don't think that's what he would want for the morale of the state workforce.
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  And also the veterans exceptions and things like that. Well,
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  nobody's real clear about that. Yeah.
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  Yeah. So stay tuned on that issue. So next week, the state health plan board
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  of trustees will meet on Friday.
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  Is that the meeting where the big unveiling of the plan will come out for premiums?
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  That's my understanding.
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  That's where we'll hear what is being proposed in terms of changes.
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  The only thing we've heard to this date is premiums will be proposed to increase.
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  Other out-of-pocket expenses, I haven't heard anything yet, so I'll be looking at...
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  What the out-of-pocket maximums will be, what will be covered,
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  what will become a specialty visit that has not been in the past,
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  what the deductible will be.
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  And these are all big questions that all take dollar bills out of state employee
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  and retiree pocketbooks, depending on the way they're decided.
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  Yeah, and I know they took the vote where they decided they can stagger premiums based on income.
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  Is that a guarantee that they would do that? I mean, I guess you don't take
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  that vote without doing it, right?
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  I mean, that was my thinking is, why take the vote if you're not planning on
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  doing that, that in and of itself, I know that the area where that's going to
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  hit most people disproportionately, that jumps right out in everybody's mind
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  that's been around the legislature for any amount of time, is veteran teachers.
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  Teachers who've been around a while, because they have been the ones not getting the bigger raises.
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  And so their salary's not been moving, and now they would be asked to disproportionately
• 17:10
  contribute to the health plan.
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  And what does that do to your morale in the schools?
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  And what does that do to the educators that have been there for about eight,
• 17:19
  nine years that are figuring out, do they want to stay? Same thing in state government, though.
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  It's not it's not popular to talk about doing that because in people's minds,
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  there's bureaucrats making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year,
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  and it's really going to stick it to them on behalf of low paid workers.
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  And that's not how it would work out. I don't think I've ever heard of a case
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  where that happens, though.
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  Like every job I've ever had, everyone had the same premium.
• 17:42
  I mean, there's definitely companies where they base your premium in part,
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  they'll have a sliding scale for those premiums.
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  But they also, in those companies, tend to pay your dependent care.
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  I mean, your dependent coverage. And this plan doesn't do that.
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  So I don't know. We're going to be following it.
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  We'll be there at the State Health Plan Board of Trustees, obviously,
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  and we'll be communicating with our members. So make sure you're looking at your emails.
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  Make sure you look at the scenic social media pages because we're going to be
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  all over it and making sure you know what's being proposed because you need
• 18:15
  to have your voice heard about that before, you know, before that kind of thing.
• 18:19
  Didn't Treasurer Brad Briner say that it was not based in reality that we asked
• 18:24
  the General Assembly to help with these costs?
• 18:28
  Yes. And to be clear, CNIC's not advocating we go to the General Assembly for
• 18:33
  the money that's needed to plug the $500 million hole.
• 18:37
  We're actually saying that the fact we've never seen, we can't see the contracts,
• 18:42
  we don't know what is being paid to different hospitals when we go there.
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  We just know some are wildly overpaid.
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  Four times what it takes to make a profit.
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  Make that stuff public so there can be a public movement to stop doing that.
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  And then we also know there's been stuff this past week in the media about some
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  of the non-profit hospitals that rake in billions in profits and then get these
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  huge tax breaks that are unbelievable on their face,
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  but are really kind of adding insult to injury.
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  So we don't need to ask the General Assembly for that money.
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  That should not be a necessity because that, at the end of the day,
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  also comes out of public services and public worker wages and doing something for retirees.
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  It doesn't need to come out of anybody's hide, except the people who are charging
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  four times what the rate to make a profit is.
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  Well, I think we'll wrap up there and I'll move on to the question of the week.
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  We're hitting you cold with this one. We didn't tell you what it was.
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  Okay, what is it? Sam and I think it's an awesome one.
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  John's wacky weird question of the week.
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  So my question this week is, if you didn't go to the college that you went to,
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  where would you have gone?
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  And Sam, you're first. I'll let artists think about it.
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  Or where do I wish you had gone if you didn't go to your... Thinking retrospectively,
• 20:00
  like knowing what I know now, I probably would have gone to UNCW if I didn't go to WCU.
• 20:07
  You like W's. That's right. I love the... That's my favorite letter.
• 20:10
  But that's because that's where all of my brother and his friends went to college as well.
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  And those are now my super close friends. A couple of them are like the girls
• 20:19
  in that group are like my sisters. I love them so much. They all treat me like a baby sister.
• 20:23
  You like the vacation location. Yeah. The mountains and the beach. Not on purpose.
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  It just happened to work out that way. See, I kind of think that that's a common one, though.
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  Like when you get to like our age, you're like, man, I should have just gone
• 20:37
  to school at the beach. Yeah, that's my thinking on that.
• 20:41
  Wilmington would have been one of my choices, too. I don't really,
• 20:45
  I've always wanted to go to Carolina for my whole life, like from when I was
• 20:48
  five watching basketball.
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  So to be able to do that was pretty awesome. Definitely, if I could have gotten
• 20:54
  into Duke, I would have thought about it just because it's such a good school.
• 20:58
  You just mess yourself over with the UNC fans every chance you get.
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  I said I would have thought about it. You have this weird background.
• 21:06
  Duke-like love. Well, I have like a very smart 12-year-old, and I really want her to succeed.
• 21:13
  And so I have to keep an open mind about Duke. Yeah, you're trying to get your
• 21:16
  mind right so that she does that. She's going to have to choose.
• 21:19
  You don't have to abandon her.
• 21:20
  She could also just work at Duke Hospital afterwards.
• 21:23
  That's what my mom did. She went to WCU and worked at Duke Hospital.
• 21:27
  Love it. So what I tell her is if you can get into Duke, you probably can get
• 21:30
  into Carolina. So that's my rationale there.
• 21:33
  I would think. But I'll say UNCW just because it seems cool.
• 21:37
  And we actually went down there last year for some baseball, my son.
• 21:41
  And it seems like a really cool campus down there. And it seems like a really
• 21:44
  cool place to. Very relaxed.
• 21:45
  I think that was also my thing with schools is I liked the laid back vibes.
• 21:49
  I didn't like the high intensity, huge schools.
• 21:53
  I liked the very chill UNCW. WCU was very chill. They were just.
• 21:59
  They are. They are so nice. Everyone was so mellow and just relaxed.
• 22:02
  Shout out to the Seahawks. I think we're a Seahawks podcast now.
• 22:05
  What about you, Artis? Where would you go? University of Texas.
• 22:08
  Well, actually, I was headed there before I changed it to UNC.
• 22:12
  I chickened out at the last minute. I was assigned to a dorm that had its own zip code.
• 22:17
  Nice. Because Texas is such a big school.
• 22:21
  So I do not regret having gone to Carolina one bit, but it would have been fun.
• 22:26
  Yeah. Because Austin's fun. I mean, the music, country music is my thing,
• 22:30
  obviously. and lots of natural springs running through town and just.
• 22:34
  You may have been in the same class with Matthew McConaughey.
• 22:38
  That would have been cool. Oh. But I have to say, I'm of the same theory as Sam.
• 22:43
  We have such world-class schools in our mountains.
• 22:47
  And then, you know, then we've got UNCW right there. App would have been a cool place to go.
• 22:52
  App would have been so cool, but I didn't know it at the time. I didn't either.
• 22:55
  I knew about WCU because my mama went there.
• 22:59
  Oh. You see, and we didn't know much at the time, I don't think.
• 23:03
  Yeah. Well, that was a fun question. When I was really little, I had no idea.
• 23:07
  You said you'd been a UNC fan your whole life. But it was just basketball.
• 23:11
  I had no idea what I was thinking for school when I was really little because
• 23:15
  I grew up and I was a little military kid. We lived in Arizona.
• 23:19
  That's a good thing. And I was like, I don't know where I'm going to be by the
• 23:22
  time I go to college. I could be living in California by the time I go to college.
• 23:25
  It probably made you a lot more adaptable, though.
• 23:29
  Because that was my problem at the end of the day. My mom was here.
• 23:32
  I think that's why I adapted so well. And so I couldn't go that far away and
• 23:35
  live in that giant dorm. And I was too big a weenie.
• 23:38
  I think that and summer camps that I went to, I think that's why I adapted so
• 23:41
  well to going to WCU, being as far away from possible from my family while still
• 23:47
  staying in the state, which at the time was my goal.
• 23:51
  Yeah. Because everyone at high school knew me because they knew my brother.
• 23:55
  Well, go Catmounts. And I didn't like that. Go Seahawks.
• 23:58
  Whoop, whoop. I got accepted to South Carolina.
• 24:01
  And if I hadn't gone to Carolina, I would have probably gone to South Carolina.
• 24:04
  That's a big one these days. I'm hearing that a lot from kids.
• 24:07
  But the out-of-state tuition threw me off. Yeah.
• 24:11
  That's why I only went to school in-state. Plus, my parents,
• 24:15
  I was lucky enough to have my parents pay for my school. And they were paying
• 24:18
  for my brothers at the same time.
• 24:20
  And WCU happened to have the promise plan. And I was like, let me make it easier on you.
• 24:24
  I'm telling you. You can't go wrong with a lower tuition. That little promise
• 24:28
  plan was an Apodaca thing, right? Was it? It may have been. I believe so.
• 24:32
  We got a building named after him. That is something we don't talk about enough in this state.
• 24:36
  To have a child go into college in North Carolina, we are really blessed.
• 24:41
  You just about can't go wrong. You also have so many options.
• 24:45
  Yeah, and other states, they don't necessarily have good state schools.
• 24:49
  And so you are looking at private tuition.
• 24:52
  Yeah, out-of-state students come to North Carolina. I remember my brother saying
• 24:56
  there were so many people from Jersey and so many people from up north who went to UNCW.
• 25:01
  I remember how many people came from Atlanta and Georgia and Tennessee to come to WCU.
• 25:07
  So go UNC System. Yeah. Well, that's our episode this week. Thanks for tuning in and have a great week.