Latest / The SEANC View / Budget standstill draws criticism from both sides of the aisle

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Budget standstill draws criticism from both sides of the aisle · The SEANC View

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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I'm your host, Jonathan Owens, Communications Director here at Scenic.
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I'm here with Artis Watkins, Suzanne Beasley, and Sammy Klein.
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We have lots to talk about this week, so let's dive right in.
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So it is Thanksgiving weekend, and we all have places to go, I assume.
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Everyone have travel plans this week or anything?
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I'm going to— Close travel. Okay, close travel. I'm heading to the beach after this.
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We always go down to the beach, so eat up some good turkey. So let's get this done with.
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First topic this week, we always start with the budget. Obviously,
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there's nothing big going on that we know of, except there was a report from
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the John Locke Foundation calling for the budget to be finalized.
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Yeah, and I saw Governor Stein also made a statement that he's at the table and ready to work.
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The budget's still made. You know, it's hitting state employees and retirees
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right in the pocketbook at a time when they really, truly can't take one more thing.
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You know, not to mention the impact that it's having on some of our more vulnerable
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populations. But life is hard. Grocery prices are expensive and,
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you know, health care costs are out of control.
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Just whack. So, you know, we need a budget. But that doesn't look like it's going to happen.
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There's one more legislative session this year. It's going to be skeletal. It's on December 15th.
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I don't feel hopeful they'll actually change their mind and come and do any
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kind of business, especially that close to Christmas.
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So, yeah, it's going to be short session before we see that.
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Real work. The story from John Locke Foundation is from Joseph Harris,
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the fiscal policy analyst.
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So Governor Stein, you know, used that as a chance to kind of turn the knife
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a little bit. So he pulled out excerpts of that story.
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And one of them is that North Carolina is the only state in the nation that
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was expected to pass a budget in 2025 and didn't. And did not. Yeah.
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And they never even sent one to the governor's desk, not for a signature or
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a veto. These are not great things to be the only one doing.
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We're the worst, the most expensive for health care, the worst for health care outcomes.
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No budget, only stayed in the country, no budget. Those things are not looking good.
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And the kicker quote here is North Carolinians do not care about inter-party
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rivalries or procedural excuses.
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So we'll see if that prompts a little movement from the... Yeah.
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Well, just a tidbit to coming up, candidate filing, the upcoming election starts
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on December 5th and ends December 20th.
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There's a handful of folks that are not going to come back to the legislature.
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Senator Bobby Hannig is running for U.S. Senate. Representative William Brisson
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is going to retire after all these years.
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Representative Ted Davis is not seeking re-election. Representative Sarah Stevens
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is running for the Supreme Court.
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You know, so there's some folks that aren't going to come back.
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There's some new folks we've got to get to know that have replaced some folks that have already left.
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So this is filing for next year's election? Yeah.
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So just an aside, is the political climate nationally, does it affect statewide races like that?
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Like if there's a likelihood of a huge wave one way or the other,
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will you see more people maybe not running next year?
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Depends on their raising space. I was going to say, it's all about money.
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They're kind of insulated, though, with the districts, right?
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Well, not all of them. Okay. Yeah. I mean, the overall balance is tilted.
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But you've still got some places where somebody could snatch a win.
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If they had maybe name recognition locally and a heck of a fundraising machine,
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they could snake a position here and there.
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Seems like it's so far away, but it's just a year away, and it'll be here before
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we know it, right? Before you know it.
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Yeah. And primaries before that. It's going to be exciting.
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We had a board meeting over the weekend, and lots of people were interested
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in the impact report. And it seemed like there's a little buzz about elections already.
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Impacts are our internal political action committee for Scenic.
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And, yeah, the buzz is they want the people that they feel like have really
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stood up for state employees and retirees, they want to put boots on the ground
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in a significant way for those folks. Yeah. And I think that's awesome.
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And, you know, and have a major plan around doing that rather than just saying,
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this will be great. Let's do it. There's planning and activity to go into that.
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During convention, I also heard somewhat of the opposite of members saying we
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shouldn't endorse anyone.
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Oh, yeah. There's there's that out there, too.
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Well, I mean, we often say this, that scenic is a picture of what our whole state looks like.
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So, yeah, you're going to have people that are in the other bucket.
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Well, I mean, I think this is happening. This is why fundraising is getting
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harder and harder for both parties, because people, businesses,
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whoever, are saying, look, I don't know that anybody's really gone to bat for me.
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And so you do have issues if you have a board of directors, if you have, in our case, members.
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They don't want to see you making donations or throwing some kind of massive
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support behind somebody.
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They start to get really upset if you're doing that and nothing's happening
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when it could, when there could be an easy lift for the members and it doesn't
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happen. It's just something you have to deal with.
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I think a big thing is a lack of a budget. They're looking at it saying,
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you're not getting anything done. And why should we support any of you?
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Yeah, there's a lot of the whole you had one job. Yeah, there is.
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And while we're on that note, though, I also read something this morning.
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The State Board of Elections is sending out its second round of voter repair notices.
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So if you haven't gone and checked on your voter registration,
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now is probably a good time to do it.
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Just go to the State Board of Elections, use the voter lookup tool,
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and you can check your registration. They say what they're looking for.
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There were things without driver's license numbers, social security numbers.
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So just check your registration.
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You know, and it's an insane number.
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Of scenic members that are registered to vote. It's like 95%.
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Yeah, like at least 95% of our members are registered to vote.
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It may even be higher than that now. But that's, I mean, I guess it makes sense.
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They're public employees.
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Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I think their job depends more elected
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officials than, say, if they work in the private sector. Or there's a perception that it does.
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So let's see that. And they know what's going on.
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They know where the bodies are buried. They know when government works and when
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it doesn't. and we're government spending a bunch of money and it shouldn't. And they have feelings.
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Appropriately so. Well, I guess that's budget talk. We obviously will keep watching on that.
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One topic that we didn't talk about last week, but I think it was out in the
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ether last week, but we didn't get to it.
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And I think we should go back and spend some time on it.
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It was a state auditor, Dave Bullock's rapid response report on DHHS that was released last week.
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The big finding was that DHHS generated $386 million in lapsed salary funds
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from July 1st, 2024 to June 30th, 2025.
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So that would be the last fiscal year, right? Of course they did.
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I mean, we in our institutions dealing with our most vulnerable people where
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employees in those jobs sometimes get punched, beat up, spit on, tough jobs.
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Incredibly low pay. And we can't keep those jobs filled and lose an awful lot
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of people to go down the street and work at a fast food restaurant where it's
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less likely that you're going to have those things happen to you.
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Still a possibility. Still a possibility.
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So DHHS criticized those findings and saying that the figure was presented without
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disclosing the methodology.
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Well, we've been talking about having Secretary Sang-vai on,
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and I think that's a great time to have him on and ask a little more about that.
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I do know from our members who work in those, at least the DSOF part of DHHS,
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which is the institutions, they are incredibly active and scenic.
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And I know for a fact, those jobs are being advertised.
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They can't get them filled. So I don't know what jobs they were talking about not being advertised.
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Yeah, the auditor's report found that 340 positions were never posted or advertised during that time.
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I don't know where those jobs were. It's the DHHS is a mammoth organization.
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Like to hear more on that straight from the department. Yeah.
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So of that $386 million, $151 million came from state appropriations.
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So it's not all from state funds. The rest is from federal funding.
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But my question is, so what?
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Like, I mean, it's not like they wasted this money.
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It just wasn't spent. I mean, I know there's a it's definitely a problem that
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they don't have the positions filled.
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But what is he getting at here I guess is the question well
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I mean I think he's saying hey as auditor I've got
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to do my job and I'm I'm looking at this and you want an amount you know you
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DHHS specifically for the Medicaid program want an amount from the General Assembly
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that happens to be almost equal to what you have sitting there in lapsed salary okay so the idea is,
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does the General Assembly really need to allocate that money for Medicaid?
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You can just take that lap salary money and plug that whole boom done.
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Now, that's missing a couple of key points. There's lap salary all over state government.
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It's not because they just don't need the employees, so they just hang on to
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this money and, you know, do what they want with it.
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It's because, number one, the agencies aren't funded enough in the first place.
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So, when they do have lap salary money, which they have almost exclusively because
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you can't get people to take these jobs for the low pay.
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So when you have that lap salary money, as an agency head, what are you going to do? You have been cut.
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Almost all agencies have been cut every single year for years.
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How are you going to run your agency and give the services to the entire state,
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which is a growing state, on the same money, and in some cases less?
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You can't. So what do you do? You go wherever there is some money without having
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to go to the General Assembly hat in hand again, because you're not going to
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get it from the General Assembly.
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That's why you have a budget issue in the first place.
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So yes, historically has some lapsed salary money been used in irresponsible
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ways, maybe office furniture for the bigwigs.
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Sure, is that the general rule of thumb? Absolutely not.
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Agencies are using this in large part to get by. So it's, you know,
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our Medicaid program needs money and it needs a little over $300 million.
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But to do that, to start funding things, the General Assembly voted to fund in the first place.
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And take that money off the backs of state employees is the last answer anybody should be looking for.
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That is robbing Peter to pay Paul. That's janky budgeting at best.
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But mainly, these jobs being vacant means that other people are having to do
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the job of more than one person. It doesn't fix the problem.
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Right. But to think that salary money,
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which if anything, you should take that salary money, that lap salary money,
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and increase the amount of the people who are currently doing the job of more
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than one person because of all these vacancies.
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And the vacancies are due to not paying enough to recruit people in the first place.
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Stephanie Olson, DHHS chief operating officer, said DHHS has 23 percent vacancy rate.
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And she cited competition with private health systems, hiring rules and post
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requirements that slow recruiting. Yeah.
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Well, and hopefully some of that's going to change. Director of Office of State
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Human Resources, Stacey Myria, she told us about, you know, the new session
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law that will make it easier to hire folks. so.
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It'll be faster. You can hire temp to permanent in a way, a much more fast-tracked.
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Less ridiculous red tape way.
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It's going to be very good, but it's not going to solve the funding problem.
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We just cannot not address it. We cannot not say, we don't pay enough,
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so we're going to keep having vacancies.
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And when we have those vacancies, agencies are going to have to pay people overtime
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who are already there or find temps, which cost more because you have to pay the agency for a temp.
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So they can't just run that budget online. They have to squirrel away.
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You know, those lapse salary funds are going to be necessary.
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And all of a sudden they have to use them all because they need enough temps
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or they need enough overtime.
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So in a perfect world, you wouldn't have to use lapse salaries for those kind
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of things. in a perfect world that would be appropriately funded.
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And this wouldn't even be an issue.
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And you'd be able to recruit enough people to fill those positions.
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So you wouldn't have to pay overtime and you wouldn't have to. Exactly.
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It's penny-wise pound-foolish to run it the way we are now. Funding issue. But then to blame. Yeah.
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Well, not blame so much, but to expect salary money to cover things the General
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Assembly already said they were going to do, in this case Medicaid and the expansion
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of it they voted on a couple years ago.
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So that's rubbing salt into the wounds of employees who already don't have a
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raise and are paying more for their health care.
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So now you're going to go to lapse salary money to solve problems. That's ridiculous.
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Sammy's got something on her mind. I can see the wheels turning.
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I got a one-track mind, and my brain has been sitting here thinking the whole
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time about how you said that Auditor Bullock stated that they were not advertising these positions.
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Right. They realize that it costs money to advertise positions like that.
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Even utilizing LinkedIn or Indeed, you have to pay to advertise and promote those positions.
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Do they even have a budget to do that? Probably not.
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You know, I don't know what their particular agency budget is for it,
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but I know turnover costs generally is something we talked to Stacey about last week.
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Turnover costs are huge, and all these vacancies do mean all that advertising
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for jobs and stuff gets very high.
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I think what bothered me is to say 300 and some jobs, but not say which type.
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It matters very much. But also, I didn't hear anything about looking at the
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contracting we do through Medicaid. in the past, there have been issues with that.
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I mean, that came to light where there was some real problems with that contracting.
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I didn't hear anything about that. Just let's go to the lap salary funds.
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You know what I mean? Like if we're really looking at it, and I know Auditor
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Bullock's a thorough person, so I know he will,
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but I felt like we just have to stand up for state employees right now and say,
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hold up, this got thrown out there without much detail at all.
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Have those contracts been looked at.
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I feel like there's probably a whole lot of money there that has not a darn
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thing to do with some slap salary money created by vacancies.
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And the News and Observer had a column by Ned Barnett that, I guess,
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criticized the rapid response type reports that Bullock is issuing without details.
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Well, I think when you use the word rapid...
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In most cases. Yeah. I mean, that's fine if you have the facts and figures. You can do it rapidly.
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Say it was a flawed product. It didn't follow.
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Well, I think it just begs more questions. Let's just say, in fairness,
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let's just say it begs more questions.
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And I know we definitely want the answers to these. But my concern in the meantime
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is something like that gets thrown out there.
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And the average legislator might just kind of tuck that away.
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Ooh, that lap salary money. agencies are wasting money and that shows we don't
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need the number of employees we have and also we can just use that lapse salary
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money grab it from everywhere and plug holes.
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We've tried that years ago i feel like dhhs is kind of unique in that it faces
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such competition from the private sector from workers as opposed to like you
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know they're not a whole system of private prisons to attract correctional officers or, you know,
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there's health systems all over the state that aren't state-run,
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and they probably pay more than.
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To HHS. It's probably hard to attract workers.
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Well, it's most definitely hard to attract. We don't pay enough.
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Now, remember, before the General Assembly, thank you again to,
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at the time, it was Senator Berger leading the Senate and Tim Moore leading
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the House, a speaker who, in 2018,
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moved that minimum wage for state employees from $7.25 to $15 an hour.
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That solved temporarily a lot of the problems DHHS was having in the facilities
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with getting somebody to take the job in the first place.
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The problem is we never, the goal had been to go in after that initial moving
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the minimum up and address that wage compression it caused.
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And so what you have is people who weren't coming in right off the street who
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were making barely anything more than, you know, five years later than a newbie.
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And so that didn't work out very well.
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And we have not, all these years past, the state's never come up with the money
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to address all that wage compression and that train wreck that happened.
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So, you know, some good things have happened. We just didn't complete the loop on that.
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One other aspect, and I'll get off my soapbox, but we've talked about it before
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on here, just about the vacancy rate in general, but We've had a pretty solid
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jobs market in North Carolina or in the country for the last five or six years.
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When that turns south, more people maybe want stable jobs like state jobs. Yeah.
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So there may be more people to fill those things. We've been saying for a few
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years the sad truth is that, you know, this vacancy crisis in state government
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will be fixed when there's no other jobs.
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That's not the way any economy should want to run, but yeah.
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I'll just say this is a final thing. I am about getting tired in some of these
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off-season legislative committees of hearing people randomly say that the private
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sector is more efficient than the public sector without giving any daggum quantifying
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anything. Bull pippies.
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Bull pippies. Complete bull pippies.
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I mean, seriously, it's been thrown out there a couple times now.
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Yeah, it has. And that's real dangerous, and that's irresponsible.
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I also hear the phrase right often that, you know, state government is a business.
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State government is not a business. Government is not a business.
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You can't run government like a business.
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Yeah, I think I got on a rant about that a couple episodes ago.
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But, yeah, that really tans my hide. Is that a good Texas analogy for you? Yeah, sure.
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It's not as good as bullpippies. Well, I mean, I don't really have a problem
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with thinking run government like a business if you do. But you don't. But you don't.
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Because business, remember, business is going to operate at a profit,
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though. And these agencies are expected to run on less and less. Yeah.
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If you want to run your business that way, go for it. I got curious,
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so I Googled what the average NCDHHS nurse hourly pay is because I have family
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who work in the medical field and they work at private places.
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The average DHHS nurse makes 31 to 33 per hour.
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My family member makes 40 something per hour working privately.
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Oh, yeah. And not having to deal with all of the. And then good heavens,
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try to check psychiatrists because you can't even. That's not even in psychiatry.
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She works in. Yeah. Not surgery, but it's like outpatient surgery.
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Yeah. But I mean about trying to recruit psychiatrists or even just anybody in the facility.
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It's just you can go down the street and make a lot more money with a lot less.
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Without having to worry about getting punched in the face or. Yeah.
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You know. Except the employees at those facilities, for the most part,
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they really seem like they care. They're there because, and those communities
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where these facilities are located, they've been there forever.
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And there's, you literally have multiple generations of family who've worked in these facilities.
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So there's a sense of pride that, man, that's what we do in our community. We take care of people.
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And I don't know, it's sad to think we have entire communities in North Carolina
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who've been based around caring for people who don't have the money to go get
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cared for somewhere else.
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They're fellow citizens, and they had that pride, and now the next generations
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are saying, I can't afford to be in that kind of poverty, so I can't carry on
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the family line of doing that kind of help. Sad.
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So back to the business versus government argument. And so I did hear an interesting
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thought experiment this week about that.
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So imagine that gasoline was dirt cheap, like totally cheap.
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There's no way to make a profit off of it, right? That's a dream.
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Would there still be companies like Exxon and Chevron to distribute that gasoline? No.
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But people still need to get to work, right?
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So they would probably need, like, a government to step in and do that,
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right? So that, I mean, because it would be a service then. Yeah.
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So that's the role of government.
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Government usually, yeah, fills those gaps. Yeah. And there's some things,
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though, that you can make a profit doing it, but you don't want your citizens to be subject to that.
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Like, you can make a profit running private prisons. You really can.
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They're quite successful. They often leave municipalities or states with liability
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because the bottom line is you can contract out somebody doing the work.
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You can't contract away your liability should something happen under their watch.
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Yeah, that's right. And my example for that always for people who are chronically
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watching TV like I am, Orange is the New Black. They privatized a prison in there.
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Inmates passed away. Guards passed away. Oh, stuff?
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Yeah, there's so much. Everything immediately got bad in that show.
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Yeah, there's a lot of case law around that, you know, and so there's things you can do technically.
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It's like, yeah, privatize it, but you're going to pay. You pay more long run. Yeah.
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One thing you apparently can't
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do is run a successful private school without funding from the state.
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Even when you don't have to meet the same criteria.
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Exactly. So the voucher program is kind of what I'm hitting at.
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This week I saw a TikTok with James Tallarico from the, I guess he's a legislator in Texas.
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He was in a committee and he was asking someone who wrote a bill about the voucher program there.
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And he was talking about Elon Musk is a resident of Texas.
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He has, what, 14 children. And eight of them are school age.
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Eight of them are school age.
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So conceivably he could get, I think it was like $1.2 million in vouchers for
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his children. That's insane.
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And the other side, the lawmaker pushing the bill was like, yeah, everybody is eligible.
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Shouldn't there be some restraints on that money? Like, what if Jim Goodnight
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here in North Carolina, that's like the richest person, I think,
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in North Carolina, right?
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What if he sent his children and grandchildren to private school?
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Should he be eligible for the vouchers?
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One would think not. One would think that those were for families who couldn't
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necessarily afford to send their children to private school.
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There should be at least some sort of limit on them.
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Rich people are going to send their kids to private schools anyway.
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Yeah, and they're definitely going to find all the tax breaks they can find,
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right? Because they have accountants to look for it. So that's my little tangent there.
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These are questions. I mean, these are questions that will have to be asked
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by lawmakers to themselves as they try to craft a budget.
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It's very expensive to open it up to absolutely everybody.
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Do you have that money? And what public good does it do to open it up to the super wealthy?
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I think that that's going to be a topic in the election. I think it'll be a
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big debate. It should be.
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Yeah, we'll see. I don't know. I wish those were around whenever I was in school.
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I would have been able to go to private school because my parents, they wanted to.
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It was just out of reach for us.
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It was just out of reach. It would still be out of reach because they just jack
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up the prices after the vouchers went in effect.
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So we do have some good news to report this week. The state has honored six state employees,
25:01
five from the Department of Transportation and one state trooper for their efforts
25:05
in getting motorists to safety when a portion of I-40 collapsed out in the western
25:10
part of the state during Helene.
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Other names were Scott Coggins, David Hall, and Austin Phillips from DOT. They are engineers.
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IMAP drivers Garrett McFaulz and Christopher Stradler and Trooper Joe Henderson.
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They were awarded the Governor's Award for Excellence on Wednesday, November 19th.
25:30
Y'all, thank y'all. Congratulations. That's amazing. For being honored in that way.
25:35
And we were talking about it earlier, how terrifying that must have been.
25:39
But then, you know, these are these are people who serve the citizens of North
25:43
Carolina. So they just jumped in and did, you know, what needed to happen.
25:47
But yeah, thank you for what you do.
25:49
Yeah, the narrative in the story is pretty harrowing.
25:53
So you should go read it. It's in the News and Observer, and we posted it on
25:56
our Facebook page. But nobody went in the river.
25:59
Yeah, no cars. That's pretty amazing. And if you look at the road there,
26:03
I mean, I've driven that stretch before, and you're all, like,
26:07
10 years ago, you were close to that river. Like, it was a little scary back then.
26:12
So just imagine you're driving along, and the road is not there anymore.
26:16
Well, I got to tell you, that is a good news story.
26:19
And it's something you just won't hear a lot about it. It's a sad thing.
26:22
So I'm glad you brought it up, and we can put it out there to folks so that
26:27
they know this is the kind of thing these state employees are doing.
26:31
Seven Wildlife Resources Commission
26:34
employees also received the award for their actions during Haleen.
26:38
All seven worked at the Armstrong State Fish Hatchery, and they tried in vain
26:43
to save the hatchery and 600,000 trout during this storm.
26:47
So, I guess in vain means they were unsuccessful, which is...
26:51
Yeah, I'm sure that... How you did that.
26:54
Yeah. It's still so hard to get your head around what happened to our state.
26:58
Yeah, because 600,000 trout is a big deal to North Carolina,
27:03
to certain parts of our economy.
27:06
And they took that seriously enough. They walked right up to the line of maybe
27:11
getting wiped away themselves.
27:13
That's pretty huge sacrament. Oh, there's more to their story.
27:16
So they were unable to save the hatchery, but they did save a neighbor whose
27:21
house was destroyed by a landslide, and he clung to a piece of his house and
27:25
called for help, and they were able to pull him to safety.
27:28
So, so many stories out of the West. There should be a documentary about all of that.
27:32
To me, it's one of the biggest reasons we don't need crews of people under contracts
27:37
coming into this state to do stuff when state employees can do it.
27:40
And one of the, number one, because if somebody would look at it,
27:44
we do do it more efficiently and cheaper.
27:46
Than contracts. But number two,
27:48
I want North Carolinians doing that. I want North Carolinians having those jobs,
27:53
and I want North Carolinians there because North Carolinians are going to try
27:58
to save their neighbor. They're going to go that extra mile.
28:01
We are neighbors. We're not just employees.
28:05
It matters. And just to give them a name check on the podcast,
28:09
I'm sure they're listening, right?
28:11
Their names were Kaylee Winters, Chuck Melton, Spike Gouge, Doug Arfman,
28:17
Luke Clark, Jacob Setterlind, and Elijah Winters.
28:21
So good on you guys. Thank you so much. Hard work.
28:25
So we have a big event coming up next week. Our second town hall for the Lantern
28:31
Program is going to happen in Goldsboro on Monday, December 1st at 630 at Wayne Community College.
28:38
Please make plans to attend. We can help you save some money,
28:41
get your questions answered.
28:43
Yeah, there'll be, well, Director Meyer from OSHR is coming.
28:47
There'll be the representative from Lantern on hand, as well as the administrator
28:52
of the state health plan, Thomas Friedman.
28:54
So great time to get your questions answered about the Lantern program,
28:57
which obviously is for active employees and non-Medicare retirees.
29:03
If you're on Medicare, this will not affect you. So if you're one of those two
29:07
groups, please make plans to be there. Remind everybody what Lantern is.
29:11
Lantern is a program that State Health Plan has partnered with that will allow
29:16
State Health Plan members to use a network of physicians to get non-elective surgeries at zero cost.
29:24
And, you know, there's been people are like, I don't want to change my doctor.
29:28
Your doctor may end up being in the Lantern Network.
29:31
So those kind of questions are important going forward.
29:35
The physicians in these in the program are thoroughly vetted.
29:39
I believe we're starting off with any kind of bariatric treatment.
29:42
We'll have to go through Lantern and then things like a shoulder surgery or
29:46
knee replacement, things that you can plan out.
29:48
Those are the kind of surgeries that we're starting off with and the plan they
29:52
hope to expand it. Well, I noticed some of our social media comments have been
29:56
around, hey, I don't even need surgery.
29:59
In other words, they're not pleased with the treasurer's office because they're
30:02
like, well, that doesn't do me a darn bit of good.
30:04
My premiums went up. But we just want to reiterate, if people use this program,
30:10
the state health plan saves a lot of money.
30:13
This can prevent having your premiums go up again the next year,
30:17
whether you need it or not.
30:19
God bless, I hope nobody needs surgery.
30:21
Wouldn't that be amazing? Bottom line is some of us are going to need to.
30:24
And some of those same commenters think that their premiums went up because
30:29
of this program, that, oh, we can give people free surgeries because my premiums went up.
30:34
And it's actually quite the opposite. If members will use the Lanham program
30:38
so that it's costing the state health plan less overall, then that helps the
30:42
state health plan sustainability.
30:45
I mean, it is kind of. Can be reflected in premiums.
30:49
It is kind of counterintuitive. if you don't really look into it,
30:53
though. I mean, I can see where just someone who doesn't know the details of the plan.
30:57
Like, how is this saving money? I have the same questions, I guess.
31:01
Yeah, because you can't even conceptualize. You mean we've been paying so much
31:06
that we can give people something for free and come out better? How is that?
31:13
Yeah. Yeah, I know the example that Thomas Friedman uses is that he could...
31:18
You could take a limo and go and pick someone up two hours away,
31:23
drive them back, have their surgery.
31:26
Yeah, put them up in the Umstead for a couple of days, pay for your person to
31:30
accompany you and drive you back home for thousands less than what the state
31:34
health plan traditionally has. Which is what we've been screaming for 10, 15 years.
31:39
We are really getting overcharged.
31:42
And this is a prime example. Well, and the sustainability of the plan is a real
31:47
issue. A real issue. So, yeah, they're thinking out of the box.
31:52
And you'll probably be sick of turkey leftovers by then, Mondays.
31:57
If you want a good meal, come out to our event. We will have some food.
32:01
Yeah. We'll have food that is not...
32:04
The same thing you've been eating for the past four days. Right. Yeah.
32:08
No, I think it's a really good thing because when you can ask those questions
32:12
yourself and figure out, does it apply to your family? Man.
32:16
And ask those questions directly of the representatives.
32:20
Yeah. Earlier this month, we had a virtual one that was very well attended and lots of questions.
32:25
Then we had one in Morganton that was less attended, but we did have some good questions there, too.
32:30
Yeah. So I think that there are lots of questions out there that can be answered,
32:34
and you'll get something out of this.
32:37
And we're in the process now of setting one up in Wake County,
32:40
so stay tuned for more details on that one as we pull it together.
32:43
And somewhere, either Harned or Cumberland, we're coming to you soon. Yeah.
32:48
Sanford. We have a big civic center. We should do it there. Why not?
32:52
And we should maybe do another virtual one. Maybe we should talk about that.
32:55
We do have that one recorded, though, and it is on our Facebook page and our
32:59
YouTube channel if you want to go back and watch.
33:02
Could also possibly do one at FSU. Yeah. Yeah, Fayetteville State is probably
33:06
the idea for Fayetteville.
33:09
We'll get you details on that very soon. But the bottom line is look into this
33:13
program and don't think that we think this is it.
33:16
Oh, they've done Lantern. The problems are solved. We don't think that.
33:19
But we do know and we respect the fact the treasurer's office has tried to do
33:23
something to bring more competition to what has been a very quasi-monopolistic
33:29
approach to health care with the state health plan.
33:32
I mean, just paying people ransoms is just insane.
33:36
So they're trying to stop the lunacy. And this is the first step.
33:40
Yeah. Because if people go to these lantern providers and they're happy to compete,
33:44
the folks who are charging us four and five times what they should be charging
33:47
us are going to have to get real. So that's the goal.
33:51
Well, I think that's a good way to wrap up the newsy portion of the show.
33:55
Now it's time for John's Wacky Weird Question of the Week. John.
34:04
Okay, so it's always easy to come up with a question around the holidays.
34:08
I just figure out something we haven't talked about about the holidays.
34:12
I think we did a favorite Thanksgiving side last year.
34:16
So let's go with favorite Thanksgiving tradition, maybe for you or for the nation or anything.
34:24
And I'll start. And this tradition just started like a few years ago.
34:28
My father-in-law, who is like the greatest man ever, I love him.
34:32
But Jimmy Lucas, he decided, oh, I'm just going to rent a house at the beach
34:37
on Thanksgiving and we're going to go there. And we're like, thank you, Jimmy.
34:41
I love that idea. So now we're going to Oak Island this year just for the week.
34:45
You know, it's pretty cheap to rent a house down there during Thanksgiving.
34:48
So we're going to the Oak Island and spend some time just sitting on the couch
34:53
with each other. And it's going to be awesome.
34:55
Eating and watching football. Yeah.
34:57
What was that? Eating breads and getting back there? John, I hear you saying
35:01
we're going to go down there and sit on the couch with each other.
35:04
Yep, and watch football. How does the meal happen? Oh, no.
35:08
My wife and mother will be doing that. Get yourself in that kitchen,
35:13
either for a friend or cleanup. No, they don't want me in that kitchen. Oh, please.
35:16
They would take you for cleanup. They sure would. Ask them.
35:19
In a hot minute. You know you want him in the kitchen cleaning up.
35:22
Oh, no. She does not want me in the kitchen.
35:24
I was thinking about it this morning. I watch a beach cam nearly every morning
35:29
when I have my coffee just to watch the sun come up at any number of beaches.
35:34
And I was thinking about that this morning, that maybe next year I'll rent a
35:37
place, take my little family out of town for Thanksgiving.
35:41
Be a neat tradition. It would be, which we started last year.
35:44
Erica wanted to do Thanksgiving dinner herself.
35:47
Oh, okay. And Garrett, my son, he did chip in.
35:50
He buttered up the turkey and got him all ready for the oven.
35:53
So we started that last year. I just go to their house and enjoy being with
35:59
them and the kids. How does that feel, though?
36:01
Are you sad about passing the baton? Not one bit. Okay.
36:06
Not one bit. It's lovely just to sit and play with the grandchildren and smell
36:11
the stuff coming out of the kitchen, and I'm not in there.
36:14
I think that my mom and my mother-in-law are both holding on to it. They won't. Yeah.
36:19
So at some point, see, we used to go to my grandmother's big shindig for Christmas.
36:25
But at some point you go to just your immediate family, you know,
36:30
and you lose track of all those cousins and everything. That's kind of sad.
36:34
Yeah, times have changed. Times have changed since we were kiddos.
36:39
What's your tradition, artists? I mean, the Macy's Parade has always been the
36:45
way the day starts. It has to start that way.
36:47
And then in recent years, you know, my kids all really like movies.
36:52
I'm not a big movie person, but that's the official start of Christmas movie
36:56
season at the house. That's true, yeah.
36:59
Last year we watched Planes, Trains, and Automobile, which is a Thanksgiving movie.
37:03
Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah, so it was awesome. I love that. I love that.
37:07
I was going to say that, and now that Noah fancies himself a pumpkin farmer,
37:11
pumpkin pie has become like a real feature.
37:16
Pumpkin bread, sometimes pumpkin seed.
37:19
All the pumpkin stuff. Does he make them?
37:21
Yeah. Oh, very cool. What about you, Sammy?
37:25
We don't necessarily have a tradition for Thanksgiving Day, but that weekend
37:30
they always, in Fayetteville, have the Dickens Holiday, which is like a step
37:35
back into Victorian times. It's downtown Fayetteville.
37:39
And they'll have a bunch of different characters from A Christmas Carol of people
37:43
just dressed up like those Victorian characters.
37:46
I love it. And it's kind of like a bunch of small businesses and vendors are
37:49
out there. So we get to go and look around for stocking stuffers,
37:53
small treats for family for Christmas and stuff like that. But it's also just nice to walk around.
37:59
They'll have cider and really cool fun things. So we do that.
38:03
Very neat. And this year apparently is their 26th year doing it in Fayetteville.
38:09
Very cool. And they do a candlelight thing every evening. So we'll usually go
38:12
there for a couple hours and hang out there.
38:15
And then we also do Black Friday shopping now. Yeah, no. That's what I was going to mention.
38:20
None of us mentioned Black Friday. Before 2019, the answer was absolutely not.
38:26
We were not doing any of that.
38:27
After COVID started, Black Friday became a lot less crowded and was much more
38:33
mellow. So my family was more okay with going out on Black Friday.
38:37
Before COVID happened, absolutely not.
38:41
There was no chance we were leaving the house that day. Yeah,
38:43
we do most of our shopping online, I think.
38:47
Except for like big items. Like Cyber Monday. Yeah.
38:50
None of y'all mentioned putting up the tree or anything. Is that not a thing?
38:54
I have a little, I don't know, 18-inch tree.
38:59
Erica bought it when Mia was a baby for a photo shoot that she did with her.
39:04
And somehow it made it to my house. But I just kind of, well,
39:08
there's nobody coming to my house.
39:09
So and putting up a christmas tree is a lot of work
39:12
so i just put up that little christmas tree and put my
39:15
little gifts around it and it's just as festive as it can be
39:18
our tree has been up since like november 3rd oh wow
39:21
yeah my family doesn't do that my mom my mom actually
39:24
dreads putting up the christmas holidays or the christmas decorations and stuff
39:28
she dreads it she doesn't see that i kind of got that way with the tree so i'm
39:31
not doing it she still ends up doing it but i usually we try and do it while
39:37
I'm home for Thanksgiving so that she has some help because I like helping put
39:41
up decorations and I like doing it.
39:43
So I'm kind of her little helper for that to get as much jobs as possible.
39:48
That's one of those jobs I would pass right on down. There you go. Yep.
39:51
And Artis, you were a little taken aback that I said Thanksgiving was my favorite
39:55
holiday, but it is because it's like a feast and football. I rest my case.
40:02
All right, everyone, want to have a great Thanksgiving. Well,
40:04
I guess you've already had a great Thanksgiving, but we will see you at December
40:09
1st in Goldsboro, 6.30 p.m.
40:13
Wayne Community College. See you there.