Latest / The SEANC View / State Auditor Dave Bullock on Transparency, Tech & DMV Reform

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State Auditor Dave Bullock on Transparency, Tech & DMV Reform · The SEANC View

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Before we get started with this week's episode of the Scenic View podcast,
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we want to take a moment to recognize Labor Day and the meaning it holds in our country's history.
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It is a day to honor the contributions of hardworking people who keep our communities
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and our state running strong.
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Here at Scenic, we're proud to represent the dedicated state employees of North
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Carolina, as well as the retirees whose commitment and service built the foundation we stand on today.
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This Labor Day, we celebrate you and we thank you for all that you do.
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Hello, friends, and 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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With me, as always, is Executive Director Artis Watkins, Suzanne Beasley,
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the Director of Government Relations, and Sam Klein, our podcast producer.
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These people that I work with.
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You're fine. You're fine. You almost made it through. Yeah, but they know us.
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It's Sam, y'all. We have an awesome show today. We have a distinguished guest.
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The State Auditor of North Carolina coming to join us. So let's just dive right into it.
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Music.
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Okay, well, we do have a busy week ahead of us next week. The Scenic Convention starts.
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Yesterday, we did our packing day, which is, I asked Lynn, because she's been
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here forever, how long have we been doing packing day? And she said at least her whole time.
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So that's 31 years.
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So she said probably 40 years. So packing day is when we pack up all of our
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bags and programs and things that we'll use for convention.
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Things we'll pass out to the delegates. 800 bags worth. It's a lot of work.
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And it's kind of a camaraderie thing for us. It is. I don't hate packing day.
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It was fun because even Brenda made a little comment whenever she realized I
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was right next to her. She was like, oh, she moves so fast.
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I got to speed up. And I'm like, it's like a race. Yeah. I know it is.
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Let's get competitive. Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah, I think it's popular to say, oh, here comes packing day.
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Oh, it's going to be terrible. But I think everybody likes it.
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Yeah, we play some music, try and keep it upbeat.
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So if you're a delegate to the scenic convention, we'll see you in a few days.
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And we've got your bags packed.
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If you're not, get involved at your district and be a delegate next year.
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Yeah, we want to see you at the convention. The convention is awesome.
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And your programs were packed with love. We don't have a lot of budget talk
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to get into this week. Anything at all?
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Well, session convened on Tuesday. It was a skeletal session,
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so the entire General Assembly did not convene. It's not looking likely that
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we're going to have a budget.
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I did see a story that the Democrats held a press conference yesterday to urge
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Republicans to settle a budget.
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Yeah, and I did run into a couple of Democrats while I was trolling the building
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for anything on Tuesday. Day in that, I understood was, you know,
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they were trying to push some things along as much as they can.
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I don't think it's looking good. It's not. It's not.
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You know, it's huge. It's huge to state employees who are going to see their
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health care go up. And it's huge to retirees.
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And what I'm hearing is that it's the tax package. One chamber's not moving on it.
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And if they refuse to move on that, then they can't do anything else. So here we are.
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But isn't this year different than, say, last year where this is like a long session, right? Right.
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So this is the first, like, it seems like there is no budget, right?
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I mean, right now. No, I mean, so far, the mini budget is all we have out there.
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We don't have a budget, but there are things they're going to have to handle.
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You can do it, though, in a series of mini budgets.
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A mini budget with money for our folks would be something at this point.
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You look skeptical about that. I do, because a lot of things haven't been addressed.
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What you're going to do with the continuing tax reductions is,
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number one. You have to figure that out.
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Number two, are you still going to spend, what is it, almost $700 million on
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the opportunity scholarships? If you are, that money's off the table.
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What are you going to do about Medicaid that got expanded, and now you're not
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going to get those dollars back from the federal government? That is a huge...
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That's at least equal, I think, to what the opportunity scholarships after that
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and Hurricane Helene relief.
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You're trying to do that at the same time as all of this.
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So I'm skeptical of how the math would work.
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I think there's an awful lot of things people want to do, but it's not all possible
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under the current scenario.
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And our job as lobbyists is to point out that it might be nice to be able to
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give somebody things like opportunity scholarships or tax cuts.
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But you've got a workforce that you need to address if you want to keep decent
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people working for decent North Carolinians.
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That's right. You've got to do, you've got to take care of your business.
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Yeah. And if any other business you run, you know, if you don't take care of
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the employees, your business is going to suffer.
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You're not going to be as high quality as you could be. What is that all saying?
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The state is no different.
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Take care of your employees and they'll take care of you. The business,
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yeah. And the customers will suffer.
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Oh, 100%. The customers for the state are the taxpayers. That's right. Yeah.
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Well, we spoke a little bit about this in the interview with Dave Bullock,
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which we recorded before.
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But the big news today from the state treasurer's office is that he uncovered
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$170 million in unallocated funds.
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Now, that's confusing to everyone. Like, where do you find $170 million?
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I'm sure it's not as simple as it seems. Yeah, well, I mean,
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I think Auditor Bullock addresses it briefly when we interview him,
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but apparently Treasurer Briner's staff, and I don't know the details of it,
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I'm assuming he tasked them with, among other things, check everything out and
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make sure it looks good because we're keepers of the public purses, Dale Volley used to say.
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But at any rate, the treasurer's office found $170 million that had not been
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expended. So you can use it for limited purposes. You can't just put it anywhere.
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But there are certain programs that have been legislatively approved. You can use it on.
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You can use it to plug certainly certain proscribed holes.
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But couldn't you kind of launder that? Like, you could use it. Oh, dear.
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Follow me here. You must have watched too much Sopranos. Yeah.
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No, but like you could use that money to pay off one thing and use the money
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allocated for that in a different place. No. Is that not a thing? Am I being illegal here?
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Well, I mean, when they give you that money to be spent here.
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I know what you're saying, because when I read the article, the first thing
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I thought was, it'll be interesting to see where that money actually goes.
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And I'm sure that that is a question some people will ask.
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I'm sure journalists will ask as we move along through the process.
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Says, hey, whatever happened to that 170 million? Because that's not anything to sneeze at.
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But it's great that they found it. That's, yay, state employees.
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And thank you, Treasurer Briner. And Auditor Bullock seemed pretty excited about
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it because as he is about to talk to us in the interview about,
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you know, his goal is to try to find anywhere where there's not just waste or
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fraud or bad things, but also where there's good things, where we didn't necessarily spend everything.
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So we have a better idea, are we overfunding some things while we're choking out others? Yeah.
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And I guess I only bring that up because last week's episode was about premium
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increases and I could see someone, I mean, even I first thought this like,
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well, they found $170 million the week after they raised premiums.
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The comments on Facebook, I didn't look at the other platforms yet,
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but the comments on Facebook, the very first one, it's like,
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okay, well, can you apply this to the premium increases then?
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And that's probably not something that can happen.
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No. It's not, yeah. I will say, if this tells you guys how literal my brain
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takes things, when I first read it, I was thinking, how do you hide $170 million
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or just lose $170 million?
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Picturing $170 million cash just somehow in a storage closet that went missing.
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$170 million never went away. It just didn't get spent.
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It was just lingering. That's not a bad thing. Have you seen Breaking Bad?
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But, you know, now they're going to figure out where they put it.
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Well, you need to watch that. But I was just thinking of Huel laying on the big pile of money.
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See, I was just picturing someone opening a storage closet and just seeing stacks
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of money like, where did this come from?
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I'll tell you what, since we all just learned about this today,
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Suzanne and I will take a very good look at this and see if there's any way
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to apply that towards raises.
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I wish I could find $170 in my account.
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It's never a bad thing to ask because it's Skiff. But anyway,
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we're going to look at it anyway. So let's just go right to the state auditor's
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interview, and then we'll come back and have a little Gen Z moment and wrap up.
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Okay, we have a special guest in the podcast studio today.
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We are welcoming State Auditor Dave Bullock to the show. Welcome, Auditor Bullock.
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Well, I'm glad to be here. It's a really nice space, actually,
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particularly for a podcast.
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Sam did it by herself. Wow. Did really well. Very impressive.
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Thank you. So a lot of our members may not be as familiar with you as I know
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you just took office last year.
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So we want to give you a chance first to kind of introduce yourself to them
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and just tell us a little bit about Dave Bullock.
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Great. Well, yeah, and I am Dave Bullock. I'm honored to be the 21st state auditor
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of the state of North Carolina.
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I am originally from, well, I was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina.
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I've lived all over North Carolina.
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Yeah, I'm born in Lincolnton. My father was in radio and television,
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and so we moved around quite a bit.
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I spent time in Eden. I spent time in Greensboro.
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My formative years, junior high, which they had that. I'm 57 when I was coming
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along. Junior high and high school in Durham.
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And then went to UNC Chapel Hill for undergraduate. I knew I liked you. Yeah.
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That's why I commented on your shoe. I'm a Tar Heel. And we graduated there
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with a degree in journalism.
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And so I was a reporter and worked various different things and found my way
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to law school where I got a law degree and an MBA degree from Campbell University
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and went to work as a prosecutor.
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So I've been an assistant district attorney prosecuting traffic cases and all
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the way up to murder cases in Cumberland County.
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Left, went to private practice. So what got me, I did a lot of community service
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work, you know, served my church, raised our family in large respects in Fayetteville.
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Over the last 26, 27 years, four children, 26, 24, 20, and 15,
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and they were all born in Fayetteville.
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Got two that are off the family payroll, so they've made their way in the world and, you know,
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got into sort of broader public service when I was asked to serve on the board
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of trustees at UNC Chapel Hill and was elected chair of that board.
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And from there, because of the work that we were able to do with the administration
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there at UNC Chapel Hill on budget reform,
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and I tell the story about when I asked, well, why in the world would you want
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to be the state auditor and how did that come about?
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And it really came about through that work on the budget reform at UNC Chapel
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Hill was all started in orientation when the provost,
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who's the chief academic officer, was telling me and some other new members
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of the board about the budget at Carolina and the fact that there were 16 separate
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budgets actually running the university.
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They were run on 16 separate budgets, not 16 parts to a budget,
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but 16 separate siloed budgets, $4.4 billion a year.
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And I thought that was not efficient. I thought it wasn't really the right approach.
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And I also was concerned that it was the chief academic officer telling us about
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this and not a CFO, a chief financial officer.
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So long and short, we as a board really pushed and were able to work with both
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the legislators and our Board of Governors to change the way the budgeting was
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done at UNC Chapel Hill and ultimately across the UNC system.
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We consolidated to one single budget, a uniform all-funds budget.
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That's now the standard across the university system, and it started at UNC Chapel Hill.
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In our process, we discovered a $100 million structural deficit,
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and that required some belt tightening at the university level.
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We were able to do that in a short period of time and get to a zero-based budget
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and really good fiscal management through an all-funds budget and hiring a CFO
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to manage the budgetary functions of the university.
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And rating agencies, Standard & Poor's, for example.
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In the case of Carolina, rates universities and institutions and states for
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their credit worthiness and Standard & Poor's had raided UNC Chapel Hill after our budget reform.
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And there was a footnote in the bottom of that rating that actually made note
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of the new budget process at Carolina and the fact that our new budgeting process
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gave them increased confidence on the financial stability and position of the university.
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And so it was that sort of kind of nerdy footnote that really got me interested
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in running for state auditor because I saw the work that you could do to really
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move things forward and make things better through work and decisions on sort
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of areas that relate to finance.
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And so I hope that tells you a little bit about me. That's great.
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Some of that is brand new information to me. So it does kind of explain some
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of the interest you had in the job.
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And I'm sitting here listening to you thinking, I'm also surprised you didn't
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run for General Assembly because I think revamping budget processes does seem
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like it would start there. And I can fully see you enjoying the entire appropriations
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process. But apparently not, huh?
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Does anybody enjoy the appropriation process in the General Assembly?
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Yes, the nerdy financial people like you're talking about. Yes,
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some people love it. Yeah.
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And I know legislators. I mean, I would not love sitting down figuring it out,
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but I'm glad there are people that do. I know legislators that enjoy it.
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So, yeah, I guess that could have been a consideration. I really thought there
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was an opportunity also with the State Auditor's Office to reshape the focus of the office. Not.
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To give away what the auditor's office has traditionally been known for,
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which is really interagency work to make agencies accountable and to assist
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agencies in better financial management,
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but also enhance the role of the auditor to be more effective and more relevant
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to everyday North Carolinians.
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And that has been the mission that I've tried to bring to the office is to continue the traditions.
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Particularly as it relates to financial auditing across the state of North Carolina
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from the state auditor and the professional team that we have in the office,
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but to expand the role to be relevant to everyday North Carolinians.
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How can we as a state auditor do things in the realm of waste,
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fraud, abuse, and accountability, efficiency work that really affects average North Carolinians?
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You know, is there a way that the auditor's office can do that?
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And I believe we've hit on at least one way, and that was our audit with the
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Division of Motor Vehicles.
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Oh, yeah. Everybody wants to know what's going on with DMV for sure.
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And I think a lot of North Carolinians hear state auditor and they think it
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means they're getting audited by the state with reference to their taxes.
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Yeah, I get that a lot. I do. Yeah, I would think that would be a very scary
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sounding person to a lot of people.
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It's scary. You know, we don't want it to be scary, but we don't audit people's
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individual tax returns. That's for the IRS and the Department of Revenue.
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We are actually working on behalf of the taxpayer and looking across state agencies,
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organizations, and institutions at how taxpayer dollars and public funds are
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spent and asking the question and the approach that we've tried to take since
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the first of the year is really asking the question,
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what is the return on taxpayer dollars?
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For their investment in state government. Right.
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And I think that's the right approach because that doesn't presume that we're
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going in, number one, and looking for stuff necessarily that's wrong,
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that we're looking for. Right.
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We have, I think you can expect, again,
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we don't like to release the results of audits ahead of time,
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but I think you will see audits in the coming weeks that talk about positive
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things that are happening across state government,
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places where things are working really well, for example.
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So I think you'll see that. In fact, I'm sure you will.
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And there'll be some other audits that sort of point out some deficiencies and
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things where we can do things better as a state.
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The goal really is to be balanced and have an approach to ask that tough question.
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What's the return on investment?
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What are we getting for our money? And then are we being as efficient and effective
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as we can be in certain areas?
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And our state workforce, they have those concerns, too, because those folks
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know if there's money being wasted somewhere else. They know where the body
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is. Yeah, and it's less money on the table to do anything to benefit them.
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So this may be a good moment just to touch on the DAVE Act.
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Yeah. So you've been tasked with checking out all the agencies across North
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Carolina and, you know, deciding if there are places that need some attention
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or if they're doing good things.
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Like you just said, part of that language in legislation talked about cutting employees.
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So obviously that, you know, Rose, it's a red flag for all our folks when you
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start talking about cutting state employees.
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So can you give us some kind of idea of maybe going in with the things that
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you're going to do under the DAVE Act?
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What would that look like? And what would you be looking at if an agency did
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need cuts? We don't think anybody needs cuts with the vacancy crisis.
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But if you determine that, how would that look?
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Yeah. So the DAVE Act, of course, is sort of an affectionate name, I guess, if you're me.
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It worked out nicely. If you're me, it is. The acronym worked.
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It creates... I couldn't think your name wasn't any longer.
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Some things work out occasionally, right? But it creates the division of accountability,
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value, and efficiency in our office.
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It really, if you go in and sort of analyze the legislation,
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it doesn't create any additional authorities of the office.
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What it does is it sort of puts us on a defined mission and gives us resources
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to accomplish that mission.
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And if you look at the workforce within the state auditors, I've seen,
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and again, in terms of state employees and workforce, we've added 45. Yeah.
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Members to the state workforce. And we're in the process of doing that through
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the DAVE Act. And there will be state employees.
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We do use contracted services in certain instances, but for the work that we're
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going to try to do under, that we're going to accomplish under the DAVE Act,
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we're going to use state workforce, right?
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Employees that we're bringing on board at the auditor's office.
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So that's a good thing. We're actually adding that. And my commitment is to bring value to that ad.
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So we're going to monitor ourselves and create some really strong metrics on
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what type of results we get.
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But in terms of what to expect, when we've started the DAVE Act and we started
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with informational requests across all state agencies and asking them for information
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on their workforce, how many members of their teams do they have.
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How many openings do they have, what does that look like, what is their agency's mission.
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And we've got access to larger data sets across state government through the
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Office of State Human Resources, through the Office of Budget Management,
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and through Comptroller's Office.
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So we're going to take all of that data as well and sift that data.
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And we're going to use modern computer engineering and data analytics to take a look at that.
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Because I want to stop here and say, you know, my commitment has been to be
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data-driven on these approaches.
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And if you use the data and actually base it on objective data,
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and objective data is also not just numbers,
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right, which is why we've reached out to every agency individually and not just
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taken raw numbers from large data sets.
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We've reached out to individual agencies across state government and asked them
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specifically about their workforce and the leadership of those agencies about their mission,
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because numbers by themselves don't tell the story of what we're doing.
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And those numbers need to be put into context.
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And that's really important for us to be able to put numbers into context.
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Example is our DMV audit, and I'll harp on that because I'm really proud of
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the work that we've done so far.
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There's more work to be done on our DMV auditing, but I think we've shown a
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light on an issue of where state government, and I said this in the release
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of that audit, that it's an opportunity for state government to do something right.
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And we recommended additional resources. We recommended additional state employees to work.
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At the Division of Motor Vehicles. We also advocated for some increased efforts
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to try to fill vacancies and some increased flexibility at the DMV in particular
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for them to be able to fill those vacancies.
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And I think that's really important because, and as part of that.
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You know, in terms of a lot of our recommendations, we actually took the input
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of people, I mean, surprise, surprise, that actually do the work.
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We found out across the state and actually asked licensed examiners,
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hey, how can you better serve people? Got the real deal.
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Right? And we got a lot of good information on that.
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I was really, our team was really gratified with the information that they got and the suggestions.
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I mean, surprise, surprise, people who do it every day have good ideas. Yes, they do. Right?
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And I say that with sarcasm because I'm not surprised at all that people who
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do the job every day have good ideas.
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Well, we, you know, we talked to you about this when we had a private meeting
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with you a few weeks ago, which we're so appreciative of, and we learned a lot that day.
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And that's why we wanted to have you on so people can hear from you and learn
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more about what the auditor does, especially if they're state employees and
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wonder, really, what is this all going to mean for me?
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But with regard to the DMV audit, one of the things we said is,
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you know, the employees were going down there saying these things at the legislature
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for a very long time, you know, when we would have our little lobby days.
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And they've been telling multiple folks who were in charge over there these things.
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I'm glad that they got to tell their story to you and your team as well.
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But, you know, do you think this will stick in terms of, they've gotten a response
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in terms of some jobs from your audit, obviously not the amount we've heard
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for years that we needed to keep up with this growth of population.
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Do you think we're going to be able to keep that trajectory in DMV and then
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apply it to other agencies where we have not kept up with the population in terms of our staffing?
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Well, I think that's a multi-pronged question, really, if you unpack it.
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And with DMV, the real question, again, is how can we most effectively serve
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people across the state of North Carolina in an efficient, effective manner?
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Having people that are there available to serve one-on-one individuals because
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of the requirements, and it's really important.
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I mean, an ID today is really important. since 9-11 and the fact that we have
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these real IDs and that we as a state actually collect this data on behalf of
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the federal government that uses it for security purposes on airlines, etc.
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It's really important that we get that information correctly and that we do
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serve not only the individual in North Carolina,
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but serve the greater public by being a trustworthy source of data when it comes
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to the driver's license database.
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So that's really important. But we're going to have to, as a state, do a couple of things.
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One, we're going to have to, again, I'll go back to it, and I hate that I sound
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like a broken record, but we're going to have to ask, number one,
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what kind of return on investment are we getting?
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And when I say return on investment, we got to say, okay, is this a program
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that is necessary to move the state of North Carolina forward,
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either with social, emotional, human value that may not be easily calculated
24:44
in economic terms, right?
24:46
Because there are certain things that the state government does that you cannot
24:51
necessarily equate to an economic value.
24:56
It's quality of life, but not necessarily. Right, it's a quality of life issue.
24:58
It doesn't always make you number one in business, right?
25:02
For example. And then there's those that do make you number one in business, right?
25:06
And number one in business helps, and we're very proud to be number one in business
25:09
because that means there are jobs for our citizens, right?
25:12
And it also makes North Carolina an attractive place for people to move in.
25:16
I think the number is about 350 people a day that move into the state of North Carolina.
25:21
So we do have tremendous growth.
25:23
Florida, Texas, and North Carolina, probably your top three states.
25:27
In fact, I think they are the top three states for growth. Some of it is our
25:31
birth rate is high, but a lot of it is folks wanting to move here to North Carolina
25:36
because of, as you say, the quality of life that we have here in our state.
25:40
Not just geographically, but our state services and what we offer people.
25:45
We're going to have to leverage technology.
25:47
I mean, it's just going to be a fact of life.
25:50
And I'll go back to the DMV, for example. I mean, the entire DMV is currently
25:55
running, as we speak, on a skeleton that was built decades ago,
26:01
and it has not been updated. It's a common refrain in state government.
26:05
It is. In fact, I've had conversations with technology folks across the state,
26:09
and we're actually looking at that in our office as something that we can assist
26:14
with in terms of cataloging those legacy systems.
26:17
And let's really get to the bottom of what we got and get a plan for modernization,
26:22
because it's not going to be something that's going to happen overnight.
26:25
Right. And it also we need input from people who actually are like the license
26:30
examiner, people that are on the front lines that are delivering services directly
26:34
to people of North Carolina.
26:36
We need to get their input. I would say, for better or for worse,
26:39
I mean, the recent rollout of the Odyssey system in the courts has not been
26:45
as smooth as maybe it could have been.
26:47
And I don't think the current leadership of the AOC did not start that ball rolling.
26:54
But, you know, that ball got rolling and that Odyssey system got rolling.
26:58
And someone who's worked in the court system, I don't know how many assistant
27:03
district attorneys or clerks of court or judges who actually work in the courtroom
27:10
were ever consulted on what was needed. I'd be shocked if they were.
27:15
Right? Right. And that's an issue. So the technology implementation.
27:21
Particularly when it relates to serving the public from a government function,
27:25
really needs to start with the people that use it every day. And their input is key.
27:30
We're going to be implementing new auditing software in our office.
27:34
And we took a pretty simple approach. We got into office and found that there
27:38
was already the beginnings of an RFP on the street for new auditing software. and I pulled it.
27:44
I just pulled it, pulled it back and reissued it after we went to the auditor
27:48
ones and asked them, number one, because I had seen this happen because I asked
27:54
them, anybody ask you about this? They said, well, not really.
27:56
I said, so we needed to do that. We needed to really ask our own folks what
28:00
they needed and what would make their job easier.
28:03
I'll give you an example of something that we've done. You know,
28:06
I surveyed some of our folks and said, is there something that would make your life
28:12
better in terms of not only your quality of work, your quality of life,
28:17
the margin of time in completing your job day to day.
28:22
And there was a computer program that they said, yeah, this would be great.
28:26
The big five accounting firms use it and they do auditing and it'd be great.
28:31
I said, well, why don't we have it?
28:33
Well, it costs a lot of money. Found out about what it costs.
28:36
And honestly, I can't remember the exact price, but it wasn't life changing
28:39
amount of money. And I said, well, okay.
28:42
And they said, well, you know, you're a pretty conservative guy.
28:44
I said, well, yeah, just because you're conservative doesn't mean that you're
28:47
not willing to invest money to get a return.
28:50
Right. Spend money to get some productivity. I think it went something like this.
28:54
Well, it costs an arm and a leg. And my response was, what's an arm and a leg worth to you, right?
28:59
Right. And so we've implemented some of that software and actually had a strategic
29:05
planning retreat and audit planning retreat with our, it was a day long,
29:10
you know, sort of meeting. with our audit team.
29:13
And they reported back to me that, you know, in their first usage of this particular
29:18
computer product that uses functions that are AI related.
29:22
It's not a chat GPT, not an outside sort of thing.
29:25
It's an internal thing. It uses AI components.
29:29
And two days worth of work that an auditor would spend on a particular project
29:34
has now been condensed in our office to about two hours.
29:37
Oh, wow. And so that type of leverage of technology, it doesn't displace people.
29:42
What it does is, for us, it gives our team members the ability to now do their
29:48
job more effectively because they're not worried about routine tasks. Right.
29:53
They're worried about the analysis.
29:55
And it also increases the volume of production that we're able to do.
29:59
And the modernization of technology in state government is a chronic issue.
30:03
I mean, just as it would be in nonprofits Profits are anywhere where resources are not infinite.
30:09
And so it seems like as we talk to members, depending on where they work in
30:13
state government, it's the have or have nots in terms of the technology.
30:16
It really depends where you are.
30:17
So I would assume y'all will find a lot of that, where we could spend a little
30:21
more money but increase productivity volumes.
30:25
And then as far as the people, I know you want to use the data to determine
30:28
where you go with DAVE Act. One of the pieces of data that is the most striking
30:33
is the vacancy rate across state government.
30:36
And then in particular agencies, I know with prisons, we've heard it a lot,
30:40
forever, not just right now, but this administration, with going back forever,
30:44
that prisons report vacancies not based on the total amount of positions they've got filled.
30:52
But in other words, if I'm out on workers comp, I'm still counted,
30:55
even though I can't go be in that prison.
30:57
So how would you deal with those kind of issues that may not be on their face
31:02
visible to you as data? But if you.
31:06
To talking to people, you'd find out, oh, the numbers are actually reported
31:09
somewhat differently than they are.
31:11
Well, I mean, I think you've hit on the rationale that I sort of explained as
31:15
to why we're reaching out to individual agencies to contextualize numbers.
31:19
And I think you've hit artists exactly of what I mean by contextualizing those
31:25
numbers and putting it into context.
31:27
That's really important because also you have situations where you might have
31:33
vacancy rates And either the facility or the part of an agency,
31:39
when you use corrections, for example.
31:42
Might have a facility in corrections where the numbers necessary are either
31:47
higher or lower than what the initial full-time employee allocation for that
31:54
particular facility are.
31:56
What we're hoping for as part of this is to also analyze with the management
32:02
of individual prisons, for example,
32:05
and ask that question, you know, how many full-time employees do you really
32:09
need to be most effective and most efficient, right?
32:12
And then the question becomes, what is the pay scale?
32:15
Because that is an issue, I think, that we all struggle with in state government
32:21
and in private industry, too.
32:24
What's a proper pay scale, right? Well, how do we properly pay people?
32:27
And, you know, I think it's, I'll give Secretary Stacey Meyer credit.
32:32
She's working, I believe. I've met with her several times,
32:35
and I know other members of the Council of State and agency heads have met with
32:39
her about efforts to modernize and update and really find flexibility within
32:46
the current Personnel Act.
32:48
And we've worked with her on some issues in our own office that relate to the
32:53
Personnel Act and how we can modernize it and be more flexible.
32:58
I really just think there's going to have to be an effort.
33:01
To look at more flexibility. I know I'm kind of repeating myself,
33:06
but it goes to what I think would really help the commissioner at the DMV.
33:10
And yeah, not only did he now get an additional 40 examiners, but he had 159 openings.
33:17
And you can ask yourself the question, well, we're doing a certain level of
33:22
work, but there's 159 openings.
33:24
If we take those, maybe we pair back the number of positions and then look at
33:30
allocation of those dollars in a different way, right?
33:34
Pay competitively, you mean? Can pay competitively. You can also look at geographic pay scales.
33:40
I know that's a very controversial topic, not just in state government,
33:44
but probably in a lot of different industries.
33:47
But, you know, let's face facts. It costs more to live in Mecklenburg County
33:51
than it does in rural eastern North Carolina.
33:54
Well, I mean, we've talked. Not that rural eastern North Carolina is a bad place
33:57
to live. That's where I'm from. I love eastern North Carolina.
34:00
But there are differences. They wouldn't probably mind being called more affordable
34:03
either. But there's differences in affordability. You dealt with that in the
34:07
university system as well.
34:08
You've got some of our universities where folks say they just can't.
34:12
If they're in a vacation area, they just can't afford to live within a reasonable
34:17
drive of the university where they work.
34:18
So, yeah, that's a big issue. Yeah, my wife served for eight years on the board
34:23
of trustees at Western Carolina. So I know exactly what you're talking about.
34:27
Western Carolina has a tremendous issue with housing for faculty.
34:32
A lot of faculty live in the Asheville area or in the suburbs of Asheville,
34:38
and they commute in 45 minutes to an hour every day because there's just no place to live.
34:43
And the weather makes the commute hard. It does. There's no straight line.
34:47
Right. You're out west. Well, while we have you, I don't want to miss the opportunity to ask you.
34:51
So, you know, we've covered your DMV audit, and then we've covered some of the
34:55
DAVE Act stuff and how state employees could be affected by your work and how
35:00
they can be, hopefully, helpful to y'all in doing your work.
35:03
But I also would be remiss if
35:06
I didn't ask you about the things I asked you about before in your
35:09
office that we've heard so much from folks
35:12
over time about contracts the state has where employees see these contracts
35:17
the state has with private business and we've had reports to us from things
35:22
they've seen in these contracts that are sometimes very outrageous you know
35:25
I don't know I haven't been in these contracts and nobody in the public can
35:29
get in these contracts but you'll be able to get in these contracts.
35:32
Is that part of the plan for DAVE Act work?
35:34
Yeah, and that's part of the plan generally on accountability.
35:38
Okay. And one of the broader issues across state government,
35:42
and I think it relates directly to the contracts, is the metrics and what private
35:47
industry calls KPIs, key performance indicators, and the lack of those in state contracts.
35:53
I think is really important and people who
35:56
contract with the state and are running
35:59
successful businesses that are giving value to
36:03
state government by way of contracting
36:07
don't have a problem generally at least in the conversations that I've had over
36:12
the last eight months in office don't seem to have a problem with meeting metrics
36:18
or having metrics and key performance indicators in contracts for whatever reason,
36:24
many of our contracts across state government lack metrics.
36:28
Metrics are important. We got to measure the success. Again,
36:31
it goes back to my broken record theme of return on investment.
36:35
How do we know we're getting a return on investment if we're not measuring something?
36:40
So there are areas where particularly austerity in contracts should be encouraged and important.
36:49
There's also areas where we can encourage best practices.
36:54
You know, for example, pretty large contract, and I'm just familiar with this,
36:58
contract in Pender County, new bridge that went in Surf City over to Topsail Island.
37:05
You know, they're a tricky one to build. Well, it was a tricky bridge to build,
37:09
but there was an incentive plan in that bridge to finish that bridge early.
37:12
And there was a bonus in that contract to finish that bridge early.
37:17
And that contractor finished that bridge early and earned a fairly substantial,
37:23
I believe it was a seven figure bonus to finish it.
37:27
But they got it done quick.
37:30
There is an example of sort of a metric, an incentive metric that's put into
37:34
place in a contract to get something done quicker.
37:36
So I think we need to focus on that, what helps things move more efficient quicker. Also,
37:44
where are we spending money that we probably shouldn't be spending money?
37:48
To your point, in anecdotal stories that I've heard as well about certain benefits
37:52
in contracts that are seen kind of, why is that in there, right?
37:57
And without there being a return on the investment, right?
38:01
So anything that's in a contract with a contractor, and again,
38:04
I've entered into contracts with folks and, you know, we're not perfect.
38:08
We have mixed results sometimes.
38:10
Sometimes I don't quite get the result that I was hoping for,
38:12
and I'm learning that over the first eight months.
38:15
So you have to be careful in whatever part of state government that you operate
38:20
to make sure that you're holding contractor speech to the fire to get things done.
38:24
I think employees just want to know that that's also, that you're not.
38:28
It's just very important to look at state contracts as well.
38:33
Because people think government efficiency is honing in simply on state workers
38:37
and expecting that to be when that's not even the largest part of what's spent and done.
38:43
There's a lot of value that private industry can bring to state government through
38:48
well-drafted and really well-thought-out contractual relationships.
38:54
I see that as a huge value. But we've already reported on some contracting.
38:59
For example, there's a contract whose total value is about $1.5 billion with
39:05
information systems over at DHHS.
39:08
And that's a contract where I think DHHS is working really hard to sort of hone
39:15
in on some metrics and looking at what they're getting in return for that particular contract.
39:22
And from what I understand, they've got a good working relationship to try to
39:26
hone in and make that work even better, particularly as they move into a new
39:31
facility here at the fall of 25.
39:34
Well, what about the, you know, I've spoken to everyone that'll listen for I
39:39
don't know how many years about the secret contracts with the health plan and
39:43
with investment managers in our retirement system.
39:46
You know, it's a $120 billion retirement system with contracts that we can't
39:50
see with our investment managers.
39:52
So and it's six percent of the state employee salary going in to fund it every
39:56
month when there have been times in our working career at Scenic where the state
40:00
put in nothing, but the employees did have to keep putting in six percent every month.
40:04
There was times some of those funds were escrowed and we had to take it to the
40:08
Supreme Court to get that fixed.
40:09
So people want to know that they're getting a good deal. And I think there is a lot of feeling there
40:15
of positivity about Treasurer Briner really having very solid intentions to
40:19
bring those health plan costs down and to base very, obviously,
40:23
his track record on investing is great.
40:25
But in terms of the transparency, the fact that these are huge,
40:29
huge, the biggest public contracts we have, I think, would be health plan and
40:33
retirement system, almost undoubtedly.
40:36
Yeah. I mean, I think you raised some really valid points with respect to,
40:40
particularly on the health plan and the contractual rates that our third-party
40:45
payer is negotiating with providers.
40:47
And that is a universal issue of what in fact our insurance companies and the
40:54
third-party administrator in our case, what are they paying?
40:57
What rates are they paying? Why are they paying a certain rate?
41:00
And is that rate higher in some instances than even what a private insurance plan may be paying?
41:06
And does that inadvertently affect the validity and the stability of the state
41:12
health plan and the fund?
41:13
Yeah, and raise costs for all North Carolinians. Right. So those are legitimate
41:17
concerns. I will say this, you know, I know Treasurer Briner really well,
41:21
and, you know, we've worked really well together as a team.
41:25
You know, as of the recording of this, for example, he just announced the discovery
41:29
of $170 million in And it was really skiff money, money that was sort of has
41:34
already been allocated.
41:36
And people won't know what you mean when you say skiff money.
41:39
Well, it's money that's been allocated to a capital project already and just hasn't been spent.
41:45
Or maybe the project, believe it or not, came in under budget and that money
41:49
was not actually spent. So I think it happens.
41:52
It can and it does, you know, and I think that that shows his hard work and
41:57
intention of getting his team up to speed over at the treasurer's office to
42:01
really work on behalf of taxpayers.
42:04
You know, he he went and got legislation changed to give away authority and power on his own behalf.
42:11
I mean, no longer is North Carolina a state that has a single trustee.
42:15
There's going to be five trustees of the state retirement fund.
42:20
And so that, I think, is a step toward more transparency because you're going
42:24
to have people that are on a board.
42:28
And I get what you're saying, but there are areas that we need to take a look
42:32
at in terms of transparency.
42:34
And that's something I've talked to the treasurer about.
42:38
And so best I can tell you is a work in progress and more to come on that.
42:42
Fair enough. We'd love to hear more at a later time when y'all have had more time.
42:46
It's a lot to digest. I mean, seriously, these are huge issues with huge amounts of money.
42:51
So it's got to be a little overwhelming. I know you're not overwhelmed,
42:55
and I know you've got full confidence in your staff, which you've expressed a lot, which is awesome.
43:00
But it is daunting, the sheer amount of stuff that's out there.
43:05
And we've got a great staff. I mean, I was really blown away by the civil servants
43:11
that work in the auditor's office.
43:13
And I told you before, and I've told other folks, you know, I thought I'd have,
43:18
I don't know, 60 or so resignation letters on my desk, and that didn't happen.
43:24
And, you know, and I've said this, I think most folks that work in our office,
43:29
and I can only speak to my experience, they don't really care what political party the boss is in.
43:35
They just want somebody that's willing to show up for work every day,
43:38
willing to support them in their efforts to serve the public.
43:42
And is willing to put the office on a mission.
43:45
All right. With a purpose. And we come in every day. And that's sort of our
43:49
goal is we've been working through the strategies of our audit plans and how
43:53
we're going to continue to build on some of the momentum that we've generated
43:58
over the first part of this,
44:00
of my administration in the last six,
44:02
eight months. How are we going to build on that?
44:05
So that our team knows, you know, when they show up on Monday morning,
44:08
they know what they've got on their plate.
44:10
They know what's ahead and they know what the goal is.
44:14
Some structure makes everybody feel better. Yeah, and it is daunting because,
44:18
you know, we're changing the culture at our office.
44:21
Not that there was anything wrong with the culture before, but we just want
44:25
to take it in a little bit different direction, modernize it,
44:28
be more impactful to everyday North Carolinians while still maintaining our
44:34
reputation and the tradition of the auditor's office having positive effect
44:39
on agencies and interagency activity.
44:41
So that's been a change. And there is a lot to look at.
44:45
This new technology that we're bringing online, though, it's going to really help us.
44:49
We're going to be able to, I am very confident that in the coming months and
44:56
in the next year or two, you're going to be able to see increased transparency in terms of the dollars.
45:02
You know, and we've done it in our own office. I put my budget online and I
45:05
put our expenses online.
45:06
So I don't feel like I can go ask other agencies to tell us how they're spending
45:12
money without showing taxpayers how we're spending their money in the state auditor's office.
45:17
So we put that out and we're going to have more dashboards. We have our Helene
45:21
Spending Dashboard, which is our first effort to really bring a watchdog approach
45:26
to the state auditor's office that's front and center.
45:29
And we're showing taxpayers how their money is being spent.
45:33
That dashboard is getting more and more robust. And I know folks,
45:37
they kind of joke around and call me Dashboard Dave, and that's okay. I can live with that.
45:41
I can live with that as long as it's— I love stuff like that.
45:45
Right. I love it. So if you haven't been to the auditor's website—
45:48
Go to it. Yeah, it's auditor.nc.gov. It is informative.
45:54
Sign up for our newsletter and you'll get alerts when we release a new audit
45:58
and you'll get our newsletter that comes out on now a regular basis where we're
46:02
talking about things that we're doing and want people to be informed about what
46:06
the auditor's office is all about.
46:08
And if you have tips and we're wanting to, I think we're in the process of sort
46:14
of expanding The typical tip line at the auditor's office, you can call the
46:18
office and that's fine. Go to the website to get the number.
46:21
If I gave it to you, you wouldn't remember it. It's easier just to put in the
46:24
Google machine, North Carolina Auditor, and it'll pop up.
46:27
You can go on the web or you can call in a tip and not just about waste,
46:31
fraud, abuse, but how about some areas where you,
46:35
if you're a state employee and you have some ideas about how your agency could
46:40
run more efficiently, we'd like to hear about it.
46:42
Because, again, we can roll that into our DAVE Act work because we want to hear
46:47
from people who work for the state and are serving the public.
46:50
How can we be more efficient?
46:51
Not just I feel like we're wasting money here or there's fraud there. And that's important.
46:57
Some people are going to be reluctant to reach out no matter where it's from.
47:01
They're going to feel like either their IP address can be traced to them.
47:04
And there is an ingrained thing in public employees that is you will get in
47:10
trouble if you talk about stuff.
47:11
I get that. I worked at the insurance commissioner's office,
47:16
and I was an assistant DA, so I've been a state employee two times before.
47:21
Being elected state auditor. So I certainly understand that.
47:25
But best I can tell you, even with all the great technology that we're putting
47:29
to use on our audit work, we're not tracing IP addresses.
47:33
We don't have time to do that, nor do we have an interest in doing that.
47:37
And we do get anonymous emails and we do answer them.
47:41
I've developed a, put together a constituent service team in our office.
47:47
And we're helping people, too, that may have frustrations in other areas of state government.
47:54
It may not be in our lane, but we're endeavoring. If you contact our office,
47:58
I've asked our constituent service team to do everything they can to help somebody
48:03
that calls the state auditor's office with an issue.
48:05
And we're doing that. And that's part of our service as well. But tips are important.
48:10
And they really are. And we respond to all of them. and we look into every one
48:15
of them. You'd be amazed. Y'all have heard it here.
48:18
Call our office and go to the auditor's office. Yeah, absolutely.
48:21
If at the end of the day, you simply don't feel comfortable doing that,
48:24
contact Scenic and we will let the auditor staff know.
48:27
We're happy to try to be of help in any way.
48:31
We can't, we think state employees, again, will be one of your most valuable
48:35
assets in terms of doing the work of safeguarding the public's money.
48:39
We can't do it without them.
48:41
Number one, state government doesn't work without people willing to serve the
48:45
people and their fellow citizens.
48:47
Let's just get that clear, right? And we know that. But we can't do our work
48:51
at the state auditor's office to hold folks accountable without getting tips
48:54
and information about things.
48:56
And there's no guarantee that we're going to find anything as a result of every
49:00
tip. And maybe there's nothing wrong here.
49:02
Like, maybe there is nothing to see here. And that's fine. We're glad we will
49:06
report back what we find.
49:08
But oftentimes there is. And it's really important that we have vigilant folks
49:13
who are working day-to-day across state government to let us know what they see.
49:18
Well, thank you. It's such important work, and we really appreciate you taking
49:21
the time to come talk to us and to our listeners about what it is y'all do.
49:26
Hope you'll come back soon and let us know the latest and greatest out of the
49:30
State Auditor's Office. I'm glad to do it. We'll be here anytime you ask.
49:34
We'll see you next week at convention. Yes, be there. And I'll save my question
49:38
on whether you think Bill Belichick will have a good season this year or until
49:43
later. No, I want to know.
49:44
He has to make the proclamation. Actually, the highest paid state employee,
49:49
I believe. Oh, wow. That makes sense.
49:52
He's the highest paid state employee. I would say better than six and six. There you go.
49:59
How about that? That's all we can ask for these days. That means nothing to me. Does that mean 100%?
50:04
No, that's good enough for a bowl, though. So, well, thank you so much for joining
50:09
us. Oh, I get it now. Wins, losses.
50:12
Yeah. I thought it was some sort of like very sophisticated.
50:17
No. Okay. Wins and losses. Wins and losses. Well, I hope so.
50:20
Yeah. You've been very generous with your time. I think we kept you a little over, but thank you.
50:25
All your. Glad to be here. I'm glad. Thank you for having me. Okay. Thank you.
50:33
All right. That was a great interview. I didn't know him very well,
50:36
even though he is a state auditor, a member of the Council of State, and I should know him.
50:41
I thought it was very personable. Yeah, I'm excited that he's coming to a convention
50:45
and that our folks will get to hear from him there.
50:48
And you guys get to hear from him here. Look, he's definitely taking the Office
50:53
of State Auditor and making it something that people, more North Carolinians,
50:57
will understand what it is.
50:59
I think it's just always kind of been there. And most people just really don't know what it is.
51:03
Yeah, and I think our discussion just shows that we can question,
51:06
you know, politicians. Our elected officials, yeah. But we can also agree with
51:11
them at times and get along with them.
51:13
We all have to work together. It's not personal. None of this is ever personal.
51:17
Like when we ask questions, we ask questions because we legitimately want to know the issue.
51:21
Or we point things out because we legitimately think that's our duty to our
51:25
members is to make sure people in power hear their concerns and get these things pointed out to them.
51:32
Because there's legions of lobbyists
51:33
pointing things out for big corporate interests and state employees.
51:39
Have us, you know? So it's our job. And I think that almost everybody that we
51:44
run across in politics understands that and they're fine with it as long as
51:49
it's... Generally, we're open to the conversation.
51:50
So, yeah. But I thought he was very open to anything we wanted to ask.
51:54
And I really appreciate that. And he said he'd come back.
51:57
So that's great because so many things to cover.
52:01
You know, I was really encouraged by all the talk of technology and using it in the workplace.
52:07
And, And, you know, the dashboards were pretty cool. I looked them up after
52:10
our interview on his website.
52:13
Moving with the times. Yeah. I did have a kind of a question I wanted to pose to you folks.
52:20
There was a part where he was saying, you know, we have a lot of vacant positions.
52:24
I'm just going to summarize, and it probably won't be perfect,
52:27
but we have vacant positions, say, at DMV.
52:30
What if we paid the people who are there more and were able to do that and infuse
52:36
technology into the job and, you know, solve the problem? How do you think members
52:42
would react to something like that?
52:43
I think people would be fine with that where it would work.
52:46
I think there will be situations where if you paid the people who are there
52:50
enough, you wouldn't necessarily need more of them because their aptitude would be more.
52:56
But there's other situations where you could increase the pay to where you're
53:00
not having vacancies, but there's not a way technology can readily address it.
53:05
And some things are face-to-face. You know, and like driver's license examiners,
53:10
that is one of the easy ones.
53:13
There is not a robot yet to get in a car with somebody and tell you if they're
53:16
going to be a good driver.
53:18
So just to clean that up a little bit, what I was saying, like,
53:20
he was saying that he could introduce technology to make their work more productive, I guess, right?
53:26
Sure. I mean, yeah, I think state employees. The technology should do that. Right. Yeah.
53:32
And like I was saying, it's have and have nots in state government.
53:36
There are agencies that have really great technology up to, you know,
53:40
the latest and the greatest.
53:41
There's others that are dealing with really antiquated stuff.
53:45
And DMV was one that he covered very well in his audit about how people showed
53:49
his staff what they're working with.
53:51
And it was just not anywhere close to modern.
53:56
I was also encouraged by how he said he was like he approached the auditor one
54:01
positions at his office and asked them how they could do things better.
54:05
Or, you know, he was willing to work with the state employees in the DMV office.
54:10
It's important to hear from the people who do those jobs every day. Yeah. So...
54:14
Hopefully that'll continue. And a great interview. We'll have him back and we'll
54:18
see him at the convention as well. Yeah.
54:20
Now let's move on to the Gen Z moment.
54:23
What's going on? Since we were talking about money, finances.
54:27
Budgeting, I figured we could talk a little bit about what Gen Zs are buying
54:32
and what we like to spend our money on.
54:35
So I found an article that kind of starts with something shocking to me.
54:40
So Gen Zs make up about a quarter of the population, as we have previously discussed.
54:44
And our spending power is likely to reach $12 trillion by 2030. That's too much.
54:56
So as a global digitally native generation, Gen Z is interested in the environment,
55:04
authenticity, and quality in its shopping habits.
55:08
So some things that it kind of talks about is... I mean, is that like farmer's
55:13
market? One thing is Gen Z is very quality conscious.
55:16
We're prioritizing buying high quality items over those that are on sale or
55:21
cheaper than the alternative.
55:22
Oh, I'm calling shenanigans on that. Wait a minute. Not me.
55:26
I'm always looking for a deal. I look at Amazon all the time and will buy the
55:31
cheapest of what I can find. But.
55:33
That's what I'm saying. There are a lot of people in my generation who do prefer
55:37
to buy simple, basic items that are high quality, especially when it comes to clothes, for example.
55:45
They want simple, basic items that are high quality rather than having to buy
55:50
as much. I don't think they feel the need to have a ton of stuff like we did.
55:53
They'd rather have a few. I think that is true of y'all.
55:57
That's a good thing. That's true. I guess I was kind of thinking of the Amazon
56:02
purchases where you buy the off-brand stuff.
56:04
All kinds of things. But I guess maybe that's our generation doing that.
56:10
Amazon Essentials. Yeah, Amazon Essentials. My daughter did go,
56:14
was taken back to school shopping by her grandma, and she came home with like
56:18
two shirts and a pair of pants.
56:20
And I'm like, grandma's taking you out shopping. You need to get more than that.
56:24
That's right. She's just not very materialistic. I guess you're right.
56:28
They're really not. That's good. Yay. And a big thing that it also talks about
56:32
is with the oldest members of Gen Z, approaching the age that we get married,
56:37
buy a home, and have children, we're less concerned with those landmarks than previous generations.
56:43
One of our top aspirations is global and domestic travel. We want to explore it.
56:49
You and I had that conversation earlier today. Yeah, do it.
56:53
Gather ye rose bullets while you may. Yeah. As me and Suzanne were talking about
56:58
earlier, I'm young right now.
57:00
I don't have kids. It makes it a lot more expensive to travel with kids.
57:04
And so when I get the opportunities. And less fun.
57:08
Not the same. When I get the opportunities to go places like Hawaii,
57:12
which I'm going again, I'm going to take them.
57:15
And I'm going to make the best out of it. Even if I'm sitting there saying,
57:19
well, I'm kind of broke right now because I'm doing this big thing.
57:22
The money comes back. The experiences don't. I think that is a big philosophy
57:26
in our generation is that money will come back to me.
57:29
Perfect. So they should all join Scenic because that's value. Yes.
57:34
Another thing is that Gen Zs are very health conscious and are very prone to
57:41
choosing health conscious products, such with desirable nutrients,
57:45
ingredients or things that are eco friendly.
57:48
So when it comes to beauty products, we look at cruelty-free,
57:52
clean, natural fragrances, which maybe is part of the reason that,
57:57
as we've talked about previously, Gen Zs are a little bit healthier than previous generations.
58:02
Because we are looking at those all-natural options and those cleaner organic
58:07
options. Well, y'all never drank out of the hose.
58:10
I did. Did you? I lived in the country. Yeah. Well, you're one of the only ones. She's a country Z.
58:15
I was living in outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee until I was 11.
58:19
I was outside pretty much all day until mom said, okay, you can come in.
58:23
They probably have bottled water there.
58:26
Not where I was at. Yeah, because most of your generation, we put a water bottle
58:30
around your dadgum neck and It acted like you could never find any water otherwise.
58:35
No, my parents just sent me outside during the summertime, said, spend all day out there.
58:40
You want some water? Drink from the hose. It's there. Mom and dad knew.
58:44
A horse's drink from it. It's good enough for you.
58:47
Well, you did mention the word engagement just a minute ago.
58:52
Did something happen this week in pop culture that was important?
58:56
My favorite people Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey are officially engaged I cannot
59:03
believe we didn't discuss that with Auditor Bullock.
59:07
So Dave what do you think considering it was asked to the president of the United
59:13
States we probably should have I mean it was funny because J.D.
59:17
Vance you can see his face in the video and he's laughing like why is this a
59:21
question I was watching BBC News and it was it was one of their headline stories. To Trump's credit.
59:29
He's not always been the biggest Taylor Smith fan. No. He had a classy answer. Yeah.
59:34
Yeah, I should have asked, instead of asking about the Belichick years at Carolina.
59:40
I don't know. That was a valid ask. Yeah. Well, I just figured since he's been
59:44
on the board of trustees, he would have some insight. Exactly. Taylor and Travis.
59:49
Or is it Travis and Taylor? Oh, it's Taylor first, always. I did notice that
59:55
Mama Kelsey, Donna, she was at the Biltmore house the day that the engagement was announced.
1:00:03
So maybe she was scoping out a spot for the wedding. Maybe they'll get married
1:00:07
at the Biltmore. That would be cool.
1:00:09
Very cool. I bet that would be so expensive. This is my version of the royal wedding.
1:00:15
This is true. This is my version of the royal wedding. Do you think it'll be televised?
1:00:21
I don't know. I'd be happy if it was so I could watch it.
1:00:25
But also, they do like to keep parts of their lives personal and private.
1:00:29
So I would also respect that decision if they decided to keep that to a private ceremony for just them.
1:00:35
What if they got married on the 50-yard line at the Super Bowl?
1:00:39
I think that would be iconic.
1:00:42
Just throwing that out there. It could be the halftime show.
1:00:44
Especially if the Chiefs were back in the Super Bowl, just him in his Chiefs uniform.
1:00:48
What if they weren't, though? Like, what if there's two other teams playing there?
1:00:53
And the Baltimore Ravens were like, what? What is going on?
1:00:57
Have Jason be the officiant. Well, that would be great.
1:01:01
Okay, play my song. John's worky weird.
1:01:05
Music.
1:01:10
Say that when you're done with the gen z minute you're done with it like you
1:01:16
don't even know we were wrapping up well apparently we were because you're like
1:01:19
play my song he's like all right i was trying to transition from that to this
1:01:24
i do want to also point out one more thing but,
1:01:27
i would have thought that if taylor swift ever got engaged the way all of us
1:01:33
would know about that would have been sam without question like i would have
1:01:36
put my my life down on that it was john Yeah.
1:01:41
Fun little fact. I was trying to have a 30 minutes away from my phone while
1:01:46
I worked and just trying to work in peace during that time.
1:01:51
That's why I was not the first one. I told you like on the teams.
1:01:57
Yeah. And you didn't respond. So you may have you may have gotten it somewhere
1:02:01
else. I'm telling you, John was right. I was on it, man. I jumped on it.
1:02:04
I got it. I have found it curious that you have known Taylor information.
1:02:09
I think it was just about as much as she has. Just saying. Well,
1:02:12
you have a daughter. Daughter and a wife. And I had to tell them first, right?
1:02:17
Well, it's fun is you also weren't the only one who texted me.
1:02:19
Both of my friends, my brother's girlfriend texted me and said,
1:02:23
how are we taking the news?
1:02:24
And I was like, I'm ecstatic for them. I was ready to go out and buy a confetti
1:02:29
cannon and be like, woohoo, go them!
1:02:34
And then... I gave it five years. Oh, John. Oh, my God. No, I'm just kidding.
1:02:40
I just wanted to say something shocking.
1:02:41
What's our question, John? No, question of the week. So, convention's coming
1:02:45
up. What's your favorite part of convention?
1:02:47
Oh, I like at the end of the banquet when our staff, we kind of let our hair
1:02:53
down and we dance with the band or the DJ, whichever it is. We just kind of get to let our hair down.
1:02:58
We made it through the week. You know, successful convention.
1:03:01
It's over, so we can just. Oh, it's so good whenever it ends. Yeah.
1:03:06
I mean, not that it's bad, but like, it's like, I would just,
1:03:09
Yeah, I mean, it's an exciting week. A lot of stuff happens. It's a busy, yeah.
1:03:13
It's an extraordinary amount of organization and execution.
1:03:18
It is a huge endeavor.
1:03:21
So, yes, there's tremendous relief that it went okay.
1:03:24
People will never know how much it goes into it. No, and that's the goal.
1:03:26
You never want people to know everything that could have gone wrong or did and
1:03:30
you handled and, you know, try to make it seamless.
1:03:33
That's right. What about you, either one of you? I think one of my favorite
1:03:37
things is when I'm crawling around on the floor in front of everyone taking
1:03:41
pictures and I can make someone on the stage laugh or giggle.
1:03:47
I love it because then I just get some of the best photos and they're super
1:03:52
cool. You have to do a lot to get those pictures. Yeah.
1:03:54
You put in that work. Shout out to Junior.
1:03:57
He gave me knee pads to crawl around with this year because last year I went
1:04:01
home and I had massive bruises all over my knees. Junior's our political action
1:04:07
committee chair. You're human. Yeah.
1:04:09
Good man. So he gave me some knee pads for this year, so I won't be crawling on straight floor.
1:04:14
Yeah. Just for me, it's dancing. It's nighttime. We work so hard.
1:04:17
You know, the delegates and the staff work so hard during the day.
1:04:21
And at night, we dance. And I think that's just our thing. Compression.
1:04:26
And my favorite part is Artis's Report. Thank y'all, everybody, for the part. No.
1:04:32
No, my favorite part is either. It's the best hour and a half.
1:04:35
It used to be the dozen cookies that you could get for room service.
1:04:39
But they don't do that anymore.
1:04:40
You can't do that. Those were the days. I'm sorry. I missed the days when I
1:04:44
used to be able to get cookies and milk.
1:04:46
They were so good, too. And it was cheap. It was like $5.99. Yeah.
1:04:49
Now I want to go to Insomnia Cookies tonight. We need to get that back in our contract.
1:04:53
But I think it's, well, I mean, it's obvious. Like, you know,
1:04:57
it's a great, I have a great time there. I really do, even though it is a lot of work.
1:05:01
But the pillows on the bed. I love the pillow.
1:05:05
I just love that I can sleep in either bed. I usually end up in a room with
1:05:08
two double beds and I will collapse onto one when I come in the room.
1:05:12
And I'm like, I'm going to take a nap here for 20 minutes.
1:05:16
And then I'll be like, okay, well, I'm going to bed now. And I like to be in
1:05:19
that bed for sleeping. Yeah. But the pillows.
1:05:22
I'm going to have to pay attention to the pillows. I love them.
1:05:25
And my wife, Ashley, tried to buy me some for Christmas or something.
1:05:30
Like, she went to, like, the Sheraton website, the real one in the pillows,
1:05:34
and it wasn't the same. Not the same. It just wasn't the same. Really?
1:05:38
Yeah. And it is. There's a variety of pillows. There's so many different sizes,
1:05:41
too. You can find something that your head feels good on. The pillows are great.
1:05:45
Even remember the pillow. Okay.
1:05:46
I will say, every year my room looks like I'm set up there for a month because
1:05:50
I'll bring my weighted blanket. I've got that set on my bed.
1:05:54
I have my clothes on. She literally goes in for a week. Yeah.
1:05:57
I need it. I can't sleep without my weighted blanket. Do y'all unpack your suitcases
1:06:01
or do you just live out of your suit?
1:06:04
I unpack things that are typically hung up so that they don't get wrinkly.
1:06:10
That's about it. Yeah, your suits are hung up. But everything else,
1:06:12
yeah, just live out of it. I am. Live out of the suit. Yeah.
1:06:14
No. And then I always bring. You put it in the drawer?
1:06:16
I started doing that a few years ago. But it just makes it a little cleaner.
1:06:20
I'm going to lose stuff. Yeah. I'm going to lose stuff. So I have to maintain.
1:06:25
I'll lose stuff if I take everything out. Well, I swear that I don't know what
1:06:30
it was, but I think I lost something last year in that room because I took everything out of my suitcase.
1:06:36
Well, clearly it wasn't that important,
1:06:38
but I remember coming home and not being able to find something.
1:06:41
I was like, oh, must be in the hotel. Oh, well.
1:06:44
I had an expensive toothbrush and I left there two years ago and I got yelled at by my wife.
1:06:50
I left my pillow from home. I used to bring my pillow. Don't think I didn't
1:06:55
turn around and go right back to Greenfield.
1:06:57
I sure did. I sure did. They held it for me. I went back and got it. But, yeah.
1:07:02
So next week, we don't know exactly what we will be publishing or when,
1:07:05
but we'll be doing something.
1:07:07
We will. And we'll get something out to you guys to listen to live,
1:07:10
or not live, but recorded at the convention.
1:07:13
So stay tuned and have a great week.
1:07:16
Music.