|
|
|
|
| B- | North Carolina |
• Population (rank): 8,856,505 (10)
• Average per capita income (rank): $22,945 (32)
• Total state spending (rank): $41,107,916,000 (10)
• Spending per capita (rank): $4,642 (34)
• Governor: Michael F. Easley (D)
• First elected: 11/2000
• Senate: 50 members: 31 D, 19 R
• Term limits: None
• House: 120 members: 68 D, 52 R
• Term limits: None
When it comes to personnel management, North Carolina is up to speed on all the latest ideas. Workforce planning, succession planning, knowledge management — the human resources department is trying them all. But a tough obstacle has stood in the way of real accomplishment: the decentralized structure of North Carolina state government. The individual agencies each run their own human resources shop, and frequently they don't want to run it the way the state would like them to. "The stark reality," says Thom Wright, director of the Office of State Personnel, "is that I've got some flat HR directors and they're not delivering services to their employees."
Despite the slow progress, Wright's office continues to pursue innovation. It recently rolled out NCWorks, a workforce outlook and retirement knowledge system with impressive analytic and predictive modeling capabilities. The system allows managers to identify employees who are likely to leave, and in general makes workforce planning a matter of data rather than guesswork. Retention and recruitment challenges often have a geographical dimension in North Carolina, and the NCWorks system is particularly useful in pinning those down.
BEACON, the state's new enterprise-wide computer system, constitutes a huge step forward as it rolls out. It will create new and more effective procedures for accounting, budgeting, cash management, data warehousing and tax and revenue tracking.
Information technology changes are long overdue, because the state has been operating on legacy software that did not adequately meet managers' needs. A complete analysis of core business practices five years ago showed numerous inefficiencies resulting from a jumble of different systems that sometimes made it difficult for one agency to communicate with another. "We found that primarily those systems are in excess of 25 years old and were built and being maintained by individuals who are retired or at the point of retirement," says Controller Robert Powell, who chairs the BEACON committee. In all, some 500 employees are planning and executing the BEACON changeover.
The state finally has produced its first full-fledged statewide capital plan for general infrastructure, which uses criteria and condition-assessment information to prioritize needs across agencies. "I'm not entirely convinced we have a good way to prioritize an art museum against a prison, but I think we have a much stronger way to make those decisions than we did," says Jim Klingler, of the Fiscal Research Division.
Advances also are afoot on the auditing front. Although the state auditor's office has a limited performance-audit function, a newly created Program Evaluation Division will conduct performance audits and assess program effectiveness at the direction of a legislative committee. And the use of performance information finally is becoming integrated into the budget process. The state's Results-Based Budgeting Initiative is still new but is a major improvement, particularly in terms of transparency and the quality of information available to all parties when making decisions.
Unfortunately, if all of this is going to have the success that its architects want, there will have to be improvements in the way information is solicited and communicated. As things stand, the governor's budget document is the place where transparency ends. Some budget information published by the legislature can be difficult even for experts to follow, and public input in legislative hearings is in most cases severely limited. "I was at one hearing all session long where public comment was allowed," says Meg Gray, a policy analyst at the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center. "At that one hearing, we were able to talk for one minute."
For additional data and analysis, go to pewcenteronthestates.org/gpp.