By Brianna Kraemer
Carolina Journal
The Senate Committee on Regulatory Reform has moved forward with a bill that would create a “DOGE”-style efficiency department at the state level in North Carolina.
State Auditor Dave Boliek stood before the committee to express his support for the bill, which would establish the Division of Accountability, Value, and Efficiency (DAVE) within his office. Boliek said that the state auditor already has the authority to perform functions of the DAVE Act, such as financial, economic efficiency, or program/result audits, but the legislative effort will get real results.
“What this bill, however, does, is it puts the legislature together with the executive branch and the state auditor’s office to get real results,” said Boliek. “I didn’t run for this job because I wanted a job, I ran to do what is in the best interest of North Carolina. If you read the preamble of the North Carolina Constitution, it specifically uses the word “our Constitution is created for ‘better government.’ That’s what this bill is designed to do – better government. A data-centered approach that gets real, impactful results.”
Sen. Steve Jarvis, R-Davidson, and Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, presented Senate Bill 474 to the committee, describing it as a way to ensure the state government is operating efficiently.
“It is a bill that will facilitate the auditor’s ability to move forward with examining how monies that are appropriated by the General Assembly on a periodic basis, primarily through the budget, are actually being deployed to determine whether or not those deployed resources are effectively deployed, whether or not there’s a failure on the part of an executive agency to utilize the funds as directed by the legislature, and whether or not there is a return in many respects on the monies that are advancing in form of policy actually being advanced as directed by the General Assembly.”
Berger said the bill will need to be incorporated into the budget because it calls for the creation of additional slots at the auditor’s office.
An amendment was added to give the auditor more flexibility, the ability to request annual reports from the entities audited, and a sunset provision. Sen. Tim Moffitt, R-Henderson, said the 2028 sunset provision allows them to gather empirical data to assess moving forward.
Democrats expressed concern over the bill’s consequence on the state and condemned the provision allowing artificial intelligence to be used for the purpose of examining state agencies and their budgets.
“I think we are on the same page, the problem is, if you don’t have transparency over the AI in terms of what inputs it’s putting in, if I get an output from AI that says inefficiencies in X,Y,X, if I don’t know what inputs were put in, I would just take that answer as face value,” said Caleb Theodros, D-Mecklenburg. “So I think we agree in terms of the use of the output; however, for us to have more transparency, we need to know what’s the input of the AI itself.”
Sen. Sophia Chitlik, D-Durham, criticized the bill for emulating DOGE and said they are here to “create middle-class jobs, not destroy them.” She said of the 82,000 federal government workers in North Carolina, 35,000 positions are at risk due to the efficiency efforts under President Trump.
Always wondered why people were so fixated on the guy finding the waste than the people committing the waste……maybe they were the ones who benefitted from it.
Senate Bill 474 may sound like a step toward “better government,” but in reality, it’s a Trojan horse for expanding legislative control over executive functions, undermining public transparency, and paving the way for politically motivated downsizing of the public workforce under the guise of “efficiency.”
By embedding the Division of Accountability, Value, and Efficiency (DAVE) within the State Auditor’s office and directly linking it with the General Assembly, the bill blurs the line between independent oversight and partisan policymaking. The State Auditor already has the authority to perform audits and assess efficiency—what this bill actually does is insert legislative influence into executive operations. That’s not reform. That’s consolidation of power. It also creates a mechanism for the legislature to usurp more authority from the governor. By tying performance reviews of executive agencies to legislative definitions of “efficiency,” the bill enables lawmakers to override or undercut the governor’s policy priorities. Executive agencies would be caught between serving the governor and satisfying legislative demands, weakening the balance of power. This shift is especially concerning in a politically divided state, where the legislature and the governor often represent opposing parties.
The use of AI to assess state agency performance, without clear guidelines or input transparency, is deeply troubling. AI systems are only as unbiased as the data they are fed—and without public visibility into how these tools are programmed, there is no way to verify that their findings are fair or accurate. AI could easily be used to create pretextual “inefficiencies” to justify cutting programs that certain lawmakers don’t like, especially those that serve vulnerable communities.
Efficiency in government should never come at the cost of livelihoods. While Republican sponsors of the bill tout a data-driven approach, the subtext is clear: this is about shrinking government and eliminating positions—especially those that don’t align with the ideological priorities of the legislature. As Senator Chitlik rightly pointed out, similar “efficiency” measures at the federal level under President Trump put over 35,000 jobs in North Carolina at risk. That’s not streamlining—that’s economic sabotage.
Even with a 2028 sunset clause, this bill establishes infrastructure that could be extended indefinitely. And without real democratic guardrails—such as public input, oversight from a nonpartisan board, or a requirement for legislative supermajority to act on AI-generated findings—the potential for abuse is enormous.
If North Carolina lawmakers genuinely want a more effective government, they should invest in workforce training, better public technology, and stronger local-government partnerships—not top-down mandates that centralize control, rely on opaque algorithms, and risk hollowing out the public sector.
Thank you for your comment, Governor Stein .j
Thanks for the book report Chat GPT.
Pop Quiz: The Office of State Auditor falls under which branch of North Carolina government?
STUPID!!!!
So the General Assembly wants to copy a FAILURE.
It’s about time that these untouchable higher-ups are held accountable. We have not missed a single thing since waste has started being cut. I hope every democrat wasting taxpayer’s money loses their access to committing these atrocities.
I think ALL politicians and government employees who allow the waste to continue need to be held accountable, not just the democrats. The republicans are just as bad!
The question is what waste has been cut? I haven’t seen any actual numbers, just wishful thinking amounts. What about all these people that they fired then realize we need those people back (like the nuclear engineers) that probably cost money instead of saving it. Republican waste just as much money as Democrats, just in different ways. I’m all for reducing government waste but it has to be accomplished correctly. Welfare is still welfare be it corporate of individual. Dictatorships don’t reduce spending, they just seen it on themselves.
Less government is better for everyone!
Time to cut 99% of the state government and let the private sector take over.
I’d start witht the DOT — instead of a blackmore of unlimited spending (that never seems to keep the highways up to date), sell all the state-maonyained roads to private companies. Let them toll the roads and be responsible for maintenance. I’m tired of paying for roads that I don’t use! #EndSocialism