PER-2026-3319

Section 2E.2 of Session Law 2025-89 (the DAVE Act) established the Division of Accountability, Value, and Efficiency (DAVE) within OSA to assess the continued need for each State agency and the vacant positions within each State agency.

The Office of the State Auditor (OSA) has completed an audit in accordance with Chapter 147, Article 5A of the North Carolina General Statutes that analyzed long-term vacancies and associated lapsed salaries across State agencies.

This report includes a summary of reported State agency long-term vacancy and associated lapsed salary data along ten key areas and offers six recommendations based on the auditors’ findings.

As of August 6, 2025, North Carolina State agencies reported a total of 8,845 full-time equivalent (FTE) long-term vacancies which generated an estimated $1.04 billion. If these vacancies remained vacant for an entire fiscal year, they would generate $482 million of lapsed salary. OSA recommends that:

• State agency budgets should accurately reflect the actual expenditures necessary to deliver services and fulfill statutory responsibilities to North Carolina.
• Tracking and reporting lapsed salary usage should be improved.
• Any position that meets certain criteria should be eliminated.
• North Carolina salaries should be competitive with those offered to similar positions in surrounding states.
• Administrative delays in the hiring process can be reduced by increasing accountability and streamlining workflows.
• Many State agencies should improve their tracking of hiring and vacancies.

Details about each item are provided in the Findings and Recommendations section of the report. State agencies included in the scope of this report did not agree with all the findings in the report. As a result, a State Auditor’s Response was included to ensure readers are not misled.

OSA has published an online interactive dashboard with data from this report, viewable here.