NC DOGE: DHHS Kept $386 Million By Not Filling Jobs, First DAVE Report Shows

The North Carolina Office of the State Auditor’s new Division of Accountability, Value, and Efficiency (DAVE) has released its first report, identifying $386 million in lapsed salary funds generated by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) during Fiscal Year 2024–25. DAVE is the state's answer to the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. 

Under state law, agencies continue receiving salary and benefit funding for vacant positions. These unused dollars are known as lapsed salaries, and agencies may redirect them to other approved expenses until the positions are filled.

According to the report, DHHS generated:

• $386 million total in lapsed salaries

  • $151 million from state appropriations

  • $235 million from receipts and federal funding

• Equal to 30.6% of all lapsed salary dollars statewide — the highest amount of any state agency

  
  

Auditors also projected that from September 2025 through June 2026, the department could receive up to $210 million more in lapsed salary funds.

Boliek: “Bureaucracy is being placed ahead of the needs of North Carolinians.”

State Auditor Dave Boliek said the findings highlight a mismatch between vacant positions and the department’s decisions on health care spending.

“When a state agency is generating hundreds of millions of tax dollars from job openings it fails to fill, and then voluntarily enacts cuts to health care services, bureaucracy is being placed ahead of the needs of North Carolinians,” Boliek said. “Lapsed salary funds are not meant to be a permanent supplement to agency budgets. Taxpayers in North Carolina expect state agencies to provide services to the people, not let job openings stay vacant so budgets can be buoyed.”

340 Positions Never Posted

The report found that over a full year, 340 DHHS positions were never advertised or posted, generating $16.5 million in additional lapsed salary dollars:

• $4.9 million from state appropriations

• $11.6 million from receipts

  
  

Auditors also noted that DHHS has been chronically late in filing its annual, legally required reports detailing how it spends lapsed salary funds. Since 2017, those reports have been submitted an average of 296 days late.

DHHS Responded; No Contradictory Data Provided

DAVE officials said DHHS was given the opportunity to respond, and its input was incorporated into the report. According to auditors, the department provided no contradictory data to dispute the salary figures.

The audit division plans to deliver additional findings and statewide recommendations in its end-of-year report, as required by Session Law 2025-89, which Governor Josh Stein signed into law in August.