- [Kelly] The state Senate joins the DOGE train with a plan to empower the state auditor.

Could public schools receive flexibility to start school earlier?

And a new bill is filed that could limit transgender bathroom access in schools and prisons?

This is "State Lines."

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[dramatic music] ♪ - Hello, there.

Welcome to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today, public relations consultant, Pat Ryan.

Senator Gale Adcock joins us from Wake County and Representative Kelly Hastings representing Cleveland and Gaston Counties.

First time on the show, Representative Hastings, welcome to "State Lines."

Good to have you.

- First time at this location.

- [Kelly] That's right.

You were on the old "Legislative Week in Review" show, so.

- Yeah.

- [Kelly] Hey, new era.

A lot faster pace than that old Leg Week show.

- That's right, that's right.

- So you get ready for that.

All right.

Kimberly Reynolds, Maven Strategies, you're in seat four, which is not even the hottest seat.

[Kimberly laughing] I'm gonna warm, I'm gonna warm Pat up this morning.

Let's talk about Phil Berger, your old boss.

- Okay.

- You know, so he's the Senate President Pro Tem, and he's matching the State House and the Governor in offering what can best be described as a DOGE like bill to study government efficiency.

He's calling this the Dave Act, and it will empower the state auditor who happens to be named Dave Boliek to review state agencies, vacant state jobs and other operations, and the auditor's recommendations would focus on downsizing.

Auditor Boliek would release a report by years' end of any jobs and agencies that could possibly be dissolved.

Pat, sounds pretty simple to me.

- Sure, I mean, I think if you compare the Dave Act to DOGE in DC, you'll see quite a few differences.

I mean, probably the biggest reason for that is North Carolina's population has grown about 50% faster than the American population at large since 2011.

But spending here has actually increased 50% less than federal spending.

And so there's just not this sort of, I think wastefulness and if you wanna call it fraud or abuse or what have you in, I think, in North Carolina state government that I think a lot of folks are finding in DC.

And so when you look at the Dave Act here, it's asking each agency to explain why they're effective in use of state dollars, right, why they're achieving their intended purpose, is their duplicative spending, things that you probably hear and say, this probably should be happening every year in a functioning organization, whether it's government or business anyway.

- Senator Adcock, DOGE at the North Carolina level of government, and Josh Stein will start his, the Governor, so your team is well covered in the DOGE effort, if you don't wanna call it DOGE.

What do you make of studying for government efficiency?

The budget is balanced.

It's been balanced or running a surplus for years now.

- Well, we're required to have a balanced budget.

It's in the Constitution.

But I would say that just to Pat's point, even in our own lives, we try to make sure we're spending money on the things we really need to.

Here's the part of that bill that I think is one of the most important.

It talks about the authorities have to, can utilize artificial intelligence and other means to analyze the amount spent, including the entities receiving funds and their intended purpose of spending, the effectiveness of any amount, and that's something we've actually been, my caucus and the House Democratic Caucus has been asking about.

Is like folks that we're given this money to, what's actually being done with it?

A couple of those I can think about are crisis pregnancy centers and opportunity scholarships.

We wanna make sure that this money that the state's investing, what's it actually being used for?

So I think this part of the bill could be very helpful in giving us more transparency.

- Representative Hastings, your House chamber, some of your colleagues have their subcommittee up and running to some degree, and then here's the Dave Act.

I'll ask you, don't speak for your caucus, because you can't unless you want to.

Where does Dave Boliek fit alongside legislative oversight, which has existed for years, and these DOGE committees that are being created here in the spring of 2025?

- Well, let's remember the history.

So in 2011, when Republicans took control of the General assembly, we had to start with efficiency then, this is just an ongoing part of that process.

Remember, we inherited over $2 billion of a structural shortfall.

We had over $2 billion that we owed to the federal government for unemployment, and we had Medicaid cost overruns.

And so, what we did at that time, we started with behavioral health because that's where a lot of the abuse was.

People were providing services, services that people didn't really need, and they were billing for those services.

We also started the process then of eliminating vacant state positions, 100s of those.

And also one of the bills that I did through the years was the modification of the internal auditing statutes, which helped us audit the large state agencies and the UNC system.

And that helped protect whistleblowers as well as engaging the Office of State Budget and management to help agencies who might not have had enough auditors.

So, we started this process back in 2011.

- Is there anywhere in this debate about a government efficiency where you think government could be expanded?

For instance, DMV comes to mind where they'll say, "Well, budget didn't grow as fast as the population did."

Now granted, there are other efficiencies to be gleaned from other agencies.

Do you see it going back and forth or is this strictly should be a look at reduction and economy?

- Well, for example, if our National Guard happened to be federalized, we might have to have more troops so that there's always a situation in an area of public health and safety that that might could occur.

- Kimberly, you've run campaigns.

Is it gonna be possible for just the ordinary voter like myself, like Pat, to look at these efforts of government efficiency and say, "They are not political at all."

And will you resist putting your talents into recommendations for government efficiency?

- I think we'll have to wait and see.

- [Kelly] Okay.

- I mean, I think out of the gate, what we're seeing is that Governor Stein, it was one of the first things he mentioned recently in his state of the state, is that we want government efficiency.

I think it should be a nonpartisan, bipartisan issue that everybody, it seems like a no-brainer.

We want government efficiency.

I think what gives me pause is that they gave it to the Republican auditor and they just said, review and make recommendations.

So I wanna make sure that they're looking at the things that Senator Adcock talked about, and that they're not just taking a partisan approach.

That they're doing some things like Governor Stein asked for, using a scalpel and not a chainsaw.

And I also wanna make sure they're asking the questions, but why?

Why is that position vacant?

Not just that it's vacant, and then eliminating it.

Why aren't we recruiting talent in state government?

What is keeping us?

What should we be doing with healthcare?

What should we be doing with pay?

So, I think they have to ask some really tough questions and try to stay nonpartisan, bipartisan about it.

And I think yet to be determined based on what we're seeing.

- Yeah, I think that a key difference with this effort compared to DC is there seems to be a disconnect between the legislative branch in Washington and what the expansive executive bureaucracy is doing.

I think the issue is, you know, DOGE is finding things that even Congress said they didn't even know existed.

Compared to North Carolina, I think that most people would agree, the legislature has probably a pretty strong grasp of what's happening usually in the executive branch.

And look, maybe something will happen that I didn't expect, but I don't know that there's even enough meat there to use a chainsaw as opposed to a scalpel in North Carolina.

- I mean, we already have legislative oversight for every functional area.

So I think this is an enhancement to that.

I agree with Kimberly that we'll see how it plays out, but it has the potential to do well, if nothing else, to reassure us that we're spending our money wisely.

- Representative Hastings, when it comes to, if Kimberly gets her questions answered, is that something best done in a public hearing where there's cameras and people can perform and, you know, come down on the poor state bureaucrat?

Or is it better asked quietly through questionnaires, through the auditor's office as part of an audit, or to the chairman of your subcommittee on your DOGE committee?

- Well, take for example, the modification of the internal auditing statutes.

What that did partly was it made the audit work papers confidential.

And so, that part would really not be out in the public because as part of those audit work papers, if a whistleblower calls in, the whistleblower might not be accurate.

And so, when those auditors write a person's name down, it would not be fair to convict a person just because their name was on an audit work paper.

So, it's a fine balance.

And that bill actually was a fine balance with the press association because obviously, they were for as much openness as possible.

But in that instance of those audit work papers, some confidentiality is important.

- And being in the press at different levels, it's our job to say be transparent as possible.

I know sometimes we take flack for that, but I'll stand with my old colleagues with that, Pat, be transparent, guys.

- Transparency is good.

- So, by the school calendar flexibility, it's been a big deal for as long as I've been at the legislature covering it, its chances of passing may be improved this spring, Senate Republicans and Phil Berger are pushing legislation that would allow public school districts to somewhat set their own academic calendar starting dates.

This bill would give school districts a choice of opening roughly either the fourth week of August or the third week of August each year.

The earlier start day though, would require that our public schools or that district complete the school year by late May.

Districts who would ignore this law could lose central office funding from the state, and local lawsuits could be filed against the schools by business leaders in that community.

Representative Hastings, this is one of those bills, everyone, it seems to get close and then leadership seems to block it in one of the other chambers.

But now, Senator Berger's pushing it and here we go.

- Well, it's just another continuation.

So, I've done the research back to 2004.

We've had waivers for school systems based on weather.

Since 2011, we've passed a lot of school calendar flexibility.

The cooperative, innovative high schools have always had flexibility.

The public charter schools received flexibility because they receive less public money.

Remember, we changed the hours so that it could be met, whether it was a combination of one or the other, or a combination of both the hours and the days.

One of the biggest complaints that we heard was the testing for end of course exams.

So, we eliminated those end of course exams unless they're mandated by the federal government.

Civics and economics is one, I can tell you for sure, that was eliminated.

And let's remember the history.

What brought about a lot of this problem was years ago when local school boards had total flexibility.

They were starting to move the school dates back into July, and our parents were the ones who were upset because we're from North Carolina, we're a tourism state.

People are used to having a defined summer for their kids.

And they were the ones who really started complaining when the calendar started being moved up into July or back into July, whichever way you put it.

So, it's a multifaceted issue.

And now you have other stakeholders involved, obviously the tourism industry, realtors, but they really came to the table late after the the parents were the ones who were upset.

- So, Senator [indistinct], this is one of those issues.

I came from rural North Carolina, and we like summer vacation, 'cause us high school kids had to get a summer job.

But you city slickers, you know, people don't necessarily always do that.

There's no tobacco fields anymore to work in, and working on the farm.

School flexibility, good idea?

Should it be mandated at the state, or should it be made more wide open?

But only two, only two weeks choice here in this bill.

I mean.

- So I represent part of Wake County, and Wake, the folks at Wake Tech talk to me all the time about the disconnect between their calendar, and the kids who are in early college high school.

- They're still high school students though.

- Yes.

They're high school students who are earning an associate's degree at the same time they're finishing high school.

And that disconnect in the calendar makes it very difficult for these particular students.

And more and more of them, not just in Wake County, but across the whole state, are choosing this option to get a leg up on getting into the workforce.

And so this is a good idea.

I'm really curious about the, a lot of the punitive nature of this bill.

About half of it is about what will happen if you don't do this, that, or the other.

And I'm interested in why that is necessary.

And so there'll be conversation about that.

And then of course the whole who can sue.

When corporations can sue that, I'm goin', "What's with that?"

- Now, I remember, I remember school districts were ignoring the state law and scheduling school.

- Oh, I understand.

- Remember?

I mean, that's why there's teeth in this bill.

Pat, this is an interesting one.

It does affect parents.

And as Representative Hastings says, the Realtors came, and the parents came.

There's the school admin... How did this get so, how did we all as a society, on this issue kind of grow apart?

- Yeah, so, I think first of all, Senator Amy Galey has been doing, I think a ton of work behind the scenes to try to bring people together, and solve this, you know, maybe decades old sort of tension point in North Carolina state politics and policy.

I think the sort of basic friction is between businesses that have, need two things.

One, you need teenagers to be lifeguards at the pool, you need kids like I did to man the Italian ice stand at the beach.

You know.

What, a lot of at attract, beach attraction, especially labor, comes from high school kids.

And that's great.

If they're stuck in school, they can't be working at the beach or at the pool.

And number two, it's the demand side.

If parents can't travel to the beach, or the mountains or what have you in August, which is the highest grossing month for tourism and attraction businesses of the year, if they can't travel into August, then those businesses are losing money.

They might be able to get through the fall, and the winter, and the spring, because they don't have the full month of August.

And so that's the basic friction point.

Then you have on the education side, teachers, and I'm sure some parents say, "Well, you know, we wish we didn't have to wait "until January to take our first semester exams."

You mentioned the community college issue.

So that's the basic tension point.

I think you're right.

There needs to be some enforcement because districts were just breaking the law for the last, you know, several years.

So that's why there's teeth in there.

But look, I took my test in January, you know.

To me, it doesn't seem, it doesn't seem worth the potential damage to the travel and tourism industry, for the potentially minor additional convenience that would be added for changing, or allowing kids to take tests before Christmas break.

- Yeah.

Kimberly, this is one of those state bills that affects you at your kitchen table.

And outside of your own household, if you don't have kids in school, it's kind of one of those things you read about on page three of the, if you still read the "paper paper."

But what do you, what do you make of school calendar flexibility?

Should we push this down and let Angelo County and Pender County have a beach vacation friendly summer break, and then let Wake County and Mecklenburg do what they wanna do, at least up until three weeks into August?

How does, how does this work?

- Well, I think you need some flexibility, and that's why the word is in there.

I want to say though, I do think the students should be at the center of the debate.

And to hear Pat say, "Well, I took my test in January."

As a mom of two teenagers, that's actually a lot for them to with you know, hold that information, get ready for it, try to have a break, start again.

So I do think I worry that the student is no longer at the center of the conversation.

And I don't think that as a parent, you work within the parameters you are given, and if you have to go on vacation a week earlier, you just plan to go on vacation a week earlier.

And to the point earlier, you know, 25% of the schools were not adhering to the law.

So I think there needs to be some changes when there's that many people.

But I have some real concerns and questions, just like Senator Adcock, about that any business within the school district can then sue, or any parent can get mad and due.

We are one of 14 states that has a start date mandate, and we're only one of two that has an end date for the school mandate.

So I found that interesting too, so.

- Well, back in my day, we didn't- [panel laughing] Boy, this seems very generational, doesn't it?

[Kelly sighs] Senator Adcock, North Carolina Supreme Court has said a family can follow through with their lawsuit against their public school system for giving a student a COVID shot without parental permission.

Happened a few years ago.

A lower court had ruled parents could not sue because we, as a nation, were under a federal health emergency, which grants immunity to school districts.

But State Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby said the family's state constitutional rights might have been compromised.

He says parents have the right to control their children's upbringing.

Apparently, a 14-year-old received a COVID shot after refusing one at school, but the school leaders couldn't reach the parent for permission or denial, so they went ahead and gave the kid a shot anyway.

How does that sit with you as a practitioner in medicine?

- Well, you know, I'm a family nurse practitioner for 38 years and what I know about informed consent, there are two parts.

There's the information part, and then there's the agreeing part.

It's not like the waiter that comes to your table says, "Are you ready to order now?"

And you say, "Yes," or, "No."

Are you prepared to give the answer to this question and know what the medication's for, in this case, a vaccine, what the pros are and the cons are, and your average 14-year-old is not prepared to do that.

And these are minor children.

Parents do need to be able to say, "Yes," or, "No," but they need information to do it.

So I mean, I think that it's common sense for us to know that parents of minor children need to make their medical decisions for them, not the government, but the parents or the guardians of these children.

- Representative Hastings, your thought on.

It is a mandatory vaccine applied to a student, and the state constitutional rights apply.

I found that very, very interesting.

Most everyone worries only about the US Constitution.

This is a slight wrinkle in this case.

- It is.

It's very interesting.

And so think about, as I understand it, and I'm not part of the case, but here's what the Chief Justice, I think, is saying.

One, he separated the tort claims and the constitutional claims, and he didn't really give life to the tort claims, but he gave life to the family's constitutional claims.

I think their Article I claims would be my assumption.

One would be the inalienable rights.

I'm also guessing that since it's an Article I claim, there's probably a religious claim in there, and so anytime the government violates a person's religious freedom, it becomes a much more difficult issue.

So I think what Chief Justice Newby has done is he's opened up the door for this family probably to win on the constitutional claim, even though they can't bring a tort claim.

- Kimberly, COVID policy, I think folks were trying to do the best they can do, but some of our actions back then have not aged well since we've all survived.

Most of us survived COVID.

What do you make of this bill?

It actually made the news.

Most Supreme Court cases can be rather sleepy.

But yeah, there's a constitutional claim here.

The school nurse or the school officials said, give the child a vaccine.

And that awakened mama bear.

- As it would any mama bear, I think.

But it's my understanding, and I am no legal scholar, that the lower court said that they were operating under, I think they called it the PREP Act, which is in preparedness in an emergency.

And therefore that is how they were able to give that vaccine because they were operating under a federal emergency.

And that justice newbie disagreed with that and said that there was a state constitution issue.

I mean, I agree with Senator Adcock.

I think it's personal decisions, but I also think vaccines at the time were critical into how we got through COVID and got through the pandemic.

And I think as we're moving away from vaccines, you're gonna see some outbreaks and see some things.

And it's gonna continue to be part of the conversation with what's happening nationally and how that conversation is moving.

- I think you have to put it into context.

We were all scared back then.

We didn't know what we were dealing with exactly.

And when those vaccines were available, it was a miracle and everybody was going, let's do what we can to protect that child, certainly.

But the community, you know, it's easier, you know, it's easy to go back and say what if.

- Yeah, representative.

- And remember Kelly, some people could not take the COVID vaccine for health reasons.

So it's very risky when a government actor steps in and starts invading the privacy of someone, especially a young child who has parents.

- Now, this was, before my time, my parents had, that was a smallpox scar on their arm.

They were proud of that.

And all of a sudden, we're not proud of these school administered vaccines anymore.

But boy, did kids line up for them back in the day.

- Yeah.

- Well, I just wanna say, I actually agree with you, representative Hastings, the government should not get involved in healthcare decisions.

That's absolutely correct.

Whether it's adults.

Well, I feel.

- Let us go there.

- Whether it's adults or children, I mean, I think government has a role in some things, but not in that.

- Yeah, I mean, I think we all probably agree that the incident here, a child receiving a vaccine without his parents even knowing about it is, but nobody thinks that that's okay, right?

So the legal case as I understand it actually is premised on Congress providing broad immunity to lawsuits, to pharmaceutical companies, schools, all these different organizations that were needed to operate quickly, especially pharmaceutical companies develop therapeutics that, you know, if they thought they might get sued, if they didn't work, they just wouldn't be able to develop them quickly.

The differentiation here is, I think that nobody thinks that this family can sue the school for a tort violation, as you said.

But the differentiation is, well now this child's constitutional rights were violated and therefore we can't be in a position where if there's any healthy emergency, nobody has constitutional rights anymore.

That's not the case.

So I think that's the sort of the nuance in the Supreme Court's decision.

- About three and a half minutes and I want to go to you Kimberly with this.

When Senate legislation was filed this week to regulate the services and bathroom choice for transgender people.

It's a bill being compared somewhat to 2016's House bill.

This legislation in 2025 does carry some differences.

This proposal would force transgender people to use the restroom of their birth, gender, or sex in schools and prisons, not wide ranging public and private buildings as was promoted in 2016.

Single person restrooms are not affected.

The bill would prevent transgender residents from changing their gender identity on state documents like birth certificates and driver's licenses.

This is a bill that's filed, it's in the Senate Rules Committee.

The media went bonkers when this bill was filed.

This has caused Senate Republicans some heartburn this week.

I'm aware of that.

We don't know if this bill will come out.

It may be already be in the grave, but I saw fundraising ads outta the Democrats for it.

You're doing it.

- Well, I am not all Democrats, but I will say for those of us who have been around and saw the - Consequences of house bill two.

This does hit very close to home- - Yeah.

- And remind us what happened.

And what happened was they passed it, the state lost billions of dollars, companies came out, we lost tournaments, we lost sponsorship, people said they wouldn't put their headquarters here, we had a governor who lost his re-election campaign because of this.

And then Republicans who controlled the super majority in both chambers at the time, came in and repealed legislation and repealed that bill.

And I don't think you've seen that since.

And so, I do question if there is an appetite in the chambers, especially Phil Berger, who was here and was part of that repeal process to take this legislation up.

And especially at a time when there are so many issues front of mind for people, the economy, public education and opportunity, scholarships, everything else, we're talking about healthcare and the increasing cost, jobs.

I mean, I do think when you're looking at the landscape and all that's top of mind, are they gonna move this bill?

And I question that.

- Yeah.

Representative Hasting, the issue's up and there's all kinds of things that the Republicans are working on, and this kind of, if just for a week, adds to the flavor of the stew.

- Well, let's remember, what we were trying to do was prevent Charlotte from allowing, for example, grown nude men into changing facilities with little girls, for example.

And when we reset this, remember, it was reset, not because we were afraid of the issue, but because we were trying to make sure that the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals didn't overturn our law and provide no protection for little girls and little boys, for example.

And that's what a lot of people forget.

But the overarching concept behind this is we don't want, like I said, for example, grown nude men in changing facilities with little girls.

- I got 45 seconds, I'll give Senator Adcock the last word on this one.

It's in your chamber, but it's under house rules.

- Right.

- The committee chair sitting.

- Well, I would just say just as Kimberly said, this feels like a fringe issue compared to what's really before us.

Not only are we worried about making sure that we have people prepared for the future economy and jobs and education and healthcare costs, but we're worried about what's gonna come down on us from the federal government.

- [Kelly] You have 10 seconds, Pat, I gotta go.

- Well, I think that the fairly muted reaction to this has shown how much the political and cultural winds have shifted in the last eight years.

- There you go.

Well, thank you for watching.

Email your thoughts and opinions, statelines@pbs.org, I'll read every one.

I'm Kelly McCullen, thanks for watching.

I'll see you next time.

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