This week, SEANC First Vice President Emily Jones joined the team during Board of Governors week to discuss the growing staffing crisis across prisons and probation & parole, the use of lapse salaries, and the toll underfunding takes on morale and public safety. Emily shares frontline experiences — from inmate confrontations to challenges in community supervision — while the team also touches on mental health, homelessness, law enforcement benefits, and broader public concerns raised by recent policy debates.

This week, we sit down with Department of Adult Correction Secretary Leslie Cooley Dismukes to discuss urgent challenges facing North Carolina prisons. The wide-ranging interview includes discussion of chronic staffing shortages and retention, the use of lapse salary to cover operating costs, rising medical and facility expenses, and safety priorities such as body cams, drone detection, and fire prevention. 

In this episode, we interview Sam Watts, executive director of the state retirement system, about a recent board vote and what it could mean for cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for retirees. Sam explains the system’s funding history, the role of employer and employee contributions, how past policy choices created unfunded liabilities, and the board’s proposal to use investment gains above a 6.5% threshold to help fund future COLAs — possibly as early as 2027. The conversation breaks down complex policy choices, timelines, and trade-offs for retirees, employers, and the General Assembly.

The SEANC team discusses the recent winter storm and recognizes essential state workers who kept services running. We also address the Retirement System board meeting and the push for a COLA amid growing unfunded liability, staffing shortfalls that threaten SNAP funding and other services, UNC Chapel Hill administrative cuts, a reminder about early voting, and other local and cultural updates.

Hosts Jonathan Owens, Ardis Watkins, Suzanne Beasley, and Sammy Cline discuss an approaching Arctic storm, personal memories of snow, and practical safety advice while thanking essential state workers who keep roads, hospitals, and prisons running during extreme weather. The episode pivots to a deep dive on the state employee vacancy crisis and the DAVE Report on lapsed salary funds: how frozen positions, underfunding, and turnover harm services from DMV to prisons and universities, and why lawmakers should act.

North Carolina Department of Public Safety Deputy Secretary William “Billy” Lassiter explains how the Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention serves youth through court counseling, community programs, detention centers, and youth development facilities, while addressing complex needs such as mental health and educational deficits. He details urgent challenges — roughly 40% facility vacancy rates, rising youth involvement with firearms, reliance on lapsed salary funds for staffing and safety campaigns, and the need for consistent funding to keep youth safe and on track to rejoin their communities.