Better Financial Management and Reform

As state treasurer, Richard holds one of the most accountable offices in state government.  Well over 800,000 North Carolinians depend on Richard to manage their retirement savings.  He has safeguarded their money responsibly – building the 2nd strongest state pension system in the nation.

Richard will bring this same approach to all of state government from the governor’s office.  Working families across our state understand the need to plan wisely when managing their family finances, and we need a governor who will bring the same common-sense approach to managing the state’s finances.

In this section:
A Record of Fiscal Responsibility
Budget Reform
Transportation Reform


A Record of Fiscal Responsibility

Soon after Richard took office in 2001, North Carolina experienced its worst state budget crisis since the Great Depression. Richard worked with other state leaders to steer North Carolina through these tough times. Because of this effective management, North Carolina is one of just a handful of states with a triple A (AAA) credit rating from all three rating agencies.

As state treasurer, Richard is responsible for almost $90 billion in public money and oversees the pension funds for more than 800,000 firefighters, teachers, National Guard members and other public workers. By modernizing the state’s investment strategies, he has generated more than $4 billion in additional investment returns for our retirees. In 2007, credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's named North Carolina as having the second-best funded state pension system in the United States for the second year in a row, a testament to his careful stewardship of the fund.

At a time when the average state pension fund saw its funding level decrease by about 20 percent, North Carolina has remained as one of only five pension funds in the country with the assets on hand to meet its future liabilities.  Asheville Citizen-Times editorial page editor Joy Franklin noted that, “Moore has done more than advocate. His office provides a good example of smart financial stewardship for North Carolinians."  And recently, the Pew Center on the States reported that “North Carolina has also had consistently high levels of funding, even when the stock market dropped or the state was under fiscal stress. The state has been disciplined about paying its annual bill and maintaining the financial health of the pension system.”

Richard also oversees the issuance of state and local debt in North Carolina. By refinancing existing state debt and improving the way in which North Carolina finances new debt, he has generated millions of additional dollars for the General Assembly to invest in health care, education, economic development, public safety, the environment, and our state's many other priorities.


Budget Reform

Richard Moore believes the state budget needs more transparency and accountability.  All-too-often, a small group of powerful legislators use closed door meetings to create unaccountable slush funds and sneak special provisions and pork-barrel projects into the budget.

Richard has put forward two proposals to reform the budget process in Raleigh.  These reforms will cut wasteful spending and decrease the influence of special interests by forcing legislators to defend their budget provisions in a public forum, and empowering the governor to hold those lawmakers accountable.  

• The budget needs sunshine.  North Carolina should have public budget hearings that are open to all and give more time for the General Assembly, press and public to review the budget.  As governor, Richard will hold open budget hearings prior to submitting his budget to the General Assembly.  He will also push for legislation that would open all budget meetings at the General Assembly and require at least one week to review the budget bill before a final budget vote.   Changes to the budget should only be made in committee or on the floor of the General Assembly.  Regardless of the outcome of this sunshine legislation, Richard will use the governor’s office to end “closed door” budget meetings.

• The budget needs accountability.  Richard supports a ballot referendum that would give line-item veto authority to the governor.  With this authority, the governor will hold legislators accountable for each individual spending decision and end the practice of sneaking special provisions into the budget.  If such provisions exist in the final budget submitted to the governor, Richard will veto them.  This veto power will also increase accountability in the governor’s office – the governor will have no excuse to sign a budget that contains pork.  The governor will be responsible for a comprehensive review of the budget and for making the tough spending decisions. 

The News & Observer wrote that “Moore is correct in seeking” to open up the budget process and said his reforms “would all add up to more informed legislative decision-making and more accountability to the taxpayers.”


Transportation Reform

North Carolina faces massive transportation needs, with estimates reaching a $122 billion price tag over the next 25 years.  The combination of population growth, necessary repairs and maintenance and rapid inflation in construction costs has created an unprecedented need. 

A recent report from McKinsey Consulting confirmed what we already know: the Department of Transportation is overly political and bureaucratic, which leads to stagnation and inefficiency. 

In order to achieve the improvement in management and efficiency necessary to meet North Carolina’s long-term transportation needs, we must cut the bureaucracy and politics that govern the Department’s decision-making process. 
Richard has a 3-point plan to do precisely that:

• Better decision making: The Department of Transportation should improve its decision making process to make it more transparent and to ensure that politics play less of a role.  An important change will be to establish metrics that measure the need for and effectiveness of new projects.  The results of this analysis should be publicly available and politicians must have a greatly reduced role in deciding the priority of projects. 

• No more legislative slush funds:  We should end the practice of giving the legislative leadership their own discretionary transportation funds.  These legislative slush funds have been used to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on pet projects, political favors and to benefit insiders with little or no accountability to taxpayers.   By removing these slush funds, we can better ensure that precious transportation dollars go to needed projects.

• No more political fundraising:  The 19 members of the N.C. Board of Transportation, who oversee DOT operations and decision making, are among the most active campaign fundraisers in North Carolina politics.  Since 2000, board members have contributed more than $500,000 to state political campaigns.  We should end this practice by enacting a campaign finance law, similar to the prohibition on fundraising activities by lobbyists, which would apply to Board of Transportation members.  The DOT Board’s priority should be making the best transportation decisions for North Carolina, not campaign fundraising.

With these three steps, North Carolina can significantly reduce the politics and bureaucracy that plagues decision making within the Department of Transportation.  Once these steps are taken, we will be closer to having the management in place that is required to meet North Carolina’s significant transportation needs.  As the Charlotte Observer recently noted, “Mr. Moore is right about this.”