The final report from NC GEAR (NC Government Efficiency and Reform) – an initiative of Gov. McCrory’s budget office – was presented yesterday. The response from legislators was one of disappointment.
Lawmakers expressed disappointment in the project’s lack of scale and the report’s lack of details about how the changes should be implemented and how cost savings were calculated. 
Co-chairman Sen. Fletcher Hartsell, R-Cabarrus, said he had expected the project to look into how the state pays for education.
“I don’t see anything that restructures any particular department. I don’t see anything that addresses funding formulas,” Hartsell said.
Sen. Stan Bingham, R-Davidson, said he had hoped NC GEAR would assess Medicaid spending growth.
“They sort of eat everybody’s lunch in terms of what we do and don’t do,” Bingham said.
The NC GEAR report focused on more basic, functional changes like privatizing the state’s motor pool, leveraging buying power for school districts and assessing the value of certain state assets.
Civitas last summer wrote about NC GEAR’s preliminary report, in which it detailed its objective to make state government more efficient and “customer friendly.”
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