NC Rep: A spike of troubling positions at the State Auditor’s office

Some government work is inherently political. Legislators advocate for policies. Governors set agendas. We run for office telling voters what we believe and intend to do.

The State Auditor is elected, too. But auditing the government demands special independence from partisan politics. State law calls for an “impartial, independent” state auditor, and the auditor even takes a special oath to execute the office “without favor or partiality.”

That impartiality exists for a reason. The state auditor has immense power to investigate agencies and put the credibility of public officials on the line. That power works only if North Carolinians trust that the same standards apply regardless of party.

Auditor Dave Boliek rightly promised to “leave the party politics at the door when it comes to the job of the state auditor.” But under his leadership, the number of “exempt” employee positions—often called political appointments—has exploded.

When Boliek took office, just six of the agency’s 159 positions were “exempt policymaking” or “exempt managerial” jobs.

“Exempt” jobs lack key nonpartisan civil-service protections, giving the elected officeholder greater control over who fills them and whether they stay. For “exempt policymaking” jobs, state law explicitly contemplates “loyalty” to the elected official.

During Boliek’s administration, those six exempt positions became 75 by July 2026. Yes, 75. That was more than one third of the office’s 204 positions.

Boliek recently went further. The legislature gave him 25 new civil-service positions in the 2026 budget. Boliek converted all 25 positions into “exempt policymaking” jobs. The list provided to my office even included entry-level auditor positions, despite the law requiring exempt policymaking positions to have final policymaking authority.

Now the office has 100 exempt policymaking or managerial positions — about 44% of its positions versus 4% before Boliek.

This goes far beyond giving an elected official a few trusted senior advisers. It is a wholesale shift toward political control of an office whose credibility depends on independence and non-partisanship.

This rapid expansion gives the appearance of partisanship in these positions and risks political pressure on auditors who need the freedom to deliver findings their boss might not want to hear.

This concern is not abstract. Look at the office’s partisan influence on elections.

When Republican legislators gave Boliek elections board appointment powers in 2024 and transferred the State Board of Elections to his department, they also created a firewall. The law says the Board must exercise its powers “independently of the State Auditor,” except for budgeting.

Yet Boliek hired Dallas Woodhouse, former executive director of the NC Republican Party, as his “elections liaison.”

Public records reported by NC Newsline show Woodhouse doing considerably more than liaising. He pushed county officials on early-voting plans while invoking the wishes of the Republican Party and, in some cases, Boliek. He urged officials to eliminate Sunday voting hours and told one county chairman, “don’t let them have a vote,” before a board decision on early-voting sites.

The Auditor’s own general counsel said Woodhouse deleted text messages despite instructions to preserve them.

Woodhouse said he sought to expand rural voting access and denied partisan intent, but invoking party preferences in election administration is the opposite of “keeping politics at the door.”

Woodhouse resigned in July. Yet treating this as one employee’s lapse misses the larger problem: The Auditor’s Office must not be seen as an extension of a political party.

Republicans should want an auditor’s office whose findings about a Democratic administration are trusted. Democrats should want one whose findings about Republican-controlled institutions are trusted. Every taxpayer should trust that the office’s conclusions are driven by evidence, not politics. And every voter should know elections are administered according to law, not partisanship.

Boliek was elected as a Republican. Nobody is asking him to stop being one. But, by law and his own promise, his office must be and appear impartial.

He should reverse the exemption of the 25 new positions, reconsider the other 75, and stop his office from pressuring elections boards to follow partisan preferences.

The state auditor’s authority ultimately rests on something no statute can confer: public trust. If that office becomes just another political shop, that trust is extraordinarily difficult to get back.

Phil Rubin represents Wake County’s District 40 in the North Carolina House.

Correction: An earlier headline for this op-ed signaled that the expansion in exempt positions at the Auditor’s office involved new hires. The expansion involves both existing positions and newly budgeted positions.

This story was originally published September 22, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline “NC Rep: A spike of troubling positions at the State Auditor’s office | Opinion.”