Inside Track: What you should know about N.C. Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey’s hiring practices [The Charlotte Observer]

In addition to new revelations about a highly paid driver, News & Observer reporting on N.C. Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey has identified other hires and management moves that appear motivated by politics and personal connections.

Many of Causey’s moves involve sweeping changes to the department’s regional operations — moving offices from higher-populated areas to smaller communities and hiring people with personal connections and political clout.

The new offices are drawing little traffic from the public, and the department has provided little information to show the work activities of some of the people Causey hired to run them, The N&O found. Records and interviews showed Causey:

Causey has used positions designated as “exempt policy-making” under state law to hire regional directors. They are not subject to normal hiring and firing requirements. The jobs do not need to be posted and department heads can fire appointees at will.

The N&O found he used one exempt position to hire a political ally, John Woodard, who Causey later assigned a job producing property evaluations for state properties, and allowed him to work out of his Elizabeth City home.

Woodard had made roughly $295,000 in pay over five years, but spent much of that time doing little work as software issues plagued the project. He described his job as “make work.”

The department fired Woodard in July, after The N&O began inquiring about political hires in the regional operations.