North Carolina auditor race heats up as incumbent’s former employees run against her

Corrected on Jan. 22, 2020. See below for details.

Tension is high in the state auditor’s race after two of incumbent Auditor Beth Wood’s former employees filed to run against her.

Tim Hoegemeyer and Luis Toledo blamed their former boss for low morale, a lack of vision and a low number of audits, and said the problems prompted them to run. Hoegemeyer, a Republican, said he “wouldn’t throw mud” at his opponents, though he did detail some of his complaints with the office.

Toledo and Wood, who will face each other in the Democratic primary, did not hold back about their criticism of each other. “If our state auditor was compared to others in office it would be at the bottom,” Toledo said.

Toledo, who worked under Wood nearly four years, said Wood isn’t using her staff effectively and faulted her for producing “one to two impactful audits every year or two.” He said there was a 10% decrease in the number of audits produced by Wood’s staff.

Wood called Toledo’s statement reckless, saying that looking only at the total number of audits did not give a full account of what her staff was doing. She said her staff is required to perform certain audits yearly and the rest is discretionary. This year, Wood said, her staff is working on larger audits that will have a greater impact.

“His reckless statements bother me,” Wood said. “I don’t know if they’re intentional or, bless his heart, he doesn’t know any better.”

Low morale?

Toledo is a U.S. Air Force veteran before working for the N.C. Office of the State Auditor. In 2017, he began working for the North Carolina Justice Center before a failed state Senate run in 2018.

If elected, Toledo said he wants a staff that produces one good audit a month with a focus on election security, education, health care and the environment. He said his opponent does not have the vision to know what to focus on.

“I wanted a better future and a better government and that’s hard to do when the assessments are not happening,” Toledo said. “A lot of good people have left the office because of leadership issues.”

Wood said Toledo’s low morale was his own doing.

But like Toledo, Hoegemeyer said that’s one of the reasons he’s running.

“I saw the morale decline drastically under Auditor Wood’s tenure,” Hoegemeyer said. “I saw the demoralization of a very talented staff. I’m wanting to go in there and boost morale.”

Hoegemeyer worked in the state auditor’s office for more than 12 years overseeing the fraud investigation unit and serving as general counsel. He faces Brunswick County soil and water board member Anthony Street in the Republican primary.

Like Toledo, Hoegemeyer said he wanted to see a more proactive approach to investigating state agencies.

Cooperation in auditing?

Hoegemeyer said the state auditor needs to work cooperatively with the agencies being audited. He said Wood took a more antagonistic approach to auditing government agencies.

He said he thinks “that doesn’t mean to cozy up to everyone and not shine the light on problems, because I certainly would. If I wanted to proactively go after fraud and abuse, I certainly wouldn’t be soft on it, but I believe we can get more done if we work together.”

Wood said Hoegemeyer’s statement is fitting to his personality but added that being an external auditor doesn’t allow for collaboration with outside agencies. Wood said while she won’t collaborate with those agencies, she is willing to sit down and discuss problems her staff finds.

“I’m an external auditor and supposed to be independent and objective,” Wood said. “Audit standards are very clear on that and you better not muddy the waters on that because my license would be at stake.”

Wood added that her staff is ordered not to use adjectives or opinions in their audits. She said she isn’t trying to be adversarial, but she wants to be firm. She said if the agency provides proof that something in the audit wasn’t factual, her staff would fix the audit, but only if there is proof.

Despite the criticism, Wood said she believes in the work her staff is doing.

“I am running for re-election because I am doing a great job at finding waste of spending and taxpayer dollars,” Wood said. “I love the job we’re doing — the work we’re putting out.”

She said she will soon introduce robotics into her office to take her staff off menial tasks and allow them to focus on more in-depth work.

Wood said her staff has been focusing on Medicaid, transportation and education, including an audit of the virtual public school system to ensure students in rural counties are being educated at the level of the state’s standard.

Wood first joined the office as an auditor before working her way to director and eventually running for election. She said she knows how to do every job on her staff and is hands-on with the audits and the presentations.

“I have a phenomenal staff,” Wood said. “I trained them well and I’m not a figurehead. I’ve been a critical part of some of the audits we’ve been putting out because I don’t believe anybody can lead what they themselves don’t understand.”

This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "North Carolina auditor race heats up as incumbent’s former employees run against her."