By Jon Owens

SEANC helped maintain the integrity of the State Personnel Act by having 36 troubling provisions including due process and patronage concerns removed from the Modern State Human Resources Management Act that Gov. McCrory signed today.

"We have worked hard on this bill, but we have been able to work together,” said SEANC Executive Director Dana Cope said. “We think this is a better bill for employees."

This bill is a far cry from what SEANC's lobbyists faced when Gov. Pat McCrory's team first started pushing it in the House a few months back. After several points of contention in the first draft of the rewrite were changed in employees' favor early on in the process, SEANC's main objections came down to making state employees at-will and an  unfair grievance process that would have given the State Personnel Commission - consisting of political  appointees - final say in the appeals process rather than the independent Office of Administrative  Hearings.

SEANC Executive Director Dana Cope, Legislative Affairs Director Ardis Watkins and General Counsel  Tom Harris were able to work with lawmakers and convey that such a move could have dire legal  consequences for the state and would wind up costing taxpayers more money.

With those changes, SEANC representatives were able to stand in front of the Senate Pensions, Retirement and  Aging Committee in early July and offer SEANC's support to the bill.