North Carolina

North Carolina is deepening efforts and investment in evaluation leadership and governance:    

In 2022, the Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) created a Chief Scientist position – first in the nation – to provide statewide leadership, ideas, and technical expertise toward increasing the generation and use of evidence for government decision-making.

In December 2022 and January 2023, the NC Office of Strategic Partnerships (OSP) hired two new Evidence Advisors. Their work to date has included conducting evidence reviews and syntheses of state policies and programs and working with state agencies to develop and execute evaluations to build evidence around agencies’ priority research questions and strategic goals. The Evidence Advisors are also working with the NC Department of Adult Correction (NCDAC) to support the development of its research agenda.    

Using federal relief funds, the NC Department of Public Instruction created the Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration (OLR) to help NC schools navigate the challenges of the pandemic. Led by a Director of Research and Evaluation, OLR’s mission is to serve public school units by providing the research and support necessary to make evidence-based decisions to combat learning loss and accelerate learning for all students.  

The state’s Chief Data Officer (CDO) also serves as the Deputy State Chief Information Officer and oversees the North Carolina Government Data Analytics Center (GDAC). GDAC serves as the centralized data office for the state, facilitating enterprise data management, sharing, and analytic capabilities to transform data into information to support the State’s business decisions and processes. In this role, the Chief Data Officer leads efforts to support data sharing between state agencies, develop enterprise solutions, identify cost savings through fraud and compliance initiatives, and leverage the state’s data assets to provide information for state leaders to make evidence-based decisions. In addition to the Chief Data Officer, GDAC also has created leadership positions focused on data and analytics, including Director of Analytics and Executive Director of the NC Longitudinal Data Service. In addition to these positions, other agencies (e.g., NC Department of Health and Human Services and NC Department of Public Safety) have CDO positions and analytics teams and manage data portals.

The North Carolina FY 2021-23 budget appropriated $1 million in nonrecurring grant funds to OSBM for state agency research and evaluation needs. OSBM launched the North Carolina Evaluation Fund to support government-researcher partnerships that inform program and policy decisions. OSBM awarded grants to eight high-impact research projects in 2022 on topics including teacher and student outcomes, workforce development, juvenile recidivism, behavioral health and social service programs, and domestic violence.

The North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management operates Log Into North Carolina (LINC), an interactive data retrieval service containing historical NC data at a variety of geographic levels. LINC includes over 1,500 data series with 10M records and a subdomain for the State Demographer platform, which houses the latest data produced by the North Carolina Demographer. LINC showcases the most sought-after data state agencies own across a variety of topics. It allows for easy visualization of the data, as well as the ability save the visualization for registered users.    

The Government Data Analytics Center (GDAC) operates as a division of the North Carolina Department of Information Technology. GDAC works to transform data into information that facilitates decision support, increases operational efficiencies, and improves outcomes for North Carolina residents by integrating and sharing data assets. Activities and resources include:

• GDAC has deployed statewide Enterprise Entity Resolution (pp. 24-27) infrastructure and processes to match entities or cluster individual record data across disparate data sources to a common entity (e.g., single person, single business). As such, the platform enabled extensive records matching that improved the state’s public health response to COVID-19 and analysis of identity theft associated with unemployment benefit recipients.
• The North Carolina Early Childhood Integrated Data System (NC ECIDS) is a single source for integrated early childhood data for selected education, health, and social services programs to help answer key policy and program questions and fulfill research requests that support state priorities for young children and families.
• The North Carolina Longitudinal Data Service (NCLDS) links early childhood, education, and workforce data—from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, North Carolina Community College System, University of North Carolina System, North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities, and North Carolina Department of Commerce—together to facilitate cross-sector, longitudinal research, and evaluation. The Executive Director of the NCLDS directs this data linking work to provide knowledge that can inform decision-making for the state’s P-20 education systems, improve educational attainment, and support workforce objectives.

In addition to the statewide examples above, many North Carolina state agencies have developed user-friendly policies and practices around data sharing, linkage, and access.

North Carolina’s budget instructions request that proposals for new and expanded programs and services include evidence supporting the programs’ goals and outcomes. North Carolina continues to strengthen the evidence behind budget requests since first introducing the guidance in 2019. The instructions also emphasize proposals that align with the Governor’s strategic priorities, including advancing equity and diversity.

OSBM asks agencies to supply evidence demonstrating the expected impact of any requests for new or expanded programs and services. For FY 2023-25 preparation, North Carolina continued to use the two-step budget submission process where agency and budget office staff work collaboratively to develop evidence-based approaches before submitting their final budget requests.

OSBM’s evidence rating scale provides a common language for communicating the effectiveness of a program or policy and the degree of confidence in those conclusions. Most recently, OSBM used these definitions to assess the strength of the evidence for specific budget requests during the development of the FY 2023-25 Governor’s Recommended Budget.  

The 2018 Executive Order 43 created the Governor’s Advisory Committee on Performance Management, which advises the Governor on rules and policies related to performance management and strategies for advancing evidence-based policy statewide.

The Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) will be hosting its fourth annual Performance Management Academy training series for state agency staff in 2023. Through the Academy, OSBM fosters performance management “champions” in state agencies and provides resources for practitioners to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of programs. OSBM also coordinates a Performance Management Community of Practice, composed of state agency representatives who meet regularly to share experiences and develop knowledge related to evidence-based policymaking.

The Governor appointed a Director of Strategic Partnerships who leads the North Carolina Office of Strategic Partnerships (OSP), which develops, launches, and enhances partnerships between state government and North Carolina’s research and philanthropic sectors. This includes elevating the state government’s internal capacity to generate and use evidence through efforts such as:

• The Monthly Connect, a series of virtual panel discussions (nearly 40 to date) on cross-sector partnerships, an annual Government Research Partnerships Learning Forum, and creation of two Evidence Advisor positions.
• OSP and the SERVE Center at UNC Greensboro have offered  “Supporting State Agencies with Program Evaluations” workshops. View recordings from May 2022, September 2022, and March 2023. These workshops provide state agency staff and external-to-government researchers the opportunity to discuss potential evaluations for various projects, especially regarding program evaluations and evidence-based decision making. They also include an overview of the purpose and value of considering impact evaluations.

The Department of Information Technology (DIT) is home to a Process Improvement Team which collaborates with state agencies to use evidence in strategic planning processes. DIT provides monthly training resources for state agencies to learn the Lean Six Sigma process improvement methodology and hosts a Process Improvement Community of Practice.

In 2022, Governor Cooper issued Executive Order No. 246 affirming North Carolina’s commitment to a clean energy economy and directing next steps to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and create economic opportunities. The Order directs cabinet agencies to designate an environmental justice and equity lead and develop public participation plans to improve transparency in government decision-making, particularly with underserved communities.

The Department of Environmental Quality’s Secretary’s Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board and Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board assist the Department in achieving and maintaining the fair and equal treatment and meaningful involvement of North Carolinians regardless of their race, religion, or income with respect to the development of environmental policies. These initiatives help engage communities and develop solutions that incorporate environmental justice considerations into the state’s work. They focus in particular on the issue of examining emerging chemicals and providing guidance on how to manage the compounds to protect public health and the environment.

As part of Governor Cooper’s comprehensive strategy, the NCDIT Division of Broadband and Digital Equity held a listening tour to collect feedback to ensure NC’s digital equity plans are inclusive of all NC communities’ and populations’ needs. NCDIT received planning grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce to support these efforts.

The NC Pandemic Recovery Office (NCPRO) and East Carolina University conduct a monthly Community Engagement Survey to solicit timely insights into the state of community conditions recovering from the pandemic and preparing for the future in order to monitor, and evaluate the impact of economic and social interruptions at the sub-state level. Survey results help measure progress towards recovery and strengthen regional economic resilience. NCPRO also hosts listening sessions to inform State Fiscal Recovery Fund program implementation.

There are more than 350 state boards and commissions in North Carolina with over 600 appointments expiring each year that need to be refilled. Boards and commissions provide North Carolinians a way to engage in public service and help make decisions that shape quality of life across the state.

While the state does not have an overall strategic plan, the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) requires that state agencies complete a two-year strategic plan each fiscal biennium. It is a bottom-up approach that fits well with North Carolina’s state government culture. The agencies’ strategic plans include agency or department-wide goals, objectives, and strategies; performance and outcome measures and milestones; existing best practices; and areas for collaboration. The strategic plans conform with the statutory requirement to collect performance information as part of the Governor’s Recommended Budget. OSBM provides strategic planning guidance and facilitation services to support this process. In FY 2023-25, the guidance directs agencies to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion concepts into their goals and objectives.

The NC Division of Public Health brought together more than 100 stakeholders from across the state, known as the Perinatal Health Equity Collective, to develop the 2022-26 NC Perinatal Health Strategic Plan. The plan seeks to address both the challenges of structural racism and of the pandemic by focusing on the drivers of health. It calls for adopting and expanding evidence-based and community-centered practices. The Perinatal Health Equity Collective will continue to work with consumer, community, and organizational partners to implement the plan and assess progress.