Dale Falwell sits on his motorcycle outside the North Carolina Department of State and Treasury building in Raleigh. (Courtesy of Dale Falwell)
This is the fourth installment in a five-week series on the life and career of outgoing North Carolina Treasurer Dale Falwell. Read part 1, part 2, and part 3.
RALEIGH — Hard work, multiple jobs and a leap into higher education put North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Falwell on the path to his current position.
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Mr. Falwell’s history of transparency, perseverance and fiscal responsibility served him well when he became state Treasurer in 2017. One of his first jobs involved monthly phone calls with news organizations, which he has continued to do for 91 consecutive months. Even during a pandemic, it’s an unbroken thread.
Mr. Falwell met with more than 400 employees of the agency during the first 48 hours of his first term. Over the next 12 months, he launched the National Disability Savings and Investments Program (NC ABLE), released an affordability study, reduced the cost of Medicare Advantage premiums, and announced a state bond rating of AAA. The Retirement Division received the Excellence Award.
During his first four years in office, he also froze state health plan premium rates, which had been frozen for the previous six years.
Mr. Falwell is already the first Republican (David A. Jenkins, 1868-76) to be elected Treasury Secretary in more than 100 years, and he won re-election in 2020, defeating Democrat Ronnie Chatterjee, and is on the ballot. He outperformed all Republican candidates for the state House of Representatives. Commissioner Steve Troxler won the race by more than five points.
“What I’m most proud of is building a culture of conservatism that focuses on disclosure, not discovery,” said Falwell of the Treasurer’s Office.
During his tenure, Mr. Falwell chaired the Local Government Commission, served on the State Board of Education, and delivered state Property Conservation Fund “found money” checks to various organizations and individuals through the NC Cash program. It is well known for its
Mr. Falwell focused on streamlining the state health plan’s enrollment process and promoting transparency in health care costs with clear pricing plans. Falwell also investigated the “weaponization” of medical debt, culminating in a report on how hospitals across the state sued more than 7,500 patients for judgments exceeding $57 million. Mr. Falwell also cut costs and fees for pension plans.
“The thing we’re most proud of is that we’ve reduced Wall Street fees by nearly $700 million over seven years,” he said of the pension program.
Dale Falwell won his first term as state treasurer in 2017. (Courtesy of Dale Falwell)
Falwell also said continuity has been a hallmark of his tenure as Treasury secretary, including during the pandemic.
“The Treasury Department has never closed,” Falwell said. “We were under tremendous pressure to close the Treasurer’s Office, and this is another opportunity for me to applaud the people in this building for keeping our check delivery business going. ”
Falwell said staying open ensured that the agency’s operations would continue uninterrupted, including checks sent to retirees.
It came at a price. Mr. Falwell became seriously ill with the new coronavirus.
“No. 1. As someone whose family was planning my funeral in March 2020, I realized that COVID-19 was a serious problem,” Falwell said. “But I know very well that if you’re consuming 8 liters of oxygen and your blood oxygen level is 82 and you’re mathematically obese in your 60s, you’re not going to last long in this world. .”
Normal blood coagulation test values are usually between 300 and 500, Falwell said, but when he was discharged from the hospital in March 2020, his score was 80,000.
“Thanks to God and prayer, if I hadn’t fought the ventilation mentally and otherwise, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” he said.
The pandemic has had impacts that Falwell’s office has had to figure out on its own, such as the risk of municipal bankruptcy due to Gov. Roy Cooper’s executive order.
“When it comes to shutting down the economy and everything else due to COVID-19, these hats are going to be an advantage for me,” Falwell said. “I realized that within weeks of Elizabeth City declaring bankruptcy, the governor put in place a utility bill moratorium, so none of us had to pay our utility bills. None of us. But… Debt forgiveness was popular at the time, so people took it as “their utility bills were waived.”
Falwell told a meeting of the State Board of Regents, whose members include the Treasurer, that the utility moratorium “will force government agencies into bankruptcy in this state at a pace not seen since the Great Depression.” I brought this issue up.
He was motivated to run for governor this year by a desire to apply his problem-solving skills and bring more transparency to a wide range of government functions.
“I felt like the skill set was to fix[the employment security department]. If you think about it, who is responsible for the things that affect average people the most? Fix some things in the department,” Falwell said. “Who controls these functions at the DMV, DOT, DHS? And the reality is, the government does it through the Cabinet. I wanted to use my enjoyment of solving things for state agencies, pure and simple.”
State Treasurer Dale Falwell will announce his candidacy for governor during the March 2023 Forsyth County Republican Party Conference in Clemmons. Falwell received just over 19% of the vote in the Republican primary in March, losing the nomination to Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson. (Alison Lee Eisley/Winston-Salem Journal, via AP)
In his ultimately unsuccessful bid for the governor’s mansion, Falwell emphasizes his lifelong Republican identity and conservatism as an action, not just a label.
“As a lifelong Republican, I believed people should have a choice,” Falwell said. “In the Republican primary, conservatism is not what you call yourself, but what you actually do.”
He believed that winning the sympathy of the public would attract voters.
“I felt that what people wanted was someone who could talk to them like an adult and explain conservatism without offending them,” Falwell said.
Throughout the primary campaign, Mr. Falwell presented himself as a candidate to replace Lt. Governor Mark Robinson. In a post on social media platform X, Falwell responded to President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Robinson ahead of the March primary.
“President Trump doesn’t know about my work, and he probably doesn’t know about @markrobinsonNC’s track record of running away from anyone he’s ever come into contact with. @realDonaldTrump to govern and explain conservatism without hurting people. No support needed,” Falwell wrote. “We’re not a party of hate, we’re a party of hope. We’re a party of courage, not anger. My focus is on those two things, getting more votes than the president in November, and so far we’ve had two. achieved.”
Falwell continued his work as treasurer during his gubernatorial campaign, saying, “I signed up to serve two four-year terms on behalf of the people of this state, and I wanted to keep that promise.” ” he said.
