Shake-up at North Carolina’s public safety agency

The N.C. Department of Public Safety’s law enforcement commissioner – whose position was eliminated in the recent state budget – has landed a newly created job in the agency, while the chief operating officer, whose husband is a key budget writer in the legislature, has been removed.

Commissioner of Law Enforcement Gregory Baker lost his job when a provision was added to the budget last month eliminating the position. Secretary Frank Perry had hired Baker in 2013, whom he knew from their days as FBI agents.

In a memo to the department’s staff Wednesday afternoon, Perry said Baker, whose salary was $121,000 a year, would take over a newly created role, as commissioner of operations.

Lorrie Dollar, a veteran of several state agencies, had been the chief operating officer. She is the wife of the main budget writer in the House, Rep. Nelson Dollar, a Cary Republican.

Lorrie Dollar and William Crews, also an experienced state executive who was the commissioner of administration and oversaw budget issues, are not listed as part of the new management structure. Their photographs were removed from the department’s website Wednesday afternoon. Dollar had an annual salary of $133,000, and Crews earned $121,000 a year.

The agency has not provided information on the status of their jobs. Department spokeswoman Pamela Walker said, “We have already been working to identify great opportunities in state government for those involved in this reorganization.”

Perry, in his memo, said he was consolidating the management team “as part of our ongoing efforts to make state government more efficient and accountable.”

Neither Lorrie Dollar nor her husband could be reached Wednesday. When The N&O asked Rep. Dollar on Monday about information that his wife may be leaving the agency, he replied, “I haven’t seen anything in writing on that.”

The provision eliminating the law enforcement commissioner position was not included in the original House or Senate budgets. It was added in the final days as legislative budget writers worked out compromises. Rep. Leo Daughtry, a Republican from Smithfield who is chairman of the House subcommittee dealing with justice and public safety appropriations, said the job change idea had been discussed informally before then.

“Both the House and Senate wanted to get rid of that position,” Daughtry said. “It wasn’t something somebody just thought of at the last minute.”

Daughtry said the governor’s office has the prerogative to sign off on the management changes but added he hoped Dollar and Crews are offered other jobs.

“From my standpoint, taking Lorrie Dollar and Bill Crews out of the system will harm the system,” he said.

Lorrie Dollar had been running the Public Safety Department’s administrative operations since Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration took over.

In 2014, she replaced the chief operating officer, who had resigned. Before working there, she had served as a chief deputy state auditor, deputy commissioner with the N.C. Industrial Commission, general counsel for the Department of Correction and a staff attorney with the state Department of Human Resources.

Crews had been in charge of the agency’s budgeting, purchasing, logistics and other functions since July 2014. He had been in high-ranking jobs with the former Department of Crime Control and Public Safety and Department of Correction, and helped open the state’s office in Washington, D.C. He was a special assistant to the secretary of the former Department of Human Resources, and worked in the security industry in Wilmington before that.

Besides eliminating Baker’s position, the budget also restored the chain of command that the Republican legislature had changed in recent years, requiring the head of the State Highway Patrol to report directly to the secretary and not to the commissioner of law enforcement. It also strengthened the patrol’s independence by elevating it to a division rather than a section in the agency.

Under Perry’s new leadership team, the number of positions that report directly to him increases, and now includes James Gorham as director of special projects and B. Renee Robinson as director of the Office of Special Investigations. Others who will continue to report to Perry include David Guice, commissioner of adult correction and juvenile justice; Col. William Grey, commander of the SHP; and Maj. Gen. Gregory Lusk, adjutant general of the N.C. National Guard, as well as legal, human relations and communications staff officials.

Staff writer Colin Campbell contributed.

This story was originally published October 14, 2015 at 3:27 PM with the headline "Shake-up at North Carolina’s public safety agency."