NOVEMBER 2002: In a report on theft and misuse of state funds, officials with four state universities declined to identify former employees reported to the State Bureau of Investigation for suspicion of stealing, improper spending or damaging property. NCSU, for example, withheld the name of a former housekeeper who racked up $16,000 in calls to a phone-sex line over seven months in 1997 and 1998 and the name of a University Advancement employee who diverted more than $20,000 through payments to a fictitious company in 1998.

SEPTEMBER 2004: The state Department of Transportation declined to provide records showing hours worked, additional pay received and hiring decisions made by a former maintenance garage supervisor in Greene County who was a fundraiser for Democrats and a known patronage boss. Eddie Carroll Thomas retired abruptly from his state job the previous December after DOT phone records showed he was making hundreds of calls to top state officials whose jobs appeared to have little to do with fixing Greene County's roads.

APRIL 2007: A state audit found that a 30-year "higher-level" employee at UNC-Chapel Hill had been providing the Social Security number of a dead person to university officials for identification purposes. UNC-CH officials said they could not identify the employee or comment further. The employee retired that month and was collecting a state pension.

SEPTEMBER 2007: Division of Motor Vehicles officials declined to provide personnel information regarding the hiring of a friend of a top DMV official. Interviews with DMV staff helped show that the friend, James Burgess, a former purchasing clerk with Progress Energy, won the emissions specialist position over a state Highway Patrol mechanic who had been teaching service station mechanics how to perform emissions inspections for nearly a decade. An SBI probe found that the normal hiring process was circumvented. He has since announced his resignation, and his friend, John Robinson, director of the DMV's License and Theft Bureau, has announced his retirement.

JANUARY: Durham officials declined to say why two Durham police officers at the center of an investigation into prostitution allegations resigned, other than it involved evidence of unrelated misconduct. Sgt. Keith Cheeks and Officer Demond Gooch resigned before the conclusion of the internal affairs and criminal investigations, a department news release said. It said no further comments would be released about the case.