SBI’s management conflicts show the need for a review of how the agency is run | Opinion

Bob Schurmeier, director of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), raised a red flag last week when he told a General Assembly committee that Gov. Roy Cooper’s senior staff interfered with his management decisions and pressured him to resign over personnel disputes.

Schurmeier, a former deputy chief and interim chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, was appointed SBI chief in 2016 by then Republican Gov. Pat McCrory. He will end his term in June, but on his way out he cited his conflicts with the Democratic governor’s staff to argue that the SBI needs to be better insulated from political interference.

“What I’m attempting here is to set this up for the future of the SBI,” he said. “You can’t separate politics completely from law enforcement, but to the extent that you can, you ought to and this is one of those occasions. The SBI director ought to have autonomy.”

Schurmeier’s statements about interference and pressure from the governor’s office have yet to be sorted out. The governor’s senior staff did not testify at the hearing, which was held before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. They should be called to give their side of the story.

Kristi Jones, the governor’s chief of staff, said in an April 6 letter to the committee’s co-chairs that the governor’s office has received complaints from current and former SBI agents and others about the direction of the agency. She said the governor’s staff met with Schurmeier in late 2022 to discuss human resources issues “which threaten significant harm to the SBI’s morale, operations and reputation.” The letter did not provide details of the complaints.

A larger issue

Beyond the particulars of staffing disputes, Schurmeier raises a broader concern about the SBI’s independence. In 2014, Republican lawmakers moved the agency from under the state Department of Justice – then led by Cooper when he was attorney general – to under the Department of Public Safety, which is overseen by the governor.

That was a bad idea then and it’s a bad idea now. Even Cooper objected to it. In 2014, he said in a release from his office that, “Putting the SBI under any governor’s administration increases the risk that corruption and cover up occur with impunity.”

Clearly, the best way to protect the SBI from improper outside influence is to make it independent from other departments.

In their proposed state budget, House Republicans want to make the SBI a Cabinet-level agency in which the SBI director would have full control over staffing and other management decisions. The House budget also seeks to have the State Crime Lab moved from under the Department of Justice to under the SBI.

Changing the status of the SBI has appeal, but its undercut by Republican lawmakers’ pattern of clawing authority from the governor and granting more power to itself. Currently, only the governor can remove an SBI director. The proposed change would allow the legislature to do it by a three-fifths vote. That change would weaken the SBI’s new independence by making its director subject to removal by the governor and the legislature.

Crime lab move

Moving the State Crime Lab is even more problematic. The lab should be set up to avoid the reality and the perception that its work is biased in favor of law enforcement. Putting the lab and the SBI together would raise concerns about the lab favoring law enforcement’s claims about evidence.

Schurmeier’s testimony raises a concern that was not resolved by the politically driven shuffling of the SBI in 2014. But the problem of insulating the SBI while also holding it accountable will not be resolved by major changes stuffed into a budget bill with little debate.

Whatever happened between Schurmeier and the governor’s senior staff can be aired and explored in regular hearings. Deciding how to create an independent SBI and protecting the integrity of the State Crime Lab requires a deeper and longer look.