When it comes to managing North Carolina’s state government, the Easley Administration is beginning to sound like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

There’s been one mishap after another. The Department of Transportation wasted $30,000 on a ferry junket to watch the tall ships sail around Beaufort Harbor. The Department of Health and Human Service wasted $400 million (it was supposed to spend providing health care for the mentally ill). The fiasco’s go on and on. At DMV. And other state agencies. And, now, the gremlins have struck again. The News and Observer reports the probation officer in charge of one of the young men accused of killing UNC student Eve Carson – never once laid eyes on Lawrence Lovette. In fact, Officer Chalida Thomas was subsequently taken off the case, not for inefficiency, but because of a drunk driving charge.

Now, state government is big and no one expects the governor to have his finger on every pulse. But it seems like a new wheel comes off in a different state agency every day.

It almost makes you miss Jim Hunt.

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