From Carolina Journal Radio Program No. 700: A special branch of North Carolina’s legislative staff spends much of its time searching for waste, duplication, and inefficiency within state government programs. While the Program Evaluation Division tends to focus on individual projects, director John Turcotte recently updated lawmakers on common problems that tend to crop up frequently during his staff’s work. Those problems include dysfunctional operational structures and operating procedures, poor performance standards, bad data, and inefficiency. The latest report was designed to help lawmakers look beyond problems within a specific agency and focus instead on issues that can plague multiple areas within state government.