This is the fourth story in a five-week series on the life and career of outgoing North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
RALEIGH — Hard work, multiple jobs, and a leap into higher education set North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Folwell down the path to his current position.
The transparency, perseverance and fiscal responsibility of his past served Folwell well when he took office as state treasurer in 2017. One of his first orders of business included holding monthly calls with media outlets, something he has done for 91 consecutive months. It is an unbroken string, even during the pandemic.
During the first 48 hours of his first term in office, Folwell met with more than 400 employees in his agency. Over the next 12 months, he launched a savings and investment program for disabled individuals (NC ABLE), published a debt affordability study, lowered costs in Medicare Advantage premiums, announced the state’s AAA bond rating and the retirement division received awards for excellence.
He also froze State Health Plan premium rates — which have remained frozen for the last six years — during his first four years in office.
Folwell, who was already the first Republican to be elected as treasurer in more than a century (David A. Jenkins, 1868-76), won reelection in 2020, defeating Democrat Ronnie Chatterji and outperforming every Republican Council of State candidate on the ballot except Commissioner Steve Troxler by winning his race by more than five points.
“The thing I’m most proud of is creating a culture of conservatism, where the emphasis is on disclosure and not discovery,” said Folwell of the treasurer’s office.
During his tenure, Folwell has chaired the Local Government Commission, sat on the State Board of Education and is well-known for delivering checks of “found money” in the state’s escheat fund to various entities and individuals through the NC Cash program.
Folwell has focused on streamlining the State Health Plan enrollment process and pushed for health care cost transparency with his Clear Pricing Plan. Additionally, Folwell investigated medical debt “weaponization,” culminating in a report on how hospitals in the state sued more than 7,500 patients for over $57 million in judgments. Folwell also cut costs and fees for the pension program.
“The thing we’re most proud of is cutting Wall Street fees by nearly $700 million over seven years,” he said of the pension program.
Folwell also said continuity has been a hallmark of his time in office as treasurer, including during the pandemic.
“The Treasurer’s Office never closed,” said Folwell. “We were put under tremendous pressure to close the Treasurer’s Office, and this is another opportunity for me to applaud the people in this building that keep us in the checked delivery business.”
Folwell said remaining open ensured operations in his agency continued without interruption, including checks sent to retirees.
It didn’t come without a cost: Folwell fell severely ill with a case of COVID-19.
“No. 1, being a person whose family was planning my funeral in March of ’20, I realized COVID was a serious issue,” said Folwell. “But I know enough to know that when your blood oxygen level is 82 while you’re consuming eight liters of oxygen and you’re in your 60s and you’re mathematically obese, you’re not long for this world.”
Folwell said blood clotting tests, which usually have normal levels between 300 to 500, were 80,000 when he was discharged from the hospital in March 2020.
“Thanks to God and prayers, if I had not mentally and otherwise fought from being ventilated, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” he said.
The pandemic had consequences Folwell’s office was uniquely positioned to see, such as municipality insolvency risks due to Gov. Roy Cooper’s executive orders.
“During COVID, when it comes to shutting down the economy and all these other things, that’s where all these hats came to be to my advantage,” said Folwell. “I realized that Elizabeth City was within a few weeks of declaring bankruptcy because the governor had put in place a utilities moratorium that none of us had to pay our utility bill. None of us. But because there was so much debt forgiveness going on back then, people read it as ‘my utility bills being forgiven.’”
Folwell said the utilities moratorium would “force bankruptcies in this state by governmental entities at a rate that had not occurred since the depression,” and he took the matter to the Council of State meetings, of which the treasurer is a member.
His motivation for running for governor this year was the desire to apply his problem-solving skills and bring greater transparency to broader government functions.
“I felt like the skill set of fixing (the Division of Employment Security), fixing some things at the Treasurer’s Office that, if you think about it, who has responsibility for the things that most impact the average person?” said Folwell. “At the DMV, the DOT, DHS, who controls those functions? And the fact is, the government does that through the cabinet. And I was wanting to take my problem-solving skills and how I enjoy saving money and fixing things for those state agencies, pure and simple.”
Folwell emphasizes his lifelong Republican identity and view of conservatism as action rather than just a label when making his ultimately unsuccessful bid for the governor’s mansion.
“I thought as a lifelong Republican, that people needed a choice,” said Folwell. “In the Republican primary, that conservatism is not what you call yourself, it’s actually what you do.”
He believed being relatable to the public would entice voters.
“I felt that what people wanted was someone who would speak to them like adults and who could explain conservatism without offending them,” Folwell said.
Throughout the primary campaign, Folwell offered himself as an alternative to Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson. In a post on the social media platform X, Folwell reacted to President Donald Trump endorsing Robinson ahead of the March primary.
“President Trump doesn’t know my work and most likely doesn’t know @markrobinsonNC’s track record of fleecing anyone who has ever come in contact with him. I don’t need @realDonaldTrump’s endorsement to govern and explain conservatism without offending people,” Folwell wrote. “We are the party of hope, not hate. Courage, not rage. My focus is on those two things and getting more votes than the President in November, which I’ve done twice before.”
Folwell continued his work as treasurer while campaigning for governor, saying, “I signed up for the people of this state to have to do my job for two four-year terms, and I wanted to honor that commitment.”
