The North Carolina House on Tuesday passed a bill expanding the powers of the state auditor, a typically low-profile office that Republican lawmakers have repeatedly sought to embolden since November, when it was won by a Republican for the first time in 16 years.

“It ensures the state auditor can do the job the voters elected him to do: protecting taxpayers, detecting fraud and holding public spending to account,” House Majority Leader Brenden Jones, the bill’s sponsor, said.

House Bill 549, which passed along party lines, would empower Auditor Dave Boliek to investigate any non-governmental organization that receives public funds, and would greatly expand his office’s access to state databases. The bill would also give him more flexibility over hiring and firing staff in his office — a move critics warned could turn merit-based state jobs into political appointments.

Starting July 1, the bill would exempt new hires in the auditor’s office from the State Human Resources Act — a broad law which establishes protections for state employees. It would give current employees the choice to exempt themselves from the act.

“What you’re saying, if you are seeking to make these positions exempt, is that political preferences should take precedent over merit — but for the employees in this office only,” Rep. Tim Longest, a Wake County Democrat, said.

Longest attempted to amend the bill to remove the HR exemptions, but Republicans blocked that change.

The State Employees Association of North Carolina also came out strongly against the bill’s HR changes.

“I can think of no agency where it’s more important that someone be impartial, nonpolitical — that somebody be a professional employee,” SEANC Executive Director Ardis Watkins told reporters last week. “We want the best, not the best connected, working for the state of North Carolina.”

Jones acknowledged the bill may require changes, but said they just needed to pass it before Thursday — which marks an important legislative deadline — and that they could make changes once it got to the Senate.

“This is not a bogeyman bill, as it’s being presented,” he said. “There’s some issues on it and it’s going to be worked through ... We all believe in our state employees, we all want to do what’s right for the state employees — no one’s trying to deny that.”

Democrats also raised concerns about a portion of the bill that would give the auditor “continuous and unrestricted view of databases, datasets, and digital records necessary for any purpose within the authority of the auditor.”

House Democratic Leader Robert Reives questioned what could happen if a political appointee in the auditor’s office were to investigate a business and had “an ax to grind.”

“That’s a lot of sensitive information that is suddenly available that has never been available before to anybody at any time under these type of circumstances,” he said. “And that really makes me uncomfortable.”

Wednesday’s vote comes after Senate Republicans advanced their own proposal to expand the auditor’s powers with a bill called The DAVE Act — a reference to Boliek’s first name.

It would give Boliek more power to recommend job cuts or the complete elimination of state agencies — though the legislature would still have the final say.

The DAVE Act passed the Senate earlier this month almost entirely along party lines, with former Senate Democratic leader Dan Blue being the only member of his party to vote in favor of it.

Last year, Republican lawmakers passed a bill stripping the governor of his appointments to the State Board of Elections and transferring them to the auditor instead. That bill, which the Court of Appeals allowed to take effect last week after a lower court had blocked it, makes Boliek the only auditor in the country with election oversight powers.

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