Fallout from the unexpected closing of the North Carolina State Veterans Home in Fayetteville has continued a month after the facility closed its doors, with state lawmakers expressing growing frustration with the N.C. Dept. of Military and Veteran Affairs (DMVA), which manages the state-owned facility.
At a meeting of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on General Government on Feb. 27, committee members heard presentations from representatives from the DMVA, and the other departments involved in inspecting state-owned buildings: the N.C. Dept. of Administration (DOA) and N.C. State Construction Office (SCO), an office within the DOA.
Two days before Thanksgiving, the DMVA told residents and caregivers that the nursing home would close in February, giving the veterans who received care there just over two months to find new accommodations. The DMVA, which made a public announcement about the closing on Dec. 14, said the facility would be permanently shut down and the issues with the building’s structure could not be fixed.
Now, the DMVA has backtracked on that decision. Brian Pierce, deputy secretary of the DMVA, told lawmakers on Feb. 27 that the DMVA has not yet made a decision as to the fate of the 25-year-old state veterans home building.
Building reports and inspections from the SCO and the DMVA’s contractor that were shared with the legislative committee detail urgent repair recommendations for the home, dating back to 2021. Here’s what those reports uncovered:
Facility inspections
During the Feb. 27 meeting, committee members heard a report from Michael Shumsky, the director of the SCO, and Mark Edwards, chief deputy secretary of the DOA.
Shumsky said that the SCO does a visual inspection of all state buildings larger than 3,000 square feet (about 5,000 buildings) every five years via its Facility Condition Assessment Program (FCAP).
“This is an opportunity for us to go in there and identify deficiencies, prioritize those deficiencies, life safety being the first one, and then share that with the owner,” Shumsky said. “And they then would make a decision based on their programming how they would like to proceed, the operation and maintenance.”
FCAP last inspected the Fayetteville state veterans home building in 2022, at which time state inspectors found $3.1 million in structural deficiencies and made several recommendations for repair, including a roof replacement.
On Feb. 6, the SCO did another FCAP assessment of the building, which the office shared with legislators at the Feb. 27 meeting, providing numerous recommendations to the DMVA about necessary repairs to the building. The new suggested repairs, estimated to cost $17.6 million, include:
In response to questions asked by the committee, Shumsky said the SCO does not follow up after inspections are completed, nor do they make any recommendations as to whether a building should be abandoned. The office also does not participate in any maintenance or upkeep of state-owned buildings, as that is the responsibility of the agencies in charge, he said.
According to Shumsky, the SCO did not know when water damage first occurred at the state veterans home. The SCO was also not notified about the DMVA’s plans to close the veterans home, Shumsky said, since agencies are not required to alert the office when this occurs.
Lawmakers appeared disappointed to learn that recommendations had been made two years before the DMVA unilaterally made the decision to close the building. Committee members Rep. George Cleveland (R-Dist. 14), State Sen. W. Ted Alexander (R-Dist. 44) and Rep. Mark Brody (R- Dist. 55) indicated that the state veterans home closure should inspire investigation into the SCO’s role in overseeing state-owned buildings.
Alexander, chairman of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on General Government, said the SCO should be notified if any agency decides to abandon a building.
“I think the line of questioning here seems to indicate that maybe we ought to be thinking ahead of time in the future so that we come up with procedures that will prohibit a similar situation happening in the future,” Alexander said.
Cleveland, a co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on General Government, said he was concerned by the infrequent inspections and unenforceable nature of SCO recommendations. In particular, he took issue with the DMVA’s apparent lack of immediate restorative action after the inspection was completed — which Deputy Secretary Pierce later confirmed.
“If we don't have a way to follow up on this, or agents are ignoring your work, we're paddling in the wrong direction,” Cleveland said to Shumsky.
“The point I'm getting at is,” he continued, “should the General Assembly take a look at this program? The General Assembly is spending money to try to keep buildings in proper maintenance and use, and if agencies are ignoring it, we're not doing our job.”
Brody expressed frustration over what he perceived as a lack of accountability for the parties involved in the closure.
“So we hear that state construction did what they were supposed to do, handed them what they're supposed to do … and we found out that the agency is responsible and they didn't do anything,” Brody said. “What it seems like is we tend to chase our tail and we can't get everybody there in the same room. It's just we do one group and then they point their finger. We get the other group and they point their finger.”
Pierce acknowledged the DMVA could have been more forthright about its decision to shut down the facility.
“We probably poorly communicated it,” Pierce said. He said the building’s future was yet to be determined but “a likely course of action is [to] repair and renovate if certain site conditions can be addressed.”
Raymond report
Pierce said during the February meeting that the DMVA was not ignoring the SCO report, but had already begun its own assessment process a year before the SCO inspection. He said the DMVA contracted with Raymond, a national engineering firm, to inspect the building in April 2021 and examine potential water issues at the facility. Following that report, Pierce said the DMVA had “sent a letter forward to declare an emergency at the building,” which allowed them to choose their preferred vendor, Raymond, to produce an additional report on the building’s construction and repair process.
A comprehensive building assessment report from Raymond’s investigations, titled “Existing Conditions for Owner’s Immediate Response,” was sent to the DMVA on March 1, 2023, according to documents provided to the committee. It details a laundry list of issues with the facility that required “immediate attention and resolution” by the DMVA, including a faulty HVAC system, “non-compliant fire-rated assemblies,” “inadequate site storm water drainage, gaps in building envelope and deficiencies in mechanical system.”
The report also found several “non-compliant life safety conditions” with the facility, including fire safety issues. Moreover, the report confirms statements by former residents and employees of the state veterans home about extensive mold in and outside of the building stemming from water intrusion in the building, in part from a leaky roof and poor stormwater drainage.
“Organic colony growth in the building [is] posing immediate danger to occupant life safety, health and welfare,” the mold assessment authors wrote.
The report also confirmed the presence of black mold in the building — detecting harmful mold types, Stachybotrys and Chaetomium, in parts of the buildings. Both release harmful mycotoxins, toxic compounds that are naturally produced by certain types of fungi.
“These molds can potentially indicate an ongoing moisture issue and are also known to be potentially allergenic and capable of producing mycotoxins, increasing the risk to sensitive individuals,” the assessment authors wrote. “In addition, there is typically a zero tolerance for the presence of Stachybotrys and Chaetomium molds in the interior environment.”
A former resident of the facility told CityView in January that he had debilitating symptoms that were indicative of possible mold poisoning.
The DMVA denied that mold was a contributing factor in the facility’s closing, despite several residents, caregivers and employees telling CityView that they had been informed that the mold was the main reason for the facility’s immediate closure.
Legislators expressed concerns over both the timeline of the report — pointing to the DMVA’s knowledge of the building’s deteriorating conditions three years before it closed — as well as its contents revealing site conditions.
“[It] would have been nice to have known about the water problems, and maybe something could have been done without shutting the facility down,” State Sen. Carl Ford (R-Dist. 33) said. “But when reports aren't filed by the DMVA, then there's nothing we can act on because we don't know. And that seems to be an ongoing problem with this agency.”
During the Feb. 27 meeting, committee members also highlighted other details in the Raymond report, including several references to plans from the owner (DMVA) to close the facility in 2028, “due to these uncovered existing conditions and other factors.”
Rep. Dennis Riddell (R-Dist. 64), a co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on General Government, asked Pierce and Edwards where the 2028 date in the report had come from. Neither were able to answer the question.
“At this time, I'm unaware where that came from,” Pierce responded. “I will find out where Raymond got that information.”
Legislators also expressed frustration that DMVA Secretary Lt. Gen. Walter Gaskin was again absent at the meeting, after not being in attendance at the first committee meeting on Jan. 30 on the state veterans home closure.
“It's a big disappointment to not have General Gaskin here to be concerned enough about our veterans and about a veteran's home to even show up at the second meeting that we now have had,” State Sen. Steve Jarvis (R-Dist. 30) said. “He had over a month to know that this meeting was coming about.”
In an email response to CityView on March 11, DMVA Director of Communications Tammy Martin said it was normal for department secretaries not to attend legislative briefings.
"Deputy Sec. Brian Pierce is the project manager and leads the task force handling the SVHF transition," Martin said. "It’s normal protocol for senior staff to present at briefings and secretaries do not attend. This is not an unusual occurrence. Mr. Pierce is also a retired officer and is more than qualified to handle the briefing."
Lawmakers said a decision about the building’s fate should be made soon, and the General Assembly should be the final arbiters of that decision.
“I personally think we've made a real muck up of this whole deal, and our objective should be to get on a straight path to a resolution of what's going to happen in the near future,” Cleveland said. “And it shouldn't take us 18 months or 12 months or even six months to come to that resolution. It should be resolved quickly.”
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608.
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