In a Wednesday phone call with MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, North Carolina’s Democratic state auditor Beth Wood ended the state’s contract with him because he “seemed to have trouble being independent.” Thursday was the day he signed the official letter that ended his contract.
The Washington Post said that Wood made the choice after talking with the Republican leaders of the state legislature. Wood hired Gruber in November 2013 to look at the state’s Community Care of North Carolina programme, which helps the poor and disabled get managed health care.
WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina, said on Thursday, “Gruber helped the auditor’s office find and analyse DHHS data during the year in between.” A spokesperson for the auditor’s office, Bill Holmes, told WRAL “That took at least eight months to fight with data.”
“Gruber’s statement that it was okay to lie to people to get what he wanted made our auditors think he had at least the look of an independence problem,” Holmes told WRAL.
WRAL says that Gruber will be paid $100,000 by the auditor’s office for work that has already been done. North Carolina is the second state this week where Gruber’s contracts have run into trouble.