North Carolina's prison system faces twin fiscal crises that compound its staffing shortage: a $1.4 billion deferred maintenance backlog across its physical plant, and healthcare costs approaching half a billion dollars annually. The figures, drawn from NCDAC budget presentations to the North Carolina General Assembly in 2025, paint a picture of an aging corrections infrastructure that has been underfunded for decades and is now approaching a point where deferred maintenance becomes safety failure.
The $1.4 Billion Maintenance Backlog
North Carolina operates approximately 56 state correctional facilities — one of the largest state prison systems in the country by facility count. Many of those facilities were built decades ago, and the accumulated deferred maintenance — repairs and replacements that were budgeted but not funded, or never budgeted at all — now totals an estimated $1.4 billion.
The most alarming specific finding: fire suppression systems are outdated or completely inoperable in 23 of North Carolina's prisons. A fire in a correctional facility — where inmates cannot self-evacuate — is among the most dangerous emergency scenarios in any institutional setting. An inoperable fire suppression system means that a fire that starts in a housing unit must be controlled by human response and manual firefighting alone, with no automatic suppression buying time for evacuation. Thirteen of those 23 facilities have no air conditioning — a climate safety concern as North Carolina summers increasingly push heat-index temperatures into ranges dangerous for medically vulnerable populations.
Why Deferred Maintenance Compounds
Correctional facilities, like all large institutional buildings, require continuous maintenance investment. Deferred maintenance is not just a financial accounting problem — it physically degrades the building. A roof that leaks, left unrepaired, leads to water infiltration that damages structural elements. An HVAC system that is not maintained fails and must be replaced at full cost rather than serviced at partial cost. Fire suppression systems that are not regularly tested and maintained drift into inoperability through normal wear rather than sudden catastrophic failure.
At $1.4 billion, North Carolina's backlog is large enough that the state cannot simply write a one-time check to address it — it would require a sustained capital investment program over multiple budget years, and that program is competing with education, transportation, and other capital needs for the same legislative appropriation dollars.
Healthcare: $400M and Rising
In fiscal year 2024, NCDAC spent $400 million on healthcare for its incarcerated population — approximately one-quarter of the department's entire budget. The projection for fiscal year 2025 was $425 million, a $25 million increase in a single year.
The healthcare cost trajectory reflects several intersecting factors:
- Aging population: As people serve longer sentences, the average age of North Carolina's prison population rises. Older inmates have higher rates of chronic disease, require more intensive and more expensive care, and are more expensive to treat for acute conditions.
- Mental health costs: A significant and growing share of healthcare costs reflects mental health services — assessment, medication management, and crisis intervention for a population with much higher rates of serious mental illness than the general public.
- Specialty care: Oncology, cardiology, dialysis, and other specialty services that people cannot access through standard community healthcare must be provided or contracted by the DOC.
What This Means for Inmates and Families
Facilities with inoperable fire suppression and no air conditioning are not abstract concerns — they are concrete safety risks for the people living in them. If your loved one is in a North Carolina state prison:
- Ask the facility administration whether fire suppression systems in their housing area are operational
- If your loved one has a heat-sensitive medical condition, request a medical accommodation for air-conditioned housing — documented through the medical unit
- Report safety concerns through the formal NCDAC grievance process and, if unresolved, to the North Carolina Office of the Ombudsman for State Government
NCDAC headquarters: 831 West Morgan Street, Mail Service Center 4260, Raleigh, NC 27699. Phone: (919) 716-3200. Website: dac.nc.gov.