Now with the creation of the region offices, Owens said his staff has the opportunity to further improve their relationships with region managers and staff in the field.

"We want to be much more involved and active with region management," Owens said. "We are trying to take on a role of more than just auditors – we want to be a resource people can call on. We want to work with people in the field, not against them."

Right now, Internal Audit has offices set up in three of the five regions with the oldest being in Lenoir, located in the Western Region. Two more offices recently opened up in McCain, located in the South Central Region, and in Raleigh which is located in the Central Region. In addition, Internal Audit has also established a central operations team to focus on central administrative and operational areas such as the controller’s office.

Owens said he would eventually like to see offices in all five regions as the resources become available, but stressed that until that time, the Eastern and Piedmont regions will not be overlooked.

"Our auditors cross region lines," he said. "We’ll still go where the audits are needed."

With the establishment of the regions, auditors are now able to go into a region and do a region-wide audit of a particular function such as cashless canteens instead of just doing individual audits of an entire prison. After the audit is complete, a report is given to the region director on that particular function.

"The region directors have been real good about following up on our findings," Owens said. "The key to effective auditing is having management follow up. This partnership is working real well. It’s been beneficial for the whole department."