A-B Tech flagged in state report on community college vacancies

Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College was one of only two western North Carolina schools flagged in a new state report on long-term vacancies, putting one of Buncombe County’s main workforce pipelines under the microscope.

The North Carolina Office of the State Auditor’s DAVE report said community colleges across the state reported 136 long-term vacancies as of Dec. 31, 2025. DAVE defines a long-term vacancy as a position that has been open for six months or longer. If the openings stayed unfilled for a full fiscal year, the report said they would add up to $10.4 million in lapsed salaries.

The auditor said the purpose of the report was transparency, not to recommend eliminating vacancies for base-budget accuracy. The North Carolina Community College System agreed with the findings. Even so, the numbers point to a systemwide staffing strain that can show up first in classrooms, student services and technical programs that depend on enough instructors, advisors and support staff to keep schedules moving.

For Asheville, the stakes are especially local. A-B Tech says it is the largest higher education institution in Western North Carolina, founded in 1959 and serving about 23,000 students a year in Buncombe and Madison counties. The college offers more than 150 degrees, diplomas, certificates and workforce-training programs, which makes staffing gaps more than an administrative issue. If vacancies persist, the pressure could fall on health care training, skilled trades, manufacturing, continuing education and the student services that help people register, stay enrolled and finish on time.

The college’s role has only grown since Hurricane Helene hit the region on Sept. 27, 2024. A-B Tech says it reopened all buildings and returned to normal instruction modes in January 2025, after reopening on Oct. 28, 2024 under a hybrid learning model. It also received disaster-relief funding to help students pay for college during the 2025 spring and summer semesters. In December, hundreds of Buncombe County residents came to a resource fair at A-B Tech seeking post-Helene aid, underscoring how often the campus serves as a community hub as well as an educational one.

John D. Gossett, who became A-B Tech’s seventh president in July 2020, said after that resource fair, “We feel like we’re a part of it and we want to be a part of the solution.” Gossett also co-chairs the NC Community College System’s Faculty & Staff Recruitment and Retention Planning Team, a sign that staffing has become a live issue inside the system itself.

The broader backdrop is a system that still serves nearly 600,000 students annually across 58 colleges and saw a 5% increase in fall 2023 FTE enrollment, the biggest one-year jump in 15 years. For Buncombe employers and students, the question is whether A-B Tech can keep enough people in place to meet demand for training, credentials and the local workforce that depends on both.