RALEIGH — Residents of a rural county in northeast North Carolina are up in arms over a decision during the height of the recession to hand out a 42-percent raise to the county’s top official.

The move has led to a petition drive that would rescind the pay hike or — failing that — recall the five Bertie County commissioners who OK’d the raise two years ago. For their part, the commissioners say the salary increase was justified given County Manager Zee Lamb’s status as a licensed attorney and his track record of cost savings for the county.

That explanation doesn’t hold water with the Friends of Bertie — Rescind the Raise Committee, a grass-roots group cobbled together to fight the pay bump. They’ve leveled accusations of backroom deals and illegal secrecy, and are planning to sue the county for declining to release audio tapes of a closed-door meeting where commissioners approved Lamb’s new contract.

“The more you peel back the onion, the worse it smells,” said Bertie County resident John Davis, a spokesman for the activist group. “Whether they are Republican or Democrat, black or white, everybody gets what’s going on here.”

Attempts to reach commissioners and county officials for comment were not successful, but County Attorney Lloyd Smith defended the board’s actions in a letter March 16 to a lawyer retained by the Friends of Bertie. In it, Smith claimed that elected officials had acted within the law, and that litigation over the closed-door meeting would be fruitless.

“Please feel free to file a suit and we will let our Resident Superior Court Judge deal with this issue if your clients wish to waste their money,” Smith wrote.

Raise furor

Lamb began his tenure as county manager in 2000 at an annual salary of $77,000. Nine years later, his pay stood at $101,725 before commissioners agreed in August 2009 to increase that to $144,000. They also boosted Lamb’s travel allotment from $6,000 per year to $9,000.

Lamb’s compensation package appeared to match other North Carolina managers who oversee counties of a comparable population — until the pay hike, that is. The increase put Lamb on par with county managers in more populated, business-dense regions, such as Gaston County near Charlotte.

According to data from the University of North Carolina School of Government, Lamb’s pay is the highest of any county adjoining Bertie. The closest in compensation is Washington County’s manager at a salary of $108,871 per year plus $3,600 for travel.

Lamb’s wages are the second-highest for county managers in the northeast North Carolina region, trailing only Dare County at $239,794 per year. Beaufort County’s top dog is a close third at $135,000 per year.

For the past five years that data are available, the N.C. Department of Commerce has ranked Bertie County as “tier 1,” the worst designation of economic distress. As of the 2000 Census, the county’s median household income was around $25,000 annually. One-fourth of the population was below the poverty line.

Bertie County’s unemployment rate stood at 12.3 percent in January, over two percentage points higher than the state average.

‘A diatribe’

In a joint statement released in late February, Bertie County commissioners tried to justify the raise by pointing to Lamb’s track record.

According to the statement, Lamb’s list of accomplishments include raising the collection rate for property taxes by 7 percent, cracking down on delinquent taxpayers, attracting a new prison to the county, and successfully lobbying the General Assembly to transfer gradually the Medicaid funding burdens from counties to the state.

Lamb’s status as a licensed attorney also enabled him to handle minor legal matters for the county, which Lloyd said had saved up to $50,000 per year in legal fees.

Davis labeled the 14-page justification “a diatribe.” He said that Lamb should be given credit for some of the projects and cost savings, but that most were a joint effort.

The Friends of Bertie hope to collect thousands of signatures in a petition drive to convince the county to rescind the raise, Davis said. If they don’t, the group will push for a recall election.

David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.