Currituck County manager to retire after years of service
McRee’s exit will force ‘all hands on deck’
CURRITUCK — Longtime Currituck County manager Ike McRee will retire April 1, according to a Wednesday morning meeting announcement.
This announcement comes just weeks after disagreements between commissioners led to the Feb. 15 censuring of Commissioner Paul Beaumont in a 5-2 vote over his alleged involvement in the public posting of a job announcement for the position of county manager with the staffing firm Insight Global.
The Currituck County Board of Commissioners will “discuss a succession plan to fill the position of county manager” in a work session at 5 p.m. Friday, according to Wednesday’s announcement.
McRee has served the county for over 30 years in various roles, according to county spokesperson Randall Edwards.
McRee’s service has including several tenures as county attorney. He also spent over a year serving as county attorney and county manager, which ended when a new county attorney was hired in summer 2022.
A copy of McRee’s contract — for Feb. 7, 2022, through July 31, 2024 — said that the agreement would renew for an additional three years unless the county notified the employee “in writing at least six months prior to expiration” of nonrenewal.
Commissioners disagreed on whether this notice was given, but County Attorney Megan Morgan said the Oct. 23 letter board members gave him was not sufficient notice for several different reasons.
Without a vote to formalize nonrenewal, McRee’s contract automatically renewed, she explained this month.
Beaumont maintained that following discussions with Chair Bob White, and with White’s approval, he was doing a background search for county manager candidates. He said someone at the company made the posting public although they were unauthorized to do so.
Reached Wednesday, Beaumont noted his original conversations with White “were just in case something like this happened.
It’s regrettable that Insight Global did what they did, but it didn’t negate what would have been prudent at the time.”
Beaumont said he wished McRee well in his retirement. He also shared concerns over the timing of his departure.
“It’s going to be all hands on deck,” Beaumont said, noting that the county must approve a budget by the end of June and it would be difficult for someone new to be hired and be brought up to speed in time to facilitate that.
“Basically we the commissioners are going to need to be a lot more involved in developing a budget for the county,” Beaumont said.
“At this time we have not met to discuss what we will do,” White said in a Wednesday via email. “We will have a work session Friday to discuss.”
McRee could not be reached by press deadline.