African American Caucus NCDP

Perdue's transition team is holding several days of meetings that turn the tables on top executives.

By Mark Johnson

RALEIGH Tax lawyer Eva Stein typically deals with the N.C. Department of Revenue by calling a field agent. On Friday, she got to grill the department's top executives in person.

Gov.-elect Bev Perdue's transition team is turning the tables of government power, if only for a day at a time. They're letting constituents and interest groups question – and complain to – some of the state's highest-ranking officials about how their departments operate.

“What about money we're not collecting?” one participant asked top officials at the state Revenue Department during a session on Friday.

Another in the audience of 26 people inquired about finding a way to tax an L.L. Bean sweater ordered on the Internet.

Perdue's staff has invited the public to transition meetings in the Raleigh area to hear department heads and their top aides explain their agency's role, justify what they do and outline plans for the department's future. The sessions are intended to help Perdue if she wants to reshape state government. The forums provide the sort of scrutiny the agencies might endure sitting in front of a panel of legislators.

“You see that happen in the legislature every day,” said Don Hobart, a leader of Perdue's transition team. “Why not let it happen with members of the public?”

Perdue, though, is ratcheting up the pressure further. She has not attended any of this week's sessions, instead putting members of her transition team in the room, people who will help make decisions about how state government will run and who will run it after she takes office.

It's akin to customers getting to pose questions to store managers with the new team from corporate headquarters watching and listening to the answers.

“I generally represent the little guy,” said Stein, who is building back her practice after time off for parenting.

Her stable of clients is two house painters, and she described how an auditor for the revenue department told her he didn't want to advise tax filers of a step that would help avoid an audit.

“It's very disturbing to hear these stories of ‘gotcha,'” Revenue Secretary Reggie Hinton said moments later.

Perdue has spent 22 years in Raleigh as a legislator or lieutenant governor. She is also a Democrat following 16 years of Democratic governors, so she has to defy expectations of more-of-the-same. The transition sessions, questioning even the basic purposes and plans of each agency, send a signal that she's out to do things differently, aides said.

Perdue's team scheduled 14 issue-driven sessions during this week and next week on topics ranging from aging to mental health to transportation.