N.C. governor recused herself from IEM recruiting

North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue didn’t play a recruiting role with bringing IEM to her state because her son had been working with the company. Mutliple media outlets reported Perdue recused herself from dealing with Baton Rouge-based IEM, which announced Monday it was moving to Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill and bringing 430 jobs. That’s because Perdue’s son, Garrett, works at a law firm that helped represent the outfit. A Perdue spokeswoman says the state Commerce Department handled the recruiting to avoid a conflict of interest. The governor typically gets involved in trying to lure a company at the request of the state’s commerce secretary Keith Crisco. IEM could receive as much as $9 million in rebates from income taxes withheld from its employees as part of a Job Development Investment Grant from the state. North Carolina also awarded IEM a $150,000 grant from the One North Carolina Fund. Officials with IEM, a disaster management-consulting firm, say the incentives were not a factor in the decision to move its headquarters.