Wake County Manager David Cooke is incensed that the East Wake Fire and Rescue Department disobeyed a directive from him not to spend county funds to pay a backlog of vacation time owed to several fire department employees.

Fire department leaders asked for direction on how to deal with the expense, which was a liability on the agency's books, but got no positive direction.

The county has used the payments, which total about $87,000, as a means for gaining control of the department.

It seems to us, the county could have helped the fire department resolve the problem, and avoid the back and forth and the negative publicity had they responded to the fire department's request for advice.

The county has an obligation to manage its funds well. Agencies, such as Eastern Wake Fire and Rescue, have an obligation to follow the guidelines set by their funders.

But the county serves no one well by failing to advise its partners on how to resolve issues like this one.

The county's response - you can't use county money to pay off the vacation time - does nothing to solve the problem for a department that seemed willing to resolve the matter in a way that was satisfactory to both parties.

It makes us wonder about the county's real motivation.