Cobb Clerk Taylor's passport proceeds outpace her predecessor's

Nov. 26—Cobb Superior Court Clerk Connie Taylor's passport fee collections have dwarfed those of her predecessor, Rebecca Keaton, in less than half the time in office.

Taylor, who is facing an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation related to her office's handling of the fees, has personally received more than $425,000 in fee collections since she took office in January 2021. The money is in addition to her annual salary of $169,913.

Meanwhile Keaton, who opened the passport application office in 2017, collected about $117,000 over the course of three and a half years, records obtained by the MDJ show.

The full scope of Taylor's earnings is likely greater than $425,000; in response to an open records request from the MDJ for all collections to date, her office provided only passport fee collections through August of this year.

The GBI investigation, meanwhile, comes on the heels of allegations from a subordinate of Taylor's, who said Taylor ordered her to destroy passport fee records rather than provide them in response to an open records request in October.

Taylor defeated Keaton in the 2020 election, and has served since January 2021. Keaton served eight years from 2013 to 2020.

Federal regulations allow local officials who process passport applications to charge a $35 fee for their trouble, while Georgia law permits county clerks who do so to pocket that money as personal income.

The significant increase in personal income for Taylor over her predecessor has been for two reasons, records show.

The first is an explosion in passport applications over the last two years. Taylor's office has received about 62% more applications in the 19 months from January 2021 to August 2022 than Keaton received in 3.5 years from July 2017 to December 2020.

The second reason is that Taylor has pocketed 100% of the fee collections since she took office, giving none to the county.

That's in keeping with how Keaton used the money toward the end of her term. In her final months in office, she took all of the passport proceeds as income after giving a sizable portion to the county in the years prior.

When Keaton first opened the passport office in 2017, its proceeds were modest. The office was initially open one day per week, she told the Board of Commissioners during a work session at the time, and it collected less than $16,000 in its first six months.

About 40% of that ($6,370 in 2017) went to Keaton. The remaining 60% ($9,410) was paid out to Cobb.

That split held for about two years, the MDJ found, until June 2019. Keaton's office then moved to share the funds roughly 50-50 with the county.

In an interview last week with the MDJ, Keaton said she didn't recall how she'd decided how to divide up the proceeds. But she did recall it didn't come out of talks with county leaders.

"No, none of that was really done," Keaton said.

Commissioner JoAnn Birrell did not recall any such discussions taking place. Cobb Chairwoman Lisa Cupid did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Records show Keaton's office operated on the 50-50 split from mid-2019 up to the pandemic's onset. For more than three months, the office was shuttered completely. When it reopened in July 2020, she took in 75% of the roughly $3,000 raised that month.

Then, for what would be the final five months of Keaton's tenure, she collected 100% of the proceeds from the passport office, receiving over $25,600 in those months alone. Keaton reiterated Friday she didn't recall how she came to receive 100% of the passport office's proceeds.

"It's only been two years. I was there for eight. I didn't collect even nearly that much money," Keaton said, referring to Taylor's income. "I can't even recall how much money was collected, but it wasn't anything close to that."

So I think that as far as the clerks being able to do it or not, it's — not many people know about it," she said. "You're right. Not many people know about it, even our Board of Commissioners."

State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, R-east Cobb, told the MDJ she's preparing legislation to change that (state Rep. Ginny Ehrhart, R-west Cobb, has expressed the same sentiment).

"The details are still being worked out. But I don't think that people in that position should be taking personal income over and above their salary. And I think it ought to be disclosed to the county and available to the public to review," Kirkpatrick said. "...I was really shocked. I can't even imagine how that could happen without ... anybody really knowing about it, and it's clearly wrong on many levels."