Cobb County Superior Court Clerk Connie Taylor will repay nearly $84,000 in expedited passport fees that she pocketed over her first two years in office.
State law allows superior court clerks to keep the $35 processing fee paid by area residents applying for U.S. passports, but Cobb officials said Taylor also hung onto the $24.70 expedited shipping charges that should have gone into the county’s coffers.
Because those shipping costs were borne by taxpayers, Cobb commissioners voted 4-0 Tuesday to accept a check from Taylor’s office reimbursing the county for those mail operations.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found Taylor collected more than $425,000 in passport fees in 2021 and 2022 alone. That was in addition to the $170,000 salary she receives for managing her office, which serves as the custodian of property records and all civil and criminal filings for Cobb Superior Court cases.
“It’s legal, but is it ethical?” Cobb County Commissioner JoAnn Birrell asked ahead of Tuesday’s meeting. “It goes into her personal account, and by law that’s allowed. But we have no record.”
Dozens of other elected officials across the state have done the same for decades under the controversial law allowing superior court clerks to supplement their income with passport processing fees, which are collected on behalf of the U.S. State Department.
Taylor, however, profited to an unusual degree thanks to a surge in applications handled by her office in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, an AJC review found. The investigation also showed she kept more passport fees than other metro Atlanta clerks, many of whom share some or all of that extra revenue with the local government.
Taylor did not respond to requests for comment or attend Tuesday night’s commission meeting. Libby Blackwell, her chief operating officer, spoke to commissioners and answered their questions instead.
Blackwell said Taylor was prepared to refund the money two years ago, and that the county has already received more than $43,750 for expedited passport processing fees collected by their office in 2023 and 2024.
Cobb Commission Chair Lisa Cupid acknowledged Taylor wanted to return the funds earlier, but said there were questions about how much was owed and what could be collected. Because county officials have no oversight into the collection of passport fees, they couldn’t say exactly how much Taylor has made since taking office.
“It is truly up to the clerk to be honest, transparent, open and reimburse the county for fees she has collected,” Commissioner Keli Gambrill told Taylor’s COO. “This is something the clerk … should have been doing all along and had not.”
Blackwell said a check from Taylor’s office was ready to be delivered to the county’s finance team as soon as Wednesday. She also said money collected from travelers wishing to have their passports expedited is now being placed in a separate account.
“They now go into two separate funds,” Blackwell said.
The GBI opened an investigation into Taylor’s office in late 2022 after a whistleblower alleged the clerk ordered her to delete records related to passport fees kept as personal income. Those findings were turned over to Attorney General Chris Carr’s office, which said Tuesday the case remains “open and active.”
A bill aimed at limiting how much extra cash clerks could pocket from passport applications was heavily stripped down in last year’s legislative session. But starting this year, the constitutional officers are required to provide their counties with quarterly reports disclosing exactly how much they collect, Birrell said.
She said Taylor’s first report won’t be due until the end of March.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
