Court clerk plans return of $84,000

By Hunter Riggall

hriggall@mdjonline.com

Cobb Superior Court Clerk Connie Taylor plans to refund the county nearly $84,000 in shipping fees which she improperly collected.

The fees, part of a yearslong controversy over Taylor’s collecting passport application fees as personal income, were identified as improper years ago.

Within her office, Taylor operates a passport services office. A controversial state law allows her to collect a $35 processing fee assessed on passport applications as personal income. In the first two years of her term, she collected more than $425,000 in passport fees, on top of her $170,000 salary.

The law does not, however, allow her to pocket optional $24.70 expedited shipping charges. In fiscal years 2021 and 2022, she did so to the tune of $83,658.90.

An item on the Cobb Board of Commissioners’ meeting agenda for Tuesday indicates Taylor will refund the county for the shipping fees, subject to board approval.

This is not the first time Taylor indicated she would return the money. In

See CLERK, A12

Connie Taylor

From A1

November 2022, Taylor indicated she planned to return the funds, and an item was placed on the Board of Commissioners agenda. But the item was abruptly pulled at the start of the meeting in which it was scheduled to be voted on.

At the meeting, County Manager Jackie McMorris told commissioners “there were just so many questions that we didn’t have time to get answers to … She’s a constitutional officer. We can’t speak for you, I can’t tell you what to do, what not do. It’s your decision.”

The issue did not come up again at the Board of Commissioners until now, more than two years later.

Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell said the commission didn’t accept the refund in 2022 because they weren’t certain if the accounting had been properly done.

“It rightfully should be paid back, as it was taken illegally,” Birrell said. “She wasn’t supposed to take these expedited shipping fees. I’m glad to see it finally paid back.” Taylor, a Democrat, was first elected in 2020. Her lucrative pocketing of passport fees was carried over from her predecessor, Republican Rebecca Keaton. The practice began receiving heightened scrutiny in the fall of 2022 after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Taylor had earned $425,000 in passport fees.

Shortly after, a whistleblower accused Taylor of ordering records related to that income destroyed. The whistleblower’s claims prompted a Georgia Bureau of Investigation probe. That investigation was turned over to the office of Attorney General Chris Carr last year.

In the wake of the scandal, state Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, R-east Cobb, attempted to pass a bill that would have banned court clerks pocketing passport fees.

Defenders of the practice, however, pointed to cashstrapped rural counties where the passport income supplements meager clerk salaries.

As it moved through the Legislature, Kirkpatrick’s bill was watered down to a transparency bill before it was passed. Now, clerks simply have to disclose the passport fees they receive in quarterly reports to their county commission.

Taylor’s office told the MDJ in January that Taylor has not collected any passport fees since 2022.

The passport fee saga is only one scandal that Taylor has weathered. Last fall, severe dysfunction in her office led Chief Judge Gregory Poole to declare a two-month judicial emergency, suspending legal deadlines for a variety of different cases. In Georgia, that extraordinary step has typically been reserved for natural disasters and global pandemics.

Taylor’s office is responsible for receiving and maintaining criminal and civil filings for Cobb Superior Court, which has broad jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases, and has exclusive jurisdiction over felony trials, divorces and title to land.

The performance issues in Taylor’s office didn’t start in 2024, but they were exacerbated that summer, when she changed the court’s case management system software. The conversion was botched, and came with little warning.

That led to notices never being delivered, an unprecedented number of no-shows before the bench and several days where no court documents could be electronically filed.

Attorneys and judges told the MDJ the communication failures made conducting business in Cobb Superior Court a nightmare. Sixty percent of respondents to a 2024 survey of Cobb Bar Association members rated their experience with Cobb Superior Court Clerk Connie Taylor’s Office as “poor.”

Many attributed the issues to high turnover and low morale among Taylor’s staff.

Despite the performance issues and passport drama, Taylor was reelected to a new four-year term last November, defeating a Republican challenger with 54% of the vote.

— MDJ reporter Annie Mayne contributed to this report.