Legislation that would give a whopping pay cut to the state’s highest-paid elected official -- a measure thought to be dead for the year -- has been revived.
Fulton County Tax Commissioner Arthur Ferdinand took in $347,000 last year, a level approaching the salary of the U.S. president.
His county salary is $134,440, but he also collects personal fees from three cities whose taxes his office handles -- Atlanta, Sandy Springs and Johns Creek.
Ferdinand collects $1 per parcel, which last year amounted to $212,624. The cities also paid a combined $2.76 million to the county for the services.
A group of Northside Republicans is trying to stop it, arguing city residents are being subjected to double taxation.
A bill introduced earlier this year by Rep. Lynne Riley, R-Johns Creek, and five co-sponsors aimed to stop tax collectors statewide from charging personal fees, but it didn't make it out of the House by a key deadline. Now state Rep. Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, has added it to Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers' property tax reform bill (Senate Bill 234).
That bill is scheduled to be considered Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee, which Willard chairs.
Willard, who is also Sandy Springs' city attorney, calls Ferdinand's earnings "obscene."
"He's doing it because he can get away with it," he said. "The only thing to stop him now is changing the law."
Ferdinand declined to comment on the bill, saying he'll deal with it if it passes. Jackson County Tax Commissioner Donald Elrod, president of the Georgia Association of Tax Officials, said that's probably what will happen.
"I don't think we have time to stop it," he said.
By trying to reel in the pay of the largest county's tax commissioner, lawmakers will be hurting tax offices in smaller communities, Elrod said. He said he collected about $7,000 last year for billing Commerce and Jefferson taxes, keeping $4,300 and giving the rest to his staff as Christmas bonuses.
Elrod said the bill also sets bad policy by giving county commissioners power to order tax commissioners, who are elected constitutional officers, to take on outside work. That provision, however, is how the lawmakers plan to curb Ferdinand's ability to charge fees.
Willard authored 2007 legislation designed to stop the personal fees, but Ferdinand went on charging the cities under existing contracts. The new law would allow the cities to end those contracts, then circumvent the tax commissioner and forge new pay arrangements with the Fulton County Commission.
If the tax commissioner wants extra pay, that would have to be worked out with the commission under the proposed law.
The legislation also would apply to DeKalb Tax Commissioner Claudia Lawson, who collects fees from nine cities and earned $237,290 last year.
Lawson did not immediately return messages Tuesday. She said in a past interview that the practice started with her predecessor, Tom Scott, and she doesn't have strong feelings about the Legislature possibly bringing the payments to an end.
The county already gives Lawson a combined $50,000 for handling taxes for Dunwoody and the DeKalb portion of Atlanta, under deals struck after the 2007 law took effect.
Tax commissioners in Cobb and Gwinnett don't collect personal fees.
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