Kirkpatrick bill seeks to end court clerks profiting from passport fees

Feb. 3—A Cobb legislator has taken the lead on a Georgia Senate bill aimed at curbing the practice of county officials profiting off passport processing fees.

State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, R-east Cobb, co-authored the bill, which would prohibit superior court clerks and probate judges from pocketing the fees — $35 for each passport application — as personal income. Cobb senators Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, and John Albers, R-Roswell, are co-sponsors.

Instead, Kirkpatrick said, the money should go to a county's general fund and the court clerk's office, "to be used solely for purposes of maintaining and operating the office of such clerk," according to the bill's language.

A federal regulation permits local officials to pocket the $35 charge on each passport application they process. Collections by Cobb County Superior Court Clerk Connie Taylor gained scrutiny at the end of last year following media reports that she banked more than $425,000 in fees since taking office in 2021.

Taylor is also facing a Georgia Bureau of Investigation probe connected to her fee receipts, opened after a whistleblower alleged she was ordered by Taylor to destroy records of the income.

Taylor did not respond to the Journal's request for comment.

Kirkpatrick said that the initial draft of the bill had half of the collected fees going to a county's general fund, while the other half would go to the clerk's office.

"I did change the bill to allow some flexibility for the counties to work the percentage out, but the point being that I don't think it should be taken as personal income," Kirkpatrick said.

Kirkpatrick worked with the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia to draft the bill, and she told the MDJ roughly 50 counties in Georgia let their clerks take home application fees as personal income.

Kirkpatrick added that Cobb is not the only metro Atlanta county where the superior court clerk is pocketing significant sums. An Atlanta News First investigation in December found that Fulton County Superior Court Clerk Cathelene Robinson took home upwards of $360,000 in passport processing fees.

In an interview with the MDJ last month, some of Cobb's Democratic lawmakers discussed the issue of clerks personally profiting from passport fees and showed hesitancy in doing away with the practice entirely.

State Rep. David Wilkerson, D-Powder Springs, and his colleagues noted the practice is widespread across the state — Kirkpatrick said 50 of Georgia's 159 counties do it. Efforts to overturn the rule may not see the same support from rural counties where the passport fee income is needed to supplement low salaries for court clerk positions.

Said Teri Anulewicz, D-Smyrna, "It was a unique and unprecedented situation, but I think that Representative Wilkerson is correct. We are but one of 159 (counties), and I think that while you have something very high-profile, there are 158 other clerks and their supporters and their counties who are going to be watching this legislation very closely."

SB 19 will have its first hearing in the Georgia Senate Committee on Government Oversight next week. Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, the only Democrat to co-sponsor the bill, sits on the committee.

"I don't really see a good public policy reason for one individual that is a government employee who serves the people to be able to enrich themselves by a function of their office," Parent told the MDJ. "I think that presents poor incentives and some conflicts of interest."