$208,000 Pays for One Year’s Back Wages for Four County Employees

At the May 2 meeting of the Fannin Board of Commissioners, checks totaling $208,000 were at the center of a controversy within the Board of Commissioners (see “Bill Simonds Admits to Signing Checks Totaling $208,000 without Commissioners’ Approval).  The checks were signed and sent to Association of County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG) on April 15, 2016.  ACCG is a para-governmental organization which handles liability insurance for the Board of Commissioners. On April 18, 2016, the insurance company reimbursed the Board of Commissioners the full amount of the checks.

According to City Attorney Lynn Doss, the $208,000 checks had to be written because ACCG could not process the back wages awarded to the four former county employees who had brought the civil lawsuit.  (for more details read “Attorney Lynn Doss Explains EEOC Lawsuit”).  Ms. Doss stated that the money paid to ACCG and then forwarded to the former employees included payroll taxes of the former employees as well.

$208,000 seems like a very large sum for a years’ worth of back wages to four county employees, so FetchYourNews, through an open records request, obtained copies of the checks.  The net amount of wages received by the four former employees were $24,995.69, $21,327.90, $23,113.64 and $25,070.89.  Each person received one check.

However, the checks written to cover the one-year’s worth of back wages were $47,500.15, $43,165.19, $51,694.55 and $51,089.88, a considerable difference between what each employee received and what the Board of Commissioners paid for each employee.  The differences are approximately $20,000 to $25,000.

FetchYourNews spoke with County Clerk and Finance Director Rita Kirby to find out why there are such large differences between what the county paid out per employee and what the employee actually received.  Ms. Kirby stated that the differences are due to payroll taxes.  Taken to its conclusion, it means that the employee making $21,327.90 a year had approximately $20,000 in payroll taxes that same year.

Since the $208,000 in checks caused such controversy at the Board of Commissioners meeting, Ms. Kirby wants to emphasize that the money paid to ACCG to cover the back wages was reimbursed penny-for-penny by the ACCG.  Also, Ms. Kirby emphasized that the lawsuit for back wages was not settled by the county.  Rather it was settled by ACCG.  At the Board of Commissioners meeting, Ms. Doss was very clear in stating that ACCG, not the Board of Commissioners, decided to settle the lawsuit.  In fact, each of the four plaintiffs signed a statement that they were settling with ACCG and not with the Board of Commissioners.

In the end, Ms. Kirby says, that Fannin County did not pay any money whatsoever to settle the civil lawsuit.  She does not know how the $208,000 civil lawsuit settlement will affect the insurance premiums for the county for two reasons.  One, the county has not had any large sum claims against its policy in the past.  And, the structure of the liability insurance spreads liability costs across all counties using ACCG insurance since it is a mutual insurance fund.  Although she is not sure, Ms. Kirby can foresee that there may be a slight increase in insurance premiums due to the payout.