Candidate spotlight: Mike Boyce, Cobb Commission Chairman

Cobb budget town hall, Mike Boyce, Cobb public safety bonus, Cobb millage rate — *Boyce has held numerous budget and other town hall meetings during his time as chairman. (ECN file)*

Ever since he unseated Tim Lee as Cobb Commission Chairman in 2016, Mike Boyce has acknowledged what was behind it.

“They didn’t vote for Mike Boyce,” he says now, as he’s campaigning for re-election.

“They were ticked off by the Braves deal.”

Four years ago, Boyce, an East Cobb resident who also ran in 2012, rode anti-Lee sentiment to capture the Republican primary.

Four years ago, Boyce didn’t have a Democratic opponent, but if he should prevail in a three-way GOP primary on June 9, he would face commissioner Lisa Cupid.

His primary opponents are East Cobb resident Larry Savage, a previous chairman candidate who has challenged the county legally on the Braves deal and business tax breaks, and retired Cobb police officer Ricci Mason, a first-time candidate.

“I have to run on my record,” Boyce said. “Before, I was selling an idea.”

Boyce said he’s proud to tout that record: Preserving the county’s AAA bond rating (via a 2018 property tax increase unpopular with some Republican voters), taking the first measures toward a step-and-grade pay policy for public safety employees and enhancing quality of life with additional park land purchases and expanding library hours.

“People move here for the amenities, and look what we have done for public safety,” Boyce said, referring to three pay raises as well as the first steps in a new compensation and retention plan for police officers, firefighters and sheriff’s deputies.

(Here’s Boyce’s campaign website.)

Boyce defends the 2018 property tax increase, pointing to the commissioners’ vote—on the day he beat Lee in a runoff—to lower the millage rate.

“We faced a $30 million shortfall before I ever took office,” he said. “We came within an inch of losing our AAA rating,” the highest issued by creditors and highly desired by public bodies (the Cobb County School District also is rated AAA) when it borrows for short-term loans and bond issues.

Boyce said the county’s reserves were down to $10 million as well, and now it enjoys a $125 million contingency.

For the fiscal year 2021 budget that takes effect on October, Boyce is proposing to hold the line on the millage rate and continue with public safety pay measures. A merit pay raise for county employees is off the table, due to the economic hit to come from closures related to COVID-19.

Having that money on hand now, Boyce said, is vital.

“This isn’t just a rainy day,” he said. “It’s a rainy year.”

The county’s diversified business base also should help, but Boyce acknowledges it’s still a little early to tell “what the consequences of a loss of jobs, a loss of tax revenue will be.”

Commissioners voted this week to spend $50 million of an allotted $132 million in federal CARES Act funding for small business relief grants.

Continuing the work of addressing public safety issues would be a cornerstone of a second term for Boyce, who said “we have to show our first responders that this won’t be a one and done.”

If he should advance to the November ballot, a local referendum for Cobb voters will be on there too, asking whether to extend the Cobb SPLOST, which Boyce has stressed with road resurfacing and transportation projects, as well as other parks and recreation improvements.

When asked if he felt confident about the SPLOST’s chances of passing, Boyce said a 5-0 vote by commissioners this week to finalize the project list “was a big step. The board understands the importance of this. The emphasis on the roads really hits a sweet spot.”

Boyce also acknowledges he’s never been the candidate of choice by his party establishment. In 2016, Lee had GOP backing as the incumbent, as well as from business leaders.

During the tax increase debate, the Cobb Republican Party formally opposed it, and some critics have alleged all along that Boyce, a retired Marine colonel, is a RINO (Republican In Name Only).

Former Georgia GOP chairwoman Sue Everhart, a Cobb resident, and the Cobb County Republican Assembly, a group made up of fiscal and cultural conservatives, have endorsed Savage.

“I’ve just accepted the fact that they’re not in my corner,” Boyce said. “The only people who matter are all the voters.”

When he was first elected, the changes in the county’s demographics began to be revealed, as Cobb voted for Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. Democrats will be unified behind Cupid, who’s attempting to become the first Democrat to lead county government since Ernest Barrett in the early 1980s.

Boyce said he’s proud to run on a pledge to continue a set of broad-based priorities, with voters across the county in mind.

“I know I’ve done what’s in the best interests of the county,” he said.