Members of the Cobb Board of Elections will be receiving a big pay boost for the work that they do.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday voted to increase the monthly stipends for the five-member board, which is one of only six appointed bodies in the county getting them.
By a 3-2 vote, commissioners approved a request to increase the stipends by $50 a month.
The chair’s monthly stipend will go from $200 a month to $450 a month, and the other four members’ stipends are rising from $150 to $350 a month.
While those represent more than double what they had been paid, the new amounts are less than what was requested. An agenda item stated that $600 monthly stipend was being sought for the chair and $500 a month for everyone else.
Interim Cobb Elections director Michael D’Istri said at Tuesday’s commissioners meeting that elections board members haven’t received a raise in more than three decades, and in more recent years, their workload has increased.
Typically board members are now meeting several times a month during occasionally long meetings. A new Georgia elections law requires elections boards across the state to hold additional certification meetings around elections.
This year alone, with several municipal elections concluding in November, board members will be holding more than 30 meetings.
D’Istri also noted more recent political tensions, including in Cobb, which has swung from Republican domination in local offices to Democrats holding all countywide offices as well as majorities on the commission and legislative delegation. The GOP has a slight edge on the Cobb school board.
“The culture, the environment, the atmosphere of elections has changed drastically over the years,” D’Istri said.
Those tensions have broken out into the open at elections board meetings, including a proposed by-law change that was dropped in August. Democrats have four appointees on the current board; the Republicans one.
Current chair Jennifer Mosbacher, an appointee of Democratic Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, has been attacked by some citizens for her refusal to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
After Cupid made a comparison to the stipends for Cobb Planning Commission members, who get around $10,00 a year, Commissioner JoAnn Birrell of East Cobb said the comparison wasn’t fair.
She said planning board members, who meet once a month, do a lot of outside work, visiting sites and holding community meetings.
But Birrell, who voted against the elections board increases along with Keli Gambrill, the other Republican commissioner, was more concerned about the precedent.
“If we do this outside of the budget, we’re going to get a lot of other requests” from other appointed bodies.
According to the agenda item, the additional annual expense for the elections board stipend rises comes to $21,600, and those raises are effective immediately.
Related:
- Another ‘No Kings’ protest planned in East Cobb
- ‘Community Coffee and Protest’ group gathering in East Cobb
- At Charlie Kirk vigil, a call for ‘sharing the light’
- MORE: Visit the East Cobb News Politics & Elections Page
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