Union County Sole Commissioner Harold Collins announced last week that he was paid too much his first year in office, noting that he has corrected the issue for Fiscal Year 2026 and beyond. The correction lowers his salary by close to $18,000 versus 2025.
Collins’ actual salary as calculated using a formula provided by the Association County Commissioners of Georgia is $116,339.82, and not the $134,000 he made last year.
Continue reading with a subscription.
North Georgia News — serving Union County since 1909.
$10 a month. Cancel anytime.
He has committed to reimbursing the county for the salary overpayment and is working out his best option to do so.
Collins made these announcements in a Jan. 15 public hearing that was scheduled to provide information and hear feedback on proposed revisions to the Union County Code of Ordinances clarifying the salary for the Office of Commissioner.
County Attorney William Mercer explained that the revisions update the ordinance to incorporate language from a salary-setting resolution adopted locally in 2012; lower the longevity increase to what is provided under state law; adjust the pay frequency from monthly to bi-weekly; up the allowance for expenses incurred on official business to account for inflation since the original allowance was set in 1984; and remove language that no longer applies.
Collins held the first reading to update the ordinance in his December regular meeting and is expected to hold a second reading at his county meeting this Thursday, Jan. 22, with adoption to follow in a subsequent meeting.
As to how it came about that Collins made so much his first year in office, he shared that he did not even know his salary until his first day as commissioner because he ran not for a paycheck but to increase transparency and accountability in local government.
According to Collins, when he asked about his pay in January 2025, the former finance director told him how much he would be making; after responding that he believed the pay was too high, Collins said he was informed the salary amount was correct.
The former finance director left county government during Collins’ second month in office, and Kay Wilcox came aboard as the new finance director shortly thereafter.
As part of the FY26 budgeting process, Wilcox said she did the annual salary calculation from scratch because, as a new county employee, she had never done it before and wanted to verify the figure herself, and she discovered “some problems” that led to the pay adjustment.
Wilcox presented Collins’ 2026 pay calculation in the hearing, using a slideshow to take the roughly two dozen attendees from the public step by step through the salary formula that resulted in the correct annual compensation for the commissioner.
Collins grew emotional when discussing what had happened, saying it was never his intent to get paid more than he was owed and that he remained committed to being transparent in office.
“I’m trying to save y’all money,” he said. “I’m trying to set an example for other employees to save county money. That’s why I was elected, to help the county out, not to drain it. And you can ask any of these employees that we’re all trying to save y’all money. But I am going to pay the money back, because it’s not mine.”
Public feedback was overall positive during Q&A, with multiple residents commending Collins for being transparent about and correcting the salary issue, to include his commitment to returning the overage from 2025.
On the flip side, one attendee said the presentation was too complicated for most people to understand and therefore suffered from a lack of transparency. But Collins said he showed the multistep calculation so that the public would know exactly how his office arrived at the correct salary.
Another resident spoke in opposition to the proposed revisions and contended that resolutions do not affect ordinances. If true, that would potentially mean Collins’ updated salary is still too high under the current ordinance, though the Commissioner’s Office disagrees with this position.
Discussion turned to the salary of former commissioner Lamar Paris, with another attendee applauding Collins for clarifying his salary but inquiring if Paris had received the appropriate number of cost-of-living adjustments, and if not, if he was entitled to backpay.
County Attorney Mercer said the focus of the presentation that evening was Collins’ salary, and that the Commissioner’s Office had not come prepared to talk about the former commissioner’s pay.
The resident said he would like for an audit or some calculation of Paris’ salary to make sure he had been fairly compensated, to which Mercer replied, “I understand what you’re asking for; I can’t give you that answer today.”
Earlier in the meeting, Collins had said he would start using the county vehicle more if critics didn’t “get off my back,” and another attendee spoke in support of that proposition, challenging him to “run the wheels off of it” because he was “doing a great job being a commissioner.”
“One other thing, and not to toot my horn anymore, but do people know what this is?” Collins asked, holding up a credit card. “I have not used the card one time. Now, if (people) want to stay on my back, it won’t be breaking the law if I use it for business. So, give me a little credit here.”
Ultimately, Collins said he was not planning to use the government-issued credit card.
In a show of support for Collins’ stated mission of saving taxpayers money and bringing transparency to the office, one resident asked that he not let “one or two people change what you’re allowed to do and what you’re doing – they are going to ruin it for the entire county.”
