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Fulton Tax Commissioner defends high salary
By Collin Kelley
IN town Editor
Arthur Ferdinand has faced - in
his estimation - a thousand lawsuits
since he became Fulton County Tax
Commissioner in 1997.
Those lawsuits have come
from disgruntled residents,
the county and the
municipalities he serves,
while lawmakers have tried
unsuccessfully to curb
Ferdinand’s unorthodox
- but completely legal
- pocketing of money
from selling off liens on
delinquent properties to
make him the highest paid
elected official in the state.
Ferdinand, a native
of Trinidad and former
executive at IBM, is
unapologetic. “If I do more work,
I should be compensated,” he said
frankly, noting that he also handles tax
collection for the City of Atlanta, Sandy
Springs, Johns Creek and Chattahoochee
Hills. “I don’t apologize for it one bit.”
Ferdinand gave a broad-reaching
talk and answered questions at the Sept.
II Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods
meeting. The tax commissioner’s name
has come up numerous times during
recent BCN meetings, mainly stemming
from his salary.
Arthur Ferdinand
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With an annual salary of around
$383,000, much of that comes from the
$1 he takes home from every lien he
sells or settles. As an example, Ferdinand
said if he sells the lien on a $100,000
property in Fulton, he gets $1 while the
county gets $1,000. That’s
money in the county’s
piggybank it wouldn’t
have had if the property
had been allowed to sit
derelict or was subjected to
foreclosure.
Ferdinand was
first appointed tax
commissioner in 1997. He
said his wife “forced” him
to go to the interview, but
he not only got the job, he’s
remained entrenched there
after the position became
an elected one. He’s been
re-elected three times - in
2004, 2008 and 2012.
He brushes away criticism by stating
that he boosted Fulton County’s tax
collection from the lowest in the state
to the highest at 99 percent, which
he continues to maintain. “My office
collects more taxes than DeKalb, Cobb
and Gwinnett put together,” he said.
The stage legislature has tried several
times to change the law that allows the
tax commissioner to personally gain
when liens are sold, and Ferdinand
said he would retire if the law was
ever successfully changed. He also
said he believed that most elected and
appointed officials were being underpaid
for all the work they do.
Several residents, who had received
liens against their property, were
frustrated with Ferdinand because they
had never received official word from
the tax commissioner’s office. It was
suggested that registered mail should
be used for such correspondence, but
Ferdinand said the county would never
approve the increased cost. “From 49
cents to $3 per piece of mail will not
happen,” he said.
Ferdinand said both Fulton
County and Atlanta had countless
numbers of properties that were sitting
abandoned and derelict with his office
unable to collect taxes or no investors
willing to buy the liens. Atlanta City
Councilwoman Mary Norwood, who
was in attendance at the BCN meeting,
said the recent creation of the city’s
code enforcement commission would
be working to track down individuals
and corporations to get those properties
back on the tax roll. 09
IN
ci
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6 October 2014 | INtOWIl
AtlantalNtownPaper.com
