Salary Guide: Guide for Computing County Official Salaries

The "Computing County Official Salaries for 2024" guidebook is now available. ACCG publishes this guidebook annually to assist counties in calculating salaries (as of January 1, 2024) of certain county officials, as well as state officials who receive supplements to their salaries from the county. The procedure outlined in this guidebook has been reviewed and approved by the Constitutional Officers Association of Georgia (COAG), the Magistrate Council of Georgia, and ACCG. Important highlights in which counties may be most interested are shown below:

• The state awarded a $2,000 cost of living adjustment (COLA) to state employees, which (absent local acts setting up a different and higher pay structure) trickles down to counties via statutes requiring identical county-paid COLAs to 1) county commissioners, 2) constitutional officers, 3) magistrate judges, and 4) coroners in counties of under 35,000 population. These COLAs are payable beginning January 1, 2024.
• For counties with local acts tying county officials' pay to the pay of superior court judges, note that the state also gave those judges a $2,000 COLA. Since state-paid COLAs go into effect on July 1, 2023, counties with such local acts may need to start paying increases to certain local officials as of July 1^st. However, this may vary depending on the wording of the local act.

Counties can still access the 2023 Salary Guide for County Officials online. Use this guidebook to assist in the calculation of salaries (as of January 1, 2023) for county commissioners, coroners, magistrates, probate judges, sheriffs, superior court clerks, tax commissioners, and other officials. Please review the general principles on pages 4 and 5 for an overview of the process.

If you have any questions about how salaries should be calculated, please contact your county attorney.