Working in roles nearly inextricable from their jobs in Columbia County government has led to at least $370,000 in sales to other Georgia counties for four top Columbia County executives, records show.
Columbia County Manager Scott Johnson, the founding partner of Excellence Exceeded Consultants LLC, said the firm keeps its work entirely separate from what its principals do for Columbia County manager’s office. But correspondence obtained by the Augusta Press shows multiple instances of overlap in time and in content.
More: Columbia County managers quietly earning big bucks in other counties
Johnson said their work has the blessing of the Columbia County Commission and that his political adversaries were using it to smear him and defeat a recent sales tax referendum. The referendum passed with 62% of the vote.
“I don’t want this perpetuated because of someone’s hate for me. Because at the end of the day, however you want to look at it, I’m approved to do this by my board. I have approvals in my file for every year that I’ve been in business,” Johnson said. “Never one time has it interfered with my business, with the county, ever.”
Johnson produced records of the counties’ (and one city’s) payments to Excellence Exceeded in response to an open records request. The records showed the firm’s biggest customer has been rural Brooks County, which paid some $155,150 for services between June 2019 through October 2022. Larger Glynn County has paid the firm $107,889 over the last 14 months.
According to meeting minutes and other records, the Brooks County commission entered into a 12-month contract with Excellence Exceeded on May 29, 2019, the same day it hired a new administrator. The contract included a $5,000 monthly retainer, plus additional payments for individual services. Brooks County later extended the contract through December 2020 and added more projects over several months during 2021 and 2022.
Johnson told the Brooks County board of commissioners at a May 17, 2019, called meeting his consulting firm could evaluate county fire services, conduct a road inventory, identify county rights-of-way and inspect buildings for future use or replacement.
At a Sept. 17, 2019, called meeting, the commission reviewed Excellence Exceeded’s findings from a building survey. Among them were the recommendation the county replace an administration building with a new one. The board next authorized Excellence Exceeded to return with plans for the new building, an annex to house administration, court, county extension and agricultural services.
In its work for Brooks County, Excellence Exceeded crossed the line into Columbia County several times, according to emails obtained from Columbia County through an open records request. One example: On Aug. 5, 2020, a vendor used Johnson’s county email address to return a legal document related to the Brooks building project. At 8:24 p.m. that evening, Johnson used his county email to forward the document to Brooks County Administrator Jessica McKinney, with the request she return it to his Excellence Exceeded email address.
Excellence Exceeded’s principals are Johnson, deputy Columbia County managers Matt Schlachter and Glenn Kennedy, and Janeabeth Wells, their county executive assistant. The Augusta Press’ request for emails revealed multiple instances of their emailing documents back and forth between their county and consulting email addresses, and of both vendors and county clients sending messages to their county email addresses.
In response to The Augusta Press’ request for all Columbia County emails sent by Johnson, Kennedy, Schlachter or Wells since 2017 to or from the Excellence Exceeded email domain or the domain of one of the firm’s client counties, Columbia County produced more than 2,000 emails. Approximately 127 in the Columbia County email system were sent to or from an Excellence Exceeded domain. Seventeen of them were meeting invitations or cancelations. Some made little sense, such as meetings arranged between Excellence Exceeded and other Columbia County employees in other departments, such as Juvenile Court.
Other emails looked specifically like consulting, such as three sent from Kennedy’s county email in early June 2021 related a search the firm conducted for a new Baldwin, Ga., police chief. Kennedy claimed no personal time off during those weekdays, according to a county report.
Baldwin hired the firm after body cam footage showed officers, who later resigned, acting violently against several suspects, according to published reports at the time.
In the emails Dave Wills, executive director for Association County Commissioners of Georgia, referred Johnson to the county attorney for Habersham, where Baldwin is located. Johnson, using his county email address, said he was interested and referred Baldwin to his Excellence Exceeded email and phone.
Baldwin paid Excellence Exceeded $17,082.23 from April to August of 2021 for the services.
Johnson is one of many Georgia county officials included on an ACCG listserv in which county administrators and managers pose questions to their peers about county business. The listserv emails comprised many of the 2,000. On several occasions, Johnson referred one of the questions to his Excellence Exceeded colleagues.
Johnson said he turns down more consulting requests than he accepts for work he initially did for free.
“I used to spend a lot of my time driving to other counties, showing them how to do things, writing policy for them,” he said. “Finally I got to a point where I said I can do a little bit of that, but if you really want me to come there and you really want me to do this, I’m going to have to do this on my time… That’s how it was all born. That’s how it was all started.”
