A Glynn County Superior Court judge has ordered mediation between Brunswick-area District Attorney Keith Higgins and Glynn County–the latest development in the yearlong conflict sparked by budget shortfalls and fueled by interpersonal resentment.
Judge Kathy Palmer’s order is intended to end the legal and political spat in which the prosecutor has accused his Republican colleagues on the county commission of withholding funds he needs to punish criminals, while they have accused him of serious financial mismanagement.
The two parties are currently engaged in a forensic audit of the DA’s office as a means to resolve persistent but so-far unproven allegations of misspending, and Judge Palmer ordered the two sides to have “all requested information” by the scheduled start of mediation on Oct. 28.
For all the swirling allegations, little evidence has become public about how the DA’s office accrued an approximately $1 million debt with Glynn County. The state prosecuting attorney’s organization appears to have shelved the complaint filed June 26 against Higgins by the five counties that the DA’s office serves. The county commissioners sought to remove Higgins from office for the alleged overspending.
Higgins told The Current that he has not been notified by the commission that disciplines prosecutors, a step required by the complaint process if the body decides to launch a formal investigation. If a complaint is found to be without merit, then the complainant is notified, not the DA.
The county said that, regarding the PAQC matter, it has no substantive updates at this time. Any additional information would need to come directly from the PAQC. The PAQC also declined to comment, saying that all their matters are confidential unless or until formal charges are filed.
Deficit disputes, burgeoning backlog
During a hiring cycle in January 2024, the DA’s office hired three employees using county funds. At that time, the office was operating at a deficit — without Higgins knowing. However, the county claims it alerted the office to financial issues in November 2023, stating the DA’s office owed about $847,000. For the past 20 years and at that time, the county managed the DA’s payroll by paying all employees in the circuit, and the DA would reimburse the county. Higgins has publicly said he was first told about the financial issues in February 2024.
The DA filed a complaint in October 2024 that accused Glynn County of withholding payroll disbursements since February 2024 and conspiring with the other counties in the circuit to do so as well.
The county argued in April in a response to Higgins’ complaint that the DA operated a dysfunctional office that lacked financial accounting expertise. It said that it made “Herculean efforts” to correct the financial mishaps that the DA’s financial team created in payroll disbursement.
In the amended complaint filed in August, Higgins provided new evidence that the county has illegally withheld funding he needs to operate the office, including $351,891.00 in budgeted funds for fiscal year 2024 and $761,604.68 for fiscal year 2025. He also provided supplemental documentation that the disbursement amounts that he has been receiving from the county are not enough, such as calculations from his new payroll provider that illustrate that the county’s disbursements are not appropriate.
The funds stemmed in part from the so-called five-percent money, which is the DA’s portion of all fines collected by courts in the Brunswick Judicial Circuit. As well as funds meant to pay for employees via the American Rescue Plan Act.
According to the lawsuit, this has led to a backlog of cases, with the office only having ten prosecutors and an average caseload of 701 cases per attorney.
The DA claims that he has made numerous attempts to resolve the issues with the county, but that the county has not enacted his proposed repayment plan or new staffing plan.
The county has demanded full and immediate reimbursement of the nearly $1 million budget overrun that the DA’s office has incurred.
Awaiting the finished audit
One of the key pieces to the court-ordered mediation will be the forensic audit conducted by Baker Tilly Advisory Group on behalf of the commissioners in the Brunswick judicial circuit: Glynn, Camden, Appling, Wayne and Jeff Davis.
The audit is supposed to analyze transactions in the DA’s office from Jan. 2021 to Feb. 28, 2025, to determine the causes of the office’s FY24 budget shortfall and its failure to fully reimburse Glynn County for payroll expenses.
The project was expected to be completed by May 2025, but it is still ongoing, according to the firm. The commissioners’ complaint to the Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission alleged that Higgins was not cooperating with the forensic audit.. The commissioners said in the complaint that they suspected the DA of improperly using hundreds of thousands of dollars of Glynn County funding for expenses in other counties.
Higgins denied these allegations, telling The Current his office has been cooperating fully.
“They will ask for information regarding specific transactions, and we locate that information to the extent we have it and provide it to them,” Higgins said. “And we’ve been doing that all the while, contrary to the allegations in the so-called complaint, we have been fully cooperating with the audit and will continue to do so.”