Monday, Coffee County Chief Deputy Fred Cole qualified to run for sheriff. He will not have to resign as chief deputy even though he is running for a county office.
Typically, if a county employee runs for a county office, the employee must resign his or her position. However, that is not the case here. OCGA 36-1-21 addresses the civil service system for counties. Employees who fall under the civil service system must resign in cases such as these. Employees who do not fall under the county’s civil service system are not required to resign.
As chief deputy, Cole does not work under the civil service system. Sheriff Doyle Wooten appointed Cole to his position in 2018. In 2021, Sheriff Wooten put the appointment in writing on file in the Clerk of Court’s Office.
Sheriff Wooten stated that he was confident that Cole would not have to resign the entire time that Cole has been considering running for sheriff. Cole, though, was not convinced. “Until Monday [March 4], I was under the assumption that I would have to resign. I officially found out yesterday,” he said Tuesday afternoon.
Another code section, OCGA 15-16-18, addresses the order of succession should an official such as sheriff leave office. In such an event, the chief officer of the department would assume the duties. As chief deputy, that would fall on Cole. In a sense, then, he has two different statutes that will keep him working at the sheriff’s office during the campaign. “With both of those codes, I knew he wouldn’t have to resign,” said Sheriff Wooten.
Cole has qualified to run as a Republican in the May 21 primary.
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