https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-elections-manager-left-state-job-got-200k-per-year-contract/WA74UJ5BQNGDDMQXITVIBZZXFI/

Gabriel Sterling, negotiated to quit his $114,000 per year job with the State of Georgia and return as a contractor at $200,000 per year. The changeover allowed Sterling to take on the role of Project Manager for the purchase and rollout of the State's new voting equipment.

State election officials say, as a contractor Sterling became responsible for his own Health Insurance, retirement savings and taxes which on average cost the government an additional 62% of each state worker’s salary, according to the House Budget & Research Office. Sterling’s contract is 75% higher than his government salary.

Sterling became the face of Georgia elections, leading press conferences debunking election conspiracy theories, criticizing mistakes by county election officials and calling out President Donald Trump for inciting threats against election workers, proclaiming “this has to stop.”

Sterling, a lifelong Republican drew praise from Democrats for his comments and received flowers and handwritten notes from across the country.

But his independent status prompted state legislators and critics who have asked why the state’s voting machines are being managed outside Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s payroll.

Sterling’s contract, obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act, expires Thursday, Sterling will then return to his previous role as chief operating officer. The secretary of state’s office awarded the contract to Sterling under an emergency procurement without competitive bidding process, said Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs. The government needed someone to manage the quick installation of voting equipment in time for this year’s elections, she said.

Sterling said in an interview. “We got the whole thing rolled out in the middle of a pandemic and had a record turnout at the same time. I’m going to walk away from that role feeling pretty good.”

Election officials decided to make Sterling a contractor after struggling to find a project manager to handle the state’s contract with Dominion Voting Systems, Fuchs said. The government had considered hiring engineering consultants for the job, but they weren’t willing to take on the work within the $500,000 to $1 million price range the state was considering.

With a deadline to deliver over 30,000 voting machines before the primary election, Sterling became a contractor, paid from a $150 million bond for the voting system state lawmakers approved. The secretary of state’s office hired another contractor to take on the financial management duties of Sterling’s old job.

Aileen Nakamura, an advocate for paper ballots filled out by hand, said she’s worried that Sterling has so much authority over Georgia’s elections through his company, Sterling Innovative Solutions.

“It seems like Georgia has outsourced its elections,” said Nakamura, “It’s about control. Do you want some third party to be running Georgia elections? The answer is very clear. Every voter should say we want our state and counties to be running elections.”

Sterling’s company has no other employees, and it doesn’t do business with any other client besides the secretary of state’s office, he said.

State representatives questioned Sterling about his contract during a committee meeting last week

“If citizens don’t trust that their vote counts, that’s a problem and it has to be fixed immediately,” said state Rep. Micah Gravley, a Republican from Douglasville on the committee. “Every avenue needs to be explored and remedied as soon as possible.”

Sterling, a former Sandy Springs city councilman and business consultant, said he accomplished a successful rollout in a short time. The voting system has cost $133 million so far, $17 million under its $150 million budget after Sterling negotiated the purchase of thousands of additional voting machines, scanners and voter check-in tablets, he said. In addition, the state covered licensing costs that would have otherwise been borne by county governments over the next 10 years. The initial cost of the voting system was about $107 million when the state purchased it in July 2019.

“At the end of the day, we ended up saving taxpayers millions of dollars,” Fuchs said. “I needed someone who understood project management and could effectively deliver a project of this size, and Gabriel did that.”

Despite the challenges of this election year Sterling said complaints about voting now are more a reaction to the outcome of the presidential election than they are actual problems with voting equipment.

“We were attacked by the left early, and now we’re being attacked by the right, and we still executed. We got it done,” Sterling said. “This stuff at the end, that’s not about the job we did. That’s about politics.”