Post Count Function Returns Additional Counts for Ampersands

The function below is used to count posts per category and return the number of posts.

function get_post_count($id) {
  //return count of post in category
    $cat = get_category($id);
    $count = (int) $cat->count;
    $taxonomy = 'category';
    $args = array(
      'child_of' => $id,
    );
    $tax_terms = get_terms($taxonomy,$args);
    foreach ($tax_terms as $tax_term) {
        if ($tax_term->parent == $id) {
        $count +=$tax_term->count;
    }
    }
    return $count;
}

I then call the function using this line of code:

.get_post_count(get_cat_ID( $item->title ))

It appears that every category that includes an ‘&’ or ‘& amp;’ in the database automatically returns 4 counts. For example, the category ‘computers’ returns 1 if and only if there is a post assigned to the category. However, the category ‘Computers & Electronics’ returns 4 regardless if there is a post in the category or not. For some reason adding an ‘&’ to the category name causes the post count to output 4. Any ideas?