Two weeks after seeing the 2019-20 budget proposal with no excess revenue, Jefferson mayor Craig Berry suggested pay raises for himself and city council members.
The mayor currently receives $2,400 per year in compensation. City council members received $30 for each regular or special council meeting they attend, not to exceed $1,000 per year. (There are 11 regular meetings per year.) The mayor and city council members do not receive city employee benefits.
The compensation was last changed in 1999, doubling what was paid prior to that time.
Berry didn’t have information about what mayors or council members are being paid in cities of similar size except that he knows the mayor of Bloomfield is paid $2,400 per year along with another $50 per meeting, and that the mayor of Ogden is paid $4,800 annually plus meetings. He said he’s heard at the county mayors’ meetings that other council members are paid $35-$50 per meeting.
He said he calculated what the pay for elected officials would be if it had increased at the same rate as department heads’ salaries. The mayor would be paid $5,500 per year and council members would be paid $80 per meeting. “I thought that was a little steep,” Berry said.
Berry plans to propose to the wage and benefit committee doubling the mayor and council wages. Council members Matt Wetrich and Matt Gordon serve on that committee. Gordon was not at the meeting.
A wage increase would be effective Jan. 1, 2020. Per Iowa Code, the mayor’s wage cannot be increased during his or her term. Berry’s term ends Dec. 31. 2019.
The budget for the next fiscal year, as presented by city clerk Diane Kennedy at the last council meeting, first showed a small surplus in revenue after expenses. However, that didn’t include the added expense of upping the city’s share of the cost of running the Law Enforcement Center from 30 to 40 percent, as the city agreed to do.
The final version of the budget has no excess revenue.
In other business, the council approved hiring Johnathon Young as a police patrol officer at a starting annual wage of $41,516.
Young, of St Charles, is a 2014 graduate of Interstate 35 High School in Truro. He attended Iowa Central Community College and Des Moines Area Community College and took coursework in criminal justice at both.
His father is police chief in Akron and his brother is a police officer in Ankeny. Young said he’s looking forward to being part of a small town police department. “I like building relationships with people,” he said. “I don’t want to be an officer who just pulls people over for speeding.”
Young’s first day on the job will be Feb. 28. He’ll attend the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy’s full session starting in April.
The board heard a presentation by Janice Gammon, Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway coordinator for Prairie Rivers of Iowa. Prairie Rivers is contracted by the Iowa Department of Transportation for corridor management of the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway.
She called Greene County “a hotbed of Lincoln Highway stuff.” As an example, she highlighted the six interpretive panels already in place in Greene County (at the Grand Junction Tree Park and at the Lincoln Highway garden on Main St in Grand Junction, at the Deep Rock station in Jefferson, and at the water tower in Scranton). Three more will be placed at Jefferson’s updated east entry. Westside, Tama and Ogden are the only other communities in which interpretive panels are placed.
Gammon said Prairie Rivers is piloting a project in Greene County called “Greening the Lincoln.” The program will assist businesses in becoming more sustainable. She’s also working with the Jefferson public library in collecting oral histories of the Lincoln Highway.
Gammon provided two dates for tours planned this summer across the Lincoln Highway. A re-enactment of the 1919 military convoy across the country plans to make a lunch stop in Jefferson Aug. 25. The tour is planned by the Military Vehicle Preservation Association.
The Lincoln Highway Association is planning a tour that will pass through Sept. 6-7.
The council also heard a quarterly update by Jefferson Matters: Main St.
