The Greene County compensation board will recommend the county attorney, recorder, auditor, treasurer and supervisors receive salary increases of 3 percent in the next fiscal year, and that the county sheriff receive a 5 percent salary increase.
The compensation board met for 30 minutes Thursday morning using wage comparisons and the population ranking of the county. Members of the board are Mary Jane Fields and Jim Unger (appointed by the supervisors), John McCormick (sheriff), Tom Heater (county attorney), Tim Heisterkamp (treasurer), Guy Richardson (auditor), and Adam Pedersen (recorder).
Board members and the elected officials at the meeting acknowledged that many people are facing financial challenges this year, but the need for county services is still there, and the county’s primary source of revenue, property taxes, is still solid. Property valuations are up 4 percent for the year, according to the auditor’s office.
County attorney Thomas Laehn spoke first at the meeting. He said he thinks he’s “fairly compensated” at a salary of $104,432 annually, although the average salary of a fulltime county attorney in Iowa is $114,000. “Given the state of the economy, the way people in the private sector are suffering right now, anything at above or inflation, I’d be perfectly happy,” he said about a salary increase.
New recorder Deb McDonald and Pedersen had discussed a 3 percent increase prior to the meeting. “I’m here because I love the job. The public is paying my salary. I want to keep them all happy. I believe anything above 3 percent is greedy in today’s economy,” McDonald said.
Board of supervisors chair John Muir reminded the compensation board that secondary roads employees are no longer represented by a union. “To be fair to all the employees in the county, what you do with elected officials will greatly affect where we go with their salaries and increases,” he said.
He said increases between 2 and 3 percent would be fair, and that “we all need to stay ahead of the cost of living in some manner.”
“Two or three percent is an area we can work with and not be a terrible burden to the taxpayers. I’m hoping our employees will appreciate that we’re able to do something,” Muir said.
Sheriff’s deputies and staff are still represented by a union. The deputies got a 4 percent wage increase July 1 and will receive another 3 percent increase Jan. 1, 2021. They’ll get a 5 percent increase July 1, 2021. Other sheriff’s office employees will receive a 2.75 percent increase this year and next.
He said the increases for deputies were an attempt to retain personnel as “they aren’t easy positions to fill.”
McCormick used Calhoun County as a comparison when he suggested a 6 percent increase for sheriff Jack Williams. Lake City, Manson and Rockwell all have their own police departments and there is no county jail there. He claimed that if Greene County was paying too much, a lot of people would run for the position, and Williams ran unopposed. “That tells me there’s not a lot of people that want that job,” he said.
“I think the sheriff has went above and beyond what other people have who get paid the same. He could go 30 miles northwest of here and get a similar wage and do about two-thirds of the work,” McCormick said.
The salaries of the chief deputy and sergeant are a percentage of the sheriff’s salary.
The sheriff’s salary ranks 69th among the 99 county sheriffs in Iowa. Greene County’s population ranks 82nd.
Fields said she was uncomfortable giving the sheriff a larger increase than the deputies will get through the union contract.
According to Pedersen, the cost of living is up 1.8 percent. Social Security payments are increasing 1.3 percent.
If the supervisors accept the compensation board’s recommendations, salaries would change as follows: attorney, from $104,432 to $107,565; auditor, from $64,870 to $66,816; recorder, from $62,832 to $64,717; sheriff, from $81,029 to $85,080; treasurer, from $62,707 to $64,588; and supervisors, from $28,893 each to $29,760.
The board of supervisors can consider their own increases separately but they cannot increase it more than the recommended amount. If they change the recommendations of the other elected officials, they must change them by the same percentage. They cannot award salary increases greater than recommended by the compensation board.
