The county supervisors spent almost an hour discussing whether they should appoint a compensation board or set the salaries for county elected officials. A change in state law specifies that county supervisors “may” appoint a compensation board, rather than requiring them to appoint a comp board as in years past.
Members of a compensation board are appointed by each elected official. The comp board is tasked with researching comparable salaries across the state in both the public and private sectors in order to justify their recommendation for any salary increase. The supervisors don’t have to accept the recommendation, but if they reduce the increase of one salary, they must reduce the increase of all elected officials’ salaries by the same percentage.
Treasurer Katlyn Mechaelsen, recorder Deb McDonald and sheriff Jack Williams shared their views with the supervisors.
Mechaelsen said the compensation board has worked hard and well in the last six years establishing a good relationship with the board of supervisors, and that the comp board has always had “really good conversations” and no problem justifying their recommendations.
She added that without the compensation board, “it might be more like an employee-boss relationship.” She said there haven’t been problems here, but in other counties, “they have the people in the chairs (the supervisors) who have a ‘we’re your boss and we’re going to tell you what to do type of relationship.’ I’d hate to see that.”
Board chair John Muir explained, “Sometimes it’s not so much ‘we’re your boss.’ We’re the keepers of the finances, and we look at the whole thing,” he said.
McDonald agreed that the relationship between the two boards is good. She said that if a compensation board is not appointed, the work of researching salaries and determining wage increases would fall to the supervisors.
“I’m not sure what’s accomplished by dissolving the (compensation) board other than there’s one less meeting,” McDonald said.
The state county treasurers, county recorders, county auditors and county attorneys associations, the urban/county coalition, and the Iowa State Association of Counties all spoke against the change in state code during the 2024 legislative session, according to McDonald.
“I’m in favor of going forward without a compensation board because it’s this board’s (the supervisors) responsibility to make the system work. When you put the comp board in there, we lose that control. We know what the budget can stand,” Muir said.
He didn’t criticize past boards. “The compensation boards we’ve worked with, they’re good…. They’ve done their homework. When they come, they prepared,” he said.
“It’s a system that has been working, working well for us,” Muir continued, but inferred that when the budget has been lean it hasn’t been easy. “Sitting in this seat sometimes when you feel like you’ve lost control of what you think you really need to do, some years it’s been frustrating.”
The compensation board’s meetings are open to the public and attended by the media. Without a comp board, elected officials could make salary requests to individual supervisors out of the public eye.
Auditor Billie Jo Hoskins was present in her role as secretary for the board of supervisors and didn’t share her thoughts on the question.
Muir asked county attorney Thomas Laehn to draft a resolution establishing a compensation board for consideration at the Dec. 9 regular meeting. The supervisors will then vote on adopting the resolution. If that vote fails, there will be no compensation board and the supervisors will set salaries for elected county officials.
In other business the supervisors heard the first request for the FY 26 budget, the fiscal year that will end June 30, 2026.
Jody Applegate, healthy aging director of Elderserve, made the request for funds for the Jefferson congregate meal site. Meals are cooked and served at the Greenewood Center in Jefferson and delivered to homes in Jefferson, Scranton, Grand Junction and Churdan.
According to Applegate, the return on investment is $28.90. For every $1 the county allocates to Elderserve for congregate meals, the county receives $28.90 in service and benefits.
The request is for $3.20 for each of the 2,811 county residents age 60 and older, for a total of $8,995. The request is a 5-cent increase per capita.
No action was taken. The supervisors will continue to hear budget requests until March.
The supervisors also discussed the intersection of County Roads E-53 (240 St) and P-14 (J Ave) after supervisor Dan Benitz questioned if there has been further discussion of safety features there. A recent collision that involved a northbound driver failing to stop as posted and striking a westbound vehicle brought the issue to the fore.
County engineer Wade Weiss has talked with property owners about a hedge at the southeast corner of the intersection, but said Monday there’s no indication the hedge blocks vision of oncoming traffic. He commented, “We can’t regulate bad driving.”
Williams said drivers going too fast or rolling through a stop sign has been the cause of every accident at the intersection.
