MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY COMPENSATION BOARD:
JANUARY 22, 2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Discussion/Action: Electing a Chair.......................................................................................... 1
Discussion/Action: Previous Minutes (January 30, 2006)........................................................... 1
Discussion: Salaries of Elected Officials................................................................................... 2
County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek.................................................................................. 2
County Attorney Janet Lyness..................................................................................... 3
County Treasurer Tom Kriz........................................................................................ 3
County Supervisor Pat Harney.................................................................................... 7
County Auditor Tom Slockett..................................................................................... 10
County Recorder Kim Painter.................................................................................... 11
County Supervisor Terrence Neuzil............................................................................ 13
Discussion/Action: Salary Recommendations.......................................................................... 15
Discussion: Salary Information Packets Received by Compensation Board............................... 24
Setting Date and Time of Next Meeting................................................................................. 25
Chairperson Hughes called the Johnson County Compensation Board to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 6:01 p.m. Members present were: Bob George, Laura Hahn, C. Joseph Holland, Patrick Hughes, Bill Kapp, Hyman Joseph, and David Steen.
Elected Officials, Department Heads, and Staff present were: County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek; County Attorney Janet Lyness; County Treasurer Tom Kriz; County Supervisors Pat Harney, Larry Meyers, Terrence Neuzil, and Sally Stutsman; County Recorder Kim Painter; County Auditor Tom Slockett; Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek; Human Resources Coordinator Vanessa Kuo; and Auditor's Office Administrative Secretary Casie Kadlec.
Hughes: I’m going to call this year’s meeting for the Johnson County Compensation Board to order. Thank you to everybody who came and is participating, and again Casie, thank you for a job well done on the packets that you distributed to us. They are very helpful. Our first matter of action is electing a chair. I will open nominations.
Hahn: I nominate Patrick Hughes.
Hughes: Patrick Hughes has been nominated Chair. Any other nominations? Any other nominations? Any other nominations? Hearing none, the nominations will be closed.
Hughes: Our next action item would be to have a motion on the minutes. I would entertain a motion that the minutes be approved as distributed unless anybody has corrections.
Hahn: I don’t have corrections but I would like to thank, again, the staff for getting the minutes to us very shortly after last year’s meeting because that was helpful.
Hughes: Yes. That was probably you too (Casie).
Administrative Secretary Casie Kadlec: And others.
Hughes: Thank you. Would someone like to make a motion?
Hahn: So moved.
Kapp: Second.
Hughes: The motion has been made and seconded that we approve the minutes as distributed. All in favor indicate by saying aye.
Hahn: Aye.
Steen: Aye.
George: Aye.
Kapp: Aye.
Holland: Aye.
Joseph: Aye.
Motion by Hahn, second by Kapp, to approve the minutes of the Compensation Board meeting of January 30, 2006. The Chair declared the motion passed.
Hughes: Usually at this point in time we give the elected officials a short amount of time to address the Compensation Board if they so choose before we go into our discussions on salary recommendations. So with that, we ended with you last year Lonny, so we’ll begin with you this year.
County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek: I would just call your attention to Rod’s letter and the second page of it. One of the things that I want to point out is that Johnson County is in fact the fifth largest county and more than likely in 2010 the county will probably surpass Black Hawk County and move into fourth. I think we were only behind them in the last census by about 4,000 and I’m sure that Johnson County is growing faster than Black Hawk County. Basked on that ranking, if you look at the elected officials and their rank, currently we’re talking about ten elected officials and there is one who is not in the top five. Actually there is only, if you took myself and the County Auditor out, there are eight out of ten that are in the top five or higher. I would just point out that my rank is sixth. Also, recently we had a Department Head Meeting and Human Resources Director Lora Shramek was asked a question by a department head talking about what they should look at for rank as far as the salary of department heads. Lora mentioned that since Johnson County is the fifth largest county, they ideally try to look at having the department heads in the top five or greater. On this sheet it does look like nine out of the fourteen department heads are ranked in the top five or higher. I would like you to take that into consideration. Thanks.
Hughes: Thank you. Any questions for the Sheriff?
Hughes: Ms. County Attorney.
County Attorney Janet Lyness: Thank you for serving in this capacity. As I’m new, I haven’t been through this process before, as you know. I would put forth what the Iowa County Attorney’s Association has been encouraging different Counties to do which is to look at the salaries of the District Court Judges. The District Court Judges currently make $126,000. There’s a movement across the state to try to get the County Attorneys up at that range because of the consideration that the County Attorney actually has more responsibility and more ethical obligations as well as the supervision part that the Judges don’t have. The other thing I’m interested in is looking at what the Assistants are making. I’ve heard of one Assistant who is going to be fairly quickly maxing out on where she can go at her level, the pay matrix as an Assistant County Attorney IV, because of the 85% rule in the statute about what she can make compared to what the County Attorney makes. Those are my two comments for you at this point. Being new I can’t tell you a lot about what the discussion has been in the past other than what I saw in the minutes, but I trust you can make a good decision. I think that when we look at Johnson County, we are a fairly expensive County. Unfortunately I’ve just been in the position of recently trying to hire an attorney who turned me down because I couldn’t offer wages that were comparable to what she had been making in another County Attorney’s office. I’m realizing what the consequences are of not being able to hire at the rate we would like. As County Attorney I’m obviously the only elected official who is required to have a post-graduate degree. What I’m finding is our attorneys are coming to our office with substantial loans that they have to repay. When I want to get their salaries up it’s partially because of that, because they are looking at a high cost of living and very high student loans that they have to repay, so I would like to work on getting all of them up too. I have to admit I am more concerned with getting my Assistant’s wages up than my own, but some of getting their wages up requires mine to go up slightly too. Thank you, any questions?
Hughes: Thank you.
Hughes: Mr. Kriz?
County Treasurer Tom Kriz: Good evening. I have a couple of things I want to cover tonight with you. As you'll see in some of your information, some Counties have finally moved off of the percentage increase in place of flat dollar amounts. What I’d like to share a tonight is doing some figures with numbers. When I started as Treasurer in 1999, the Treasurer, Recorder, and Auditor, which are all very similar in pay scale, the Treasurer and Recorder being the same, the Auditor being just a few hundred dollars higher, were ranked in the top twelve to fifteen. With the 2006 salary survey we’ve dropped to the 21st position on that. In the past eight years our jobs have been passed by the SEATS Director, Ambulance Director, Zoning Administrator, and a new position for the Board, the Executive Assistant. That’s become a concern to me as well as the deputies in my office. I think some interesting facts are, as you look at especially the three positions that I can speak to that are grouped closely, the Recorder, Treasurer, and Auditor, the County Engineer and County Health Director earn over $30,000 a year more. The County Assessor earns $18,000 more. The City Assessor earns $13,000 more. The Conservation Director earns $12,000 more. Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities earns $9,000 more. The Board Legal Assistant earns $7,000 more. The Zoning Administrator is at $5,000 more, Ambulance Director is earning $2,500 more, and SEATS Director earns $1,200 more. Then I started to look and compare what I think would be similar positions. The Library Director in the City of Coralville earns $7,700 more than the Auditor, Treasurer, or Recorder. In Iowa City, the City Finance Director earns $48,000 more, the Library Director earns $43,000 more and two Library Assistant Coordinators almost $20,000 more. There started to be a big gap, and I think it’s time perhaps to look at the pay scales based on not so much County rank, but what else is out there and what our competition is to attract good people. With that, some things to remind you of are your elected officials receive no longevity pay like all your other department heads and all of your other officials. They receive no vacation accrual or sick leave accrual. When they leave office there is no payout of any vacation or sick time, which all your department heads and others will have. A key issue to that is that while you’re required to be in the office, I know of no elected officials who don’t put in at least 40 if not 50 to 60 hours per week in the job they do. Some of that is because not unlike myself, we enjoy the job we do. The County does a great job in what they produce and what they do for the citizens. I did some figures and I would like to have you at least consider them. If you were to give all the elected officials a flat $6,000 raise, that would be the County officials and their deputies, it would total out to about $113,000 annually. That’s about one-sixth of one percent of the County budget which is a pretty small amount. The hardest part in that is for the Board to vote themselves an increase. If you were to give all the elected officials a $6,000 flat raise with the exception of the Board, you would reduce that by $30,000. Right now, in the Treasurer’s Office I can speak to, if my salary were changed and my deputies by $6,000, we are ranked fourth and we would still remain ranked fourth. It’s not that we would be light years jumped ahead. We would just come from the bottom of that and be competitive. When you just strictly go by things, I think Jasper County was a good example. They recently changed Treasurers there. They are the eighteenth largest County and their Treasurer is now tenth, and with their last raise will probably move to ninth because they couldn’t find anybody to run. Jasper County, remember, has the town that Maytag came out of so there are lots of open jobs, lots of people looking for work, but they couldn’t find a person to do that type of job. I think it would behoove us to start looking at getting away from the percentage thing and look at some flat dollar amounts to be done. As I said, speaking only for the Treasurer's Office, a raise like that of $6,000 still keeps Johnson County fourth and doesn’t change the position or anything. To give you an idea of our counterparts around here, with the latest salary study the Linn County Treasurer is at $81,207, Polk County is at $88,866, Scott County is at $69,700 and I think they just approved theirs so that will go up. Within that framework a $6,000 across the board would not change the rank for the Treasurer, and I believe the Recorder and Auditor, and I think it would move your Sheriff into the fifth position.
Hahn: Tom I didn’t bring my calculator but a $6,000 raise would be closer to 10% for the folks who are making $60,000.
Kriz: It would be 8.5% for the people who are at $64,000. It would be much higher for the Supervisors. But for anybody who knows our Supervisors and knows the hours they put in, and I think we’ve addressed that before, that is not a part-time job. There are very few that work less than 45 to 50 hours a week. Based on the Supervisor’s salaries right now, you are looking at about $18 an hour. That’s not a lot for a group of people who manage a $55 million budget.
Hughes: I’ve got two questions. This chart that lists the elected officials' salaries does it by dollar amount and percent of change. Do some of these that are doing flat dollar amounts somehow get translated into this format? In other words, are there counties a year ago that were doing dollar amounts, but when we get this chart it’s reflected in just what their salary is and the percentage change?
Kriz: Either Tom Slockett or Casie might be able to answer that. I don’t know how they receive that data.
Kadlec: What page are you on Pat?
Hughes: On page 109 where it lists all the officials from the different counties. If for example, Black Hawk County did a $6,000 raise to each one it shows it as 3% or 4%, so somehow do they take that $6,000 that their Compensation Board and Supervisors eventually approved and then figure out what percent increase that is and then just express that on this chart that way.
County Auditor Tom Slockett: This chart is produced by the Iowa State Association of Counties annually. The percentage is calculated from the raise. Whether the raise is given in dollars or a percentage, they just show the figures.
Hahn: I don’t know, but my guess would be that when you have these counties where the increases are odd numbers, like Buchanan County has 3.8%, that might be what’s happening there.
Kriz: That could well be dollar amounts. It would be logical that you would get a number like that.
Hughes: My other question is, when we’ve done the percentage recommendations the Board of Supervisors has been able to modify that suggestion in one of two ways. If we do a dollar amount is that still the case?
Kriz: I believe that can be modified down by a percentage.
Slockett: Right, they still can only reduce them by an equal percentage.
Hughes: So they could either do it by a dollar amount or by a percentage amount.
Slockett: No. A percentage, it has to be an equal percentage. They could take the dollar amount of increase and reduce that by the percentage, or they could take the total amount of compensation and reduce that by the same percentage. It has to be across the board the same percentage.
Hughes: So that basically doesn't change from one to the other.
Kriz: But they could be different amounts and still reduce by the same percentage.
Slockett: Right. The Compensation Board can set the compensation any way they wish. So you could cut the Auditor in half and double the County Recorder, but then the Supervisors could only change that by reducing it by the same percentage for all of them. So they couldn’t change that. You have a lot of authority if you wish to exercise it. If you do it by increases then the increase or the total salary could be decreased as long as you do the reduction as a percentage.
George: I have a couple of questions. The first question is you compared the salaries but have you looked at the benefit packages? I’m not familiar with what the benefit package for elected officials is.
Kriz: Johnson County’s benefit package for all is extremely, extremely good especially when it comes to Blue Cross and Blue Shield. We pay a very minimal fee, and that’s across the board. That’s bargaining and non-bargaining. It used to be 100%, and it’s not quite that, but it's almost 100%. It's exceptionally good.
George: What about it in terms of vacations? I know there are no accruals.
Kriz: Well, for elected officials there aren’t any.
George: There’s no sick time or vacation time?
Kriz: No.
Hughes: Why is that? Is it State law?
Hahn: Is that a creation of statute?
Kriz: It happened long before I got here.
Holland: But your salary is not reduced the days you are sick or on vacation.
Kriz: That's correct. It’s a fixed salary.
Holland: It's a fixed salary no matter how many days you work.
Kriz: If I work two days a week it would be the same. I did talk to one Treasurer and he was happy because he plays golf on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That's one perception of it.
Hahn: You could take vacation, and there’s theoretically no limit on it, other than you would be voted out of office.
Kriz: That's exactly correct. But I think that sooner or later it reflects on how the office is operating, and the electorate truly is your boss when it comes to that. I guarantee nobody abuses that and if any elected officials get two weeks off a year that would be a lot.
George: What about a retirement plan? Is it standard across the State of Iowa?
Kriz: The retirement plan is standard for Johnson County. We have the ability to contribute. I would say, and this would be my opinion Bob, it’s average. It’s not near what our Blue Cross/Blue Shield benefits are, which are tremendous for all four hundred and some employees.
Slockett: It’s not TIAA-CREF, but it’s not bad.
Kriz: It's IPERS.
Hahn: It's IPERS?
Slockett: It's IPERS along with all State employees.
Kriz: Yes and those benefits are consistent throughout.
George: Just one other comment, based on something that Janet said earlier about the fact that with her need for an education to go with her elected position in terms of having a law degree. Is there any requirement that, for example, the Auditor have a CPA or the Treasurer have some kind of finance degree?
Kriz: I have no requirements. The Auditor can speak to his but I know he has CPAs on staff.
George: But in terms of the elected official, there’s no requirements?
Kriz: No.
Slockett: Well the County Attorney doesn’t have to be an attorney, but it’s Janet’s policy to hire attorneys, which is probably a good idea.
Hahn: Well a person could not appear in court if they did not have a law degree in Iowa.
County Supervisor Sally Stutsman: Does the Sheriff have to have a law enforcement degree?
Pulkrabek: You have to be certified through the academy, but you don’t have to have any college education.
Slockett: You can be certified after you are elected.
Pulkrabek: Right.
County Supervisor Pat Harney: They don't require previous experience.
Lyness: I think I have to be an attorney.
Slockett: Do you think you have to be an attorney?
County Recorder Kim Painter: I think you do have to be an attorney now.
Slockett: I wasn't aware that changed.
Hahn: You cannot practice law in the state of Iowa without a law degree. You’d be practicing without a license and you can go to jail for that.
Holland: You couldn't do the job. What would you do?
Lyness: It may not specifically be a requirement of the Code but you would need a law degree.
George: You couldn’t fulfill the obligations of the position without it.
Holland: To be a Treasurer you don't even have to have a high school diploma.
Kriz: And to be Treasurer you don’t have to have a college degree, because I don’t. There are no things that come with that part of it.
Stutsman: I can talk to how fortunate we are to have a Treasurer who has a banking background. It has served the County immeasurably well that Tom has had experience in banking and connections with that and how he has been able to manage investments.
Kriz: Thank you. I would like to see the dollar amount considered and weighed heavier than the old percentage amount. Thank you.
Hughes: Mr. Harney.
Harney: I’ll keep this short. Thank you for taking the position and doing the job you’re doing. I just want to make one thing clear, and I’m speaking for myself in this situation. Past years, before I began, this is my second term, I always felt like we needed to cut back on what the recommendations were. As time has progressed, and I guess as I’ve gotten older and more mature, I firmly believe that you people are doing your job, and your recommendations are the ones that we should follow. If not why do we even have the commission? I think that’s your job and why you’re there. I would encourage you to do as Tom has suggested, look at each one individually and see how you feel about each elected official and how their department should be compensated and do that according to what you feel. I had handed out three items. One is a memo that talks about a number of things that the Board has been doing over the years. Most of these that are listed are additional things that we’ve been doing with the new Health and Human Services Building, the new tasks that we’ve undertaken. We have 95 different committees and boards that we all work with. We each take a portion of that and work with those. A lot of that is night time and there are a lot of extra duties there. I think the Board has overall done an excellent job of taking their share of these committees and working as liaisons. We started a liaison service which each of the communities in the county. It’s real helpful because you can understand each small community and what their issues are. We work with them and if they have questions they come to us, and we bring it back to the Board. We’re not limited to those people because the entire Board does have an exchange of information with them. I mentioned the 95 different committees that we serve on. The other item I handed out was a list of the department heads. I understand that someone else had done a list of comparisons between what the elected officials and department heads are making and how their wages are out of sync with the elected officials. As Tom mentioned, they get bonuses and things that go along with that that elected officials don't get. I think that at this time the professionalism and the expertise and the way this community is growing and the challenges, I think we’ve got a lot of good elected officials who are doing an excellent job. Sally had mentioned Tom's background with the banking, which has been very helpful on this Health and Human Services facility in terms of investments and being able to reach out and get each of the banks to offer very low-interest loans. The leadership that’s taken place and the cooperation is what makes this great. All of the elected officials are very cooperative and work together well. The other one was a note that was sent to me from Jim Pregon, Deputy Treasurer of Motor Vehicle, and he spells out his feelings about what their department has been doing. I would agree with him that that department has been very professional. They have cut down on their staff but their wages haven’t gone up very effectively as efficiencies have gone up, as has in all of the departments with technology. I guess I’ll leave it at that. Like many of you have mentioned, a $55 million budget and the growth has been a challenge that we’ve all had to work with and it’s going to remain a challenge. With the annexations, we’re losing property taxes and we’re still going to have challenges. We need to manage the budget and we’re working real hard to get that in place. We’re working with Linn County and other areas as well.
Hahn: You talked about the $55 million budget. How does that compare with other counties, for example in the responsibilities of other Boards of Supervisors?
Harney: I can’t really answer that. Tom do you have any idea about that?
Kriz: No, not really.
Harney: I know Linn, Black Hawk, and Scott County would be larger. But ours is growing by about $3 million last year.
Holland: I have a question about the email from Jim Pregon. He has a real complaint about people making more money than the elected officials and their deputies. Who sets the salaries for those people like the head of Human Resources and Information Services? Do the Supervisors set those salaries?
Harney: No. The department heads and elected officials set the salaries for their departments.
Holland: No, I mean for people who aren't elected officials. His complaint is that there are people who are not elected officials making more money than the elected officials. Who sets the salaries for the people who are the non-elected officials?
Harney: All right. It's a dual issue. There are many who work with the union, and theirs is set by the Human Resources department. They have particular categories about their job level and their salary is matched with that. We’re going to be relooking at that within the next of years and reevaluating that. But then the first deputies, such as Jim Pregon, their salaries are set by a percentage of what the maximum of what the elected official makes.
Holland: I understand that. His beef is with the head of Human Resources, the head of Information Services.
Hahn: The Engineer.
Holland: Yes, who sets those salaries?
Harney: Well those salaries are set by the Board. We hire them.
Slockett: The Board sets them. All the departments are under their authority. There are also separate boards. There’s the Conservation Board that sets the Conservation Director's salary, the Board of Health sets the salary for the Public Health Director, and the Conference Boards set the salary for the City Assessor and the County Assessor, and they are totally independent.
George: Do they set that salary based on a budgeted amount that they have available to them? And who sets that budgeted amount?
Slockett: Well, they set it based on the same sort of criteria that you do, based on what information is presented to them. They are not limited in setting the salary.
Holland: So they’re basically off-budget.
Slockett: Correct.
Harney: The Assessors and Emergency Management Director are at that particular level. As far as the others, they fall under either the elected official and a percentage of what they make or the Board setting the salaries of the department heads and the employees who work under them.
Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek: The Conservation Board as well as the Board of Health have adopted the same salary schedule that determines non bargaining County employee wages. Those increases are based on performance as well, based on the individual ratings of an employee evaluation, in addition to the cost of living.
Holland: My question only really was that the people that this email complains about, like Ralph Wilmoth. I assume that he’s not part of an eight step process. He’s hired independently, and the Health Department must have some funding for that, or do they just say to the Supervisors, here’s what you’re going to pay him.
Harney: No, they have their own budget.
Stutsman: And we do set their budget, and we may say we’re not going to give you an increase so if you want to continue to pay your department head more than what we’ve budgeted, then they’ll have to figure out within the budget how they’re going to manage it.
Joseph: It’s not unusual for people who are not the top people in the hierarchy to get more salaries than the top people. For example, at the University of Iowa, the football coach and the basketball coach, and lots of doctors get more than the President. There are some sorts of market forces that apparently determine how much you pay certain people who have certain special skills.
Harney: I agree with that and that’s true with our computer services and IS services. At one time the demand for people was up here and there weren’t that many people trained on technology, and now it’s down here so their pay scales have dropped significantly but competitively. At the same time there are some inequities when you look at the level of work that they're not making what they probably should be. I’m not one to ask for a pay raise for myself. I’ve never asked for a pay raise in my life and I’m not about to begin to, but I’m just laying out what’s there. Thank you.
Hughes: Thank you.
Hughes: Mr. Slockett?
Slockett: Welcome everyone, new folks and old. I also appreciate, along with past speakers, the time and dedication you have to do this thankless job and to take the slings and arrows you may get from your neighbors no matter what decision you make. I also believe that we have a highly professional and well qualified set of elected officials and deputies under them. I hope that you will consider the information presented to you and make a decision as you always do, and I’ll support whatever decision you make and take my responsibility for any contribution that I’ve made for an increase or a lack of an increase. I do want to say that an email was referred to here that I’ve never seen, don’t know anything about, and don’t know what’s in it, but from what was said, I want to quickly disassociate myself from criticism of the Director of the Board of Health's salary, the Information Services Director's salary, or any other's salary. I think these people are highly professional and qualified and I was not present when the Boards made the decision to pay them. We have a superb Conservation Director. I don’t know what information they had, but I think it’s very easy to criticize public employee’s pay, and anyone who is in favor of increasing their pay is probably not going to get very much kudos for taking that position. I do want to say that I appreciate what Tom Kriz said earlier and Pat and others, because it is difficult for us to seem to be in a position for asking for a raise for ourselves. I've been Auditor for 30 years now. After the next term, I’ll probably be finished, so I plan to run once more and retire. The truth is that my own wages aren’t my top concern. I am more concerned about the wages of my deputies. I know that it was referred to in the minutes and has been discussed that we could take our deputies outside of our own authority so that we didn’t set their salaries, and they could be paid more. Also, in the minutes it was disclosed that some Supervisors feel that a newly elected official shouldn’t be able to bring in their own people. They should be required to keep the deputies that were there before them. I think that maybe enough thought hasn’t been given to that. If the Democrats happen to win the Presidency in the next election, should they keep the same Vice President because he’s had a lot of experience? Should the cabinet be the same people because they are well experienced? We have elections for a reason. When I came into office long ago, I defeated the incumbent Democratic Auditor two to one. People did not want the same people running that office, so I think there’s another side to that story. I would like to have my deputies paid more, and there is a bill, I talked to Kim Painter earlier today, in the legislature that is being introduced again, to eliminate the percentage limitation in pay for our deputies. I agree with Hyman, there’s not necessarily anything wrong with paying the people under the elected officials more than they are paid. I would really like to be able to pay my deputies more. But I’d still like to be able to hire and fire them and be able to direct and lead them in the job that they do. I think with the Democratic legislature and the Democratic governor we may have the chance to get that bill passed this year. I am hopeful that we will be able to increase our deputies' pay above the limitation. But that said, I still think we have a talented group of professional and capable elected officials, and I believe that they deserve a good raise as well. I hope, as I said before, that if you decide to give us one I will be happy to support your decision. If you decide not to I’ll support that.
Hughes: Who introduced that bill?
Painter: It actually is not to my knowledge introduced yet. It is still a legislative priority and my understanding is that it is going to pop out this year. But I don't have information that it has been released yet.
Slockett: I'm sorry. I misunderstood that.
Painter: I think it is going to be.
Hughes: By which caucus?
Painter: I don’t know. It had bipartisan support last year.
County Supervisor Terrence Neuzil: It will likely come from both sides. It was proposed last year and in the last few years.
Hughes: I seem to recall in the minutes last year that it was a Republican legislator that introduced it. I wonder if that was the case or it was going to be bipartisan or Democratic or what.
Painter: I think they’re going to work pretty hard to make sure it’s bipartisan. They'll try to get whatever support they can scrape together from both sides.
Slockett: But it is an Iowa State Association of Counties priority. They may not always get legislation passed, but it's pretty likely they can get it introduced. I think this year there’s a good chance of that happening.
Hughes: Thank you.
Slockett: Thank you.
Harney: Can I make a comment? Just for Tom’s understanding I didn’t take that letter from Jim Pregon as being critical of what the other people are making. I took it as being critical of his wage not being up to the level they felt, which should be above the others. I wouldn’t support criticism of others, but that isn’t the way it was intended.
Slockett: As I said, I haven’t read it myself so I don’t mean to characterize it in a way that wasn’t intended.
Painter: Good evening everybody. This has been an interesting discussion. We always have some good and interesting discussion about this occasionally thorny issue of how to look at these various positions and how to determine which way we’re going to move in the coming year. First of all, as to the Recorder’s Office we’ve seen a few changes in the last year. The Department of Homeland Security saw fit to begin to require a lot of additional birth certificates being presented, for example, when people receive any Medicare or Medicaid benefits, which is a new thing. I think it’s going to be a one-time thing, but these things have added a considerable number of additional units of work to the office in the bio records area, probably two to three thousand. I’m projecting that out of a typical vital record/certified copy load of about 15,000 a year. They have some other things in the hopper that haven’t been finalized yet, so I’m not speaking to that because it hasn’t affected us yet. The real estate market is still quite strong in Johnson County. We’re fortunate to have a lot of growth. There’s been some minor decrease due to some of the market forces you’re reading about and some of the larger communities that have been hit pretty hard, but here, as far as our workload, workload and revenues are tightly woven together. I don’t like to talk about taking in money or how much we bring in because it’s just a fact of what we do. But the revenues are holding and that means essentially that we’re producing the same amount of work as an office year to year. That's held pretty stable since the bubble expanded our workload by roughly an additional 50%. That would have been three to four years ago when it really hit and expanded our workload. Technology implementation has helped us to move through that really well. We have a solid program now of writing all of our documents immediately to the web. That’s helped in a lot of ways for people who keep track of real estate. We have all of our plats now, in the last year, all the way back to the 1860s online, and the Recorders state-wide have now implemented their state-wide new recording project so there actually are options for people to do recording electronically in Iowa. We’re working very hard to improve the user end of that, which I still think is fussy and not as easy as we’d like it to be. So we’re moving in all those areas. On to the larger discussion of the evening, I would say that Tom makes an interesting point certainly. The thing that surprised me as he and I talked is that we could theoretically receive such a substantial increase in salary and not have our ranking in the state change. To me that speaks to some kind of opening distance that’s obviously been building up for a little while that we may want to pay some attention to. I don’t think that anybody in this room is in any of the elected positions to make buckets of money, but this is a County that I think take it’s obligations to serve pretty seriously. We have a Board of Supervisors that encourages professional development and service. I know this year I’m serving as President of the Iowa State Association of Counties. I certainly don’t deserve a pay raise for that. It’s an honor and a privilege to be able to do that. It is an additional service and sometimes some heavy lifting involved. As many of us do those kinds of things, it places additional, unique burdens on the deputies who are running the office more frequently as we have obligations elsewhere to look to. So that also enhances points that Tom Slockett made on that issue. Maybe we can get something about that done legislatively this year. I think those were the main points that I wanted to make, and I’d be happy to take any questions that you have.
George: I have a question related to the earlier question I asked about the benefit package. I understand that you have union and non-union employees. What’s the standard benefit package for a non-union employee in terms of vacation time, sick leave, health coverage, and pension plan?
Painter: I think Lora might be able to speak to this. The Board has tried to keep them pretty comparable in many ways, but you might want to speak to any significant differences Lora.
Shramek: An employee can earn up to five weeks of vacation based on years of service. Employees start at two weeks per year. Sick leave, several units have 15 days per year. Non-bargaining receives 18 days per year and Ambulance receives 27 days of sick leave per year. The health care benefits package for a family costs $12,000 a year and the single package is about $4,500 per year. We also have dental, life, and disability.
George: What about the pension plan? Is it a State administered program?
Shramek: We have IPERS. We also have deferred compensation that is entirely employee contributions.
George: Elected officials are invited to participate in deferred compensation?
Shramek: Yes.
George: Thank you.
Painter: Thank you all very much.
Hughes: Any other Supervisors want to say anything?
Neuzil: I’m Terrence Neuzil. I wanted to thank all of you for your time and your service for helping us out. I think that over the years the Board has appreciated your support of us and your support of other elected officials. Obviously the kind of raises that you’ve given us over the years, we’re very thankful, and I think you folks know the kind of work and the kind of dedication that all of our elected officials put into this position. Also, I hope that once again you factor in the kind of impact that you make as far as your decision and the decision upon our administrative deputies that are part of these other elected officials. Obviously they all work extremely hard and we want them to stay here in Johnson County and sometimes that’s difficult. At the same time as you folks have offered us these raises over the years, it’s also a commitment upon the Board of Supervisors to accept what you have granted to us over the years. I am one Supervisor that has always accepted what you have given us. I think that we’ve had a fairly spirited debate over the years, and particularly last year, as Supervisor Harney pointed out, if you notice, we finally just said we’re going to take what you’ve recommended to us. You are the citizens, you are their voice in determining what you think is fair and balanced for us. I will point out that as far as the Board of Supervisors goes, and I looked at this packet as well that you all received, and I counted roughly 180 County employees that are paid more than members of the Board of Supervisors, and I hope you’ll take that into consideration as well.
Hahn: I have a question for you or for anyone on the Board of Supervisors, and I raise it simply because it was raised in this memo from Rod Sullivan. Is there any thought on the Board of Supervisors that it is appropriate to pay the Chair of the Board more than the other members? What are the pros and cons of that?
Neuzil: Well, I’ll give you my opinion. There was some discussion that Rod brought up in regards to should the Chairperson be paid more than the other elected supervisors. There’s no doubt about it that the Chairperson does work more hours than the other Supervisors in some respects because there are more responsibilities. I’m one of those individuals that would be on the side of what Supervisor Sullivan pointed out. I think that likely a Chairperson should be paid a little more because they work a little more. That seems to be fair to me. We’ve had a very good process amongst the Board of Supervisors to share that position as Chairperson. We’ve had a very healthy rotation where each member of the Board of Supervisors has an opportunity to step in, become the vice-chair and then become the Chair. There has not been competition, at least in the last seven or eight years as far as the history of the Board. I think before that there was some reservation in regards to some of those folks being able to do that, but at least over the last eight years we’ve seen a healthy rotation. Obviously this is something I think that at this point at least as of December, of course we have a new member of the Board of Supervisors, but there were not three members who were very supportive of that. There were only two and that was Supervisor Sullivan and myself. That may change. You'll have to talk to Larry about that. That is not anything official. This is just talking behind the scenes about something that people might be for or against. It is my understanding that Rod had surveyed each member of the Board.
Hahn: And typically the Chair of the Board of Supervisors has changed from year to year but it doesn’t have to.
Neuzil: No, it doesn’t have to. For folks who have followed County government, I’ve been a part of County government as far as following it through the radio station as a government reporter. At least since the mid to late 1990s, this has been a Board of Supervisors that works together and doesn’t always agree, but certainly has had the opportunity over the years to really respect each other. And we’ve done that. I think that rotation of being Chairperson has been very healthy as well.
Stutsman: I’d like to add some comments to that discussion if I can. I think it’s unfair for Rod to say that two Supervisors didn’t agree with that. I was one of them that said I want to talk about this. I think this is a big change for the Board of Supervisors and I think we have to give thought about what this means to pay the Chair more. I think the reason it hasn’t been done before is because there’s always been the thought that all five Supervisors were equal. Nobody had more responsibility than the other. Many times the Chair does have more responsibility simply because they are the point person. When the community wants to contact the Board of Supervisors, they go through the Chair first. Different Chairs have handled their responsibilities differently. Some have been more involved than others, and we don’t have a uniform job description, if you will, for a Chair. Those were the things that I wanted to talk through with the Board at our key issues work session we have every month. Every month we talk about key issues and I just wanted to make sure that we understood what this change was going to mean for the Board of Supervisors, that we were very clear about what the responsibilities were for the Chair, and that the Board was comfortable in giving those responsibilities to a Chair which would mean more money. I don’t know if the Board is to that point or not but that is the discussion that we do need to have. We’ve always been very courteous and cordial about rotating the Chair, at least since I’ve been on the Board. But maybe that will change. Maybe if the Chair does get more money, maybe that means the Chair will be elected by the Board, much as the Mayor of Iowa City, so that we are sure that the person who is getting paid as a Chair assumes the responsibilities of that position. Any questions? I’m willing to talk about it, I just wasn’t ready to say definitely I’m ready to go ahead with recommending this to the Compensation Board.
Harney: Can I address that quickly?
Hughes: Sure.
Harney: I’m one that also had reservations about making that with extra pay. As Sally said, we’ve rotated this and it’s been cordial, and I don’t want to get into a fight over who’s going to have the Chair position for a few more dollars. I’m not into this for the money. I take that as part of the responsibility of being a Supervisor that they have trust in me to take that position. I don't necessarily want more compensation for it. I want to do my share and then the next person do the same as they go. I don’t think we gain a lot by making it a little more money. It does take more time, I'll certainly agree with that, but personally I don’t have an interest in making it an extra pay position. I just think it will be more competitive for the position and will probably just create some animosity in the long run. With the Board we have now I don't think it would but I think it could in the future.
Hughes: I guess that moves us into the next part of our meeting which is to discuss the salaries of elected officials and come up with some recommendations. One thing I didn’t point out when we were talking about the minutes, it wasn’t an error in the minutes, but I have since learned, you can tell what an exciting life I have… Over the last year I read Robert’s Rules of Order. I did learn that there is no such thing as a friendly or an unfriendly amendment, and I didn’t know that a year ago. We had some amendments that weren’t accepted as friendly and so we didn’t vote on them, and having learned that I won’t do that again this time. An amendment is an amendment, and you either vote it up or down. It's neither friendly nor unfriendly. With that, do we have any motions?
Steen: I have one more question for everybody that has deputies. Are the salaries underneath the deputies shrinking?
Pulkrabek: Definitely. I think that in all departments there is compaction where deputies are making a smaller amount over the people they supervise. We could ask Lora. I think normally there should be a 10% increment over those who they supervise. At least in my department my Chief Deputy only makes $1,000 more than the Captains below him. There's really compaction there and I’m sure it’s the same thing with the other departments.
Kriz: I think as we look at it in the Treasurer’s Department with my deputies, one of the things that comes into play is the longevity pay that they don’t receive and will never receive. That raises from 1.5% to 4% depending on the employee’s salary. That’s a given figure they get no matter what once they've been there five years. Deputies will never receive that so that’s an automatic build in that they don't receive.
Hahn: Tom is that statutory that they can’t receive longevity, or why is that?
Kriz: Well they can’t because they can only earn statutorily up to 80% of our salaries. And for us to give them that, I’d be happy to give it to them but we couldn’t do it because that would go over the 80%.
Hahn: Okay.
Slockett: That’s the unfortunate thing about Rod's statement about getting the same percent as the collective bargaining units. The collective bargaining unit gets more than that. That’s the cost of living part of the increase that they get I believe.
Shramek: That's the COLA.
Slockett: That's the COLA. It doesn’t include the steps and longevity that is earned by collective bargaining employees.
Steen: Thanks.
Joseph: So the role of longevity is that when you make a comparison between the union and non-union salaries, the union salary increase is artificially low because longevity increases and step increases are not included. Do we have any idea how much that is? Is that a percent? So when Rod says that the settlements were 3.25%, how much are they actually getting? Does anybody know?
Shramek: The longevity bonus means that someone is getting a lump sum annually of anywhere from $500 to $900 in the Administration Unit.
Joseph: Annually?
Shramek: Yes.
Slockett: The step raises come before longevity.
Shramek: And sometimes after longevity, depending on the unit.
Kadlec: If you look at page 31 of your packet you have a chart titled Percent Increases to Johnson County Bargaining Units and Elected Officials Including Step, Cost of Living, and Longevity. You’ll see that with this chart including step raises, cost of living, and longevity, for FY 06 the smallest increase for someone in the Administrative Unit was 3.2%, the largest increase was 11.6%.
Hahn: So the larger increase would have been step, perhaps merit?
Kadlec: Probably somebody getting a step raise and then longevity.
Shramek: Bargaining units do not have merit. It's all based on steps. It is very likely that a new hire went from the first step to the second step.
Kadlec: Or somebody who received the highest longevity allowed after working for the County for 15 or 20 years.
Joseph: So that’s a substantial amount more than the raise, at least a couple percent or more. What’s happening is those who receive their wages through bargaining have these increases which include the longevity, and if they’re higher than the increases we give to the elected officials and therefore raises to the deputies, you have this compression thing we were describing. We want to have raises certainly larger than the average of these increases that the bargaining units are at.
Hahn: I think we’re at our annual quandary of recognizing, and I think I certainly do in the several years that I’ve served on this Board, of seeing very high levels of performance by elected officials. I suppose there are other counties in the state that have elected officials who perform very well, but I do think we do have a pretty high level of ability and performance and professionalism in the elected officials in Johnson County. At the same time, there is a concern I suppose about raises that are extraordinarily high, although I think we have tried to make some effort over the years of proposing increases that have been above cost of living and perhaps above what public market might bear. I’ve listened to Tom the last couple of years talk about the possibility of increasing salaries by a flat dollar amount rather than a percentage. I find that possibility attractive because it does give the ability to bump up the Supervisors a bit more and bump up the Auditor and so on. I personally would be in favor of looking at something of a flat dollar kind of increase, but would certainly invite comment from anybody else about that.
Joseph: I’d like to comment on that. The flat dollar increase favors those elected officials who have the lower dollars, so it works against the County Attorney and the Sheriff, and those are the two areas where we’re seeing more compression.
Hahn: That is true. I don’t know if there’s more compression in the County Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff's Office than in other departments. I certainly recognize that a flat, across the board increase gives a higher percentage raise to someone who’s making less. At the same time, if we give everybody a 5% raise, that means that someone who’s making $100,000 a year is automatically going to get a raise that’s twice as big as a person who is making $50,000. I suggest there is perhaps some inequity in that as well.
Kapp: I would make the comment that even though there is that so-called inequity, we do have a mandate in the Code to consider each of the officials pay being set at a standard of similar officials in the state. So that’s one of our objectives to what the traffic has put out there. As a representative of the County Sheriff, compression is not the only problem with the County Sheriff, from what I see as our viewpoint. The comparison with local law enforcement officers and highway patrol, as specifically mentioned, is a poor comparison. While I mentioned the Sheriff’s salary, he’s the one who needs to go up a notch, from sixth to fifth according to the chart.
Hahn: Although there are some minor variations from one office to another, the main elected officials in Johnson County do compare very favorably in terms of rank related to the population of Johnson County. If Johnson County is the fifth most populous county, and we do have elected officials who are making fourth or fifth or sixth. It’s pretty much in that ballpark. Now your comment perhaps goes to how does the Sheriff’s salary compare to the Chief of Police in Iowa City? Or how does Tom Kriz’s salary compare to a finance person at the City? Not favorably.
Kapp: No.
George: I think that one of the issues you run into is that without having a job description and understanding what type of budget those people are supervising or managing, as well as the number of people they are supervising, what the education and experience requirements are for a higher position versus an elected position, I don’t think that’s a good comparison. I really don’t. We’ve already identified that the County Attorney could potentially be elected and not be an attorney until after the fact. The County Sheriff could not be a certified police officer in the elected position, and then become certified after the fact. I don’t necessarily think you can draw those as good comparisons. I think what we have to compare it to is other counties in the state. So I don’t like the idea of comparing Tom to the City Finance Director because I think they’re two totally different jobs.
Kapp: I would dispute that. The Code doesn’t direct us to follow that as a comparison. It directs us to consider it.
Holland: Well, I’m going to tread into some dangerous waters but that’s sort of traditional on my part. First of all, the fundamental problem is we deal with a fundamentally flawed system because what the elected officials come every year and say is help us with our deputies' salaries. We have no power to do that and no power to really affect anybody other than the elected public officials. That’s the reason, I assume, the Compensation Board exists is so that the elected officials aren’t giving themselves their compensation without input and without some constraints from a citizen body. The problem is the character of government has changed and there are far more employees below the level of the elected public officials than there were historically and probably is in a lot of counties. I assume that in a lot of counties and I know that in some counties they may have two or three deputies versus the fleet of deputies we have here in the Sheriff's Department. Along with that go additional responsibilities. To an extent it’s a horse and buggy system trying to manage a modern business enterprise. One of the things that is left out of the equation too is any comparison to what happens in the private sector. It’s only compared to other public officials. In general public employees are very well compensated. It’s amazing to hear the value of a $12,000 per year Blue Cross/Blue Shield benefit package. I can tell you that the County Attorney, when you add in all the factors, probably makes more money than over 90% of the lawyers in Iowa City. That may seem hard to believe, but there are some unique factors for public employees, one of which is a defined benefit pension plan which is virtually non-existent in the private sector. You put in money, you invest it, and you get it back out, hopefully with some accumulation. The public sector guarantees you that you’ll receive a percentage of your compensation when you retire. That’s virtually unheard of in the private sector. My wife is a public employee so I benefit from this process, but because I also have some insight into being self-employed where if I don’t meet payroll I don’t get any money that month. Payroll comes first. Rent comes first, all of those things. There are no worries about that in the public sector. I certainly hope ISAC succeeds in decoupling the deputy salary from the elected official salary. They may have applied for a job as a deputy but they didn’t run for office. There is a fundamental philosophical difference when people run for office and assume that versus people who apply for a job. I wonder how many of our elected officials knew what the salary was when they made the decision to run for office. They probably made that independent from the salary. They probably looked at it and said okay, I can live on that, but they didn’t run for office because they were looking for the dollars. It was interesting to hear the comments about chairing the Board of Supervisors. If you look at the chart it has what other counties pay, it’s a differential for the chair. I find it hard to believe Pat that someone is going to take on the kind of grief and obligations that go along with being chair for another $1,000 a year. I don't think this is going to get into I want that extra $1,000 a year so we're going to make this a contested election. It's really frustrating to deal with that whole issue of having these things coupled. I honestly believe that when the elected officials come in they really are looking out for the people beneath them because you have to have good staff to do your job effectively. I suspect that in certain situations, as Tom Slockett said, you might actually pay deputies more than the elected public official makes. It's just like the comment about the University. There are all kinds of people on staff at the University that make more money than the President. If you look at State government there are all kinds of people that make more money than the Governor. There is an element of public service in being an elected official that goes beyond the pure monetary compensation. Something that nobody has mentioned, and I don’t know how valuable a statistic it is but when you look at the ranks of the total salaries paid to elected public officials Johnson County ranks third in the State, only behind Polk and Linn Counties. Some of that is skewed because you get some public officials who are more highly compensated than others. But I think that the comment was made about being in the top five and ranking on population. I think that Johnson County does a pretty good job of compensating people. The toughest part is how far you can stretch the elected public officials to bring all of those other people along with them. That's why I really hope ISAC will make that a priority because that's been the biggest frustration of being on this board, is having to have everything coupled. I have some problems with a flat dollar amount. I think that Bill did a pretty good job of articulating that because then you tend to give people at the lower end bigger percentage increases and people at the top end lesser percentage increases. I think it is also possible to go office by office and to recommend a dollar amount for the Treasurer or the Recorder or the County Attorney. I'm really not in favor of that because I don’t think this Board has the expertise or the time to evaluate which public official does the best job and who is compensated most fairly. I tend to weigh in more heavily in favor of a percentage increase and maybe as we've done in the past set one percentage increase for the Supervisors and one (another) percentage increase for the elected public officials. I find this a very difficult and frustrating process. Because I want to see people compensated well and I frankly think that the elected public officials are probably under compensated compared to some of the people who work for them who are well compensated for what they do because they don't have the same responsibilities, the same public face, the same susceptibility to criticism and all of the things that go along with being at the top of the pyramid in any one of those offices. Since my wife is a public employee I don't think she lays awake at night worrying about what's happening at work but I know that the head of elected offices do. They wake up in the middle of the night with those thoughts about doing the job well. I don't have a specific motion. I'm interested in what other people have to say but my inclination would be to recommend one percentage increase for the Supervisors and one (another) percentage increase for the other elected public officials.
Joseph: Let me throw out a suggestion and maybe it will become a motion depending on what people might think about it. As I was looking through page 31 and what the bargaining units receive it seems like the eight year average seems to vary from just under 5% to almost 6%. So if we want to avoid compression it would seem like some sort of increase around 6% would be something that would work for officials. I'm thinking of perhaps moving that the salary increase for all officials should be 6%.
Hughes: Is there a second to that?
Holland: Is that a motion?
Joseph: I move that.
Steen: I agree. I think that we need to start to think about moving the Sheriff, if we have to do it, and comparing the counties, I think that we have to bite the bullet either one time or a couple of times and move the Sheriff to a little bit higher percentage to get him into that top five range.
Hahn: Your motion is 6% across the board for everybody?
Joseph: Correct.
Steen: Just some quick calculations. It looks to me like 7% for the Sheriff would move him into the top five.
Hahn: I realize there is a motion without a second on the floor.
Hughes: There has not been a second to the motion.
Motion by Joseph to recommend a 6% across the board increase for the Board of Supervisors, County Attorney, County Auditor, County Recorder, County Sheriff, and County Treasurer. The motion died for lack of a second.
Hahn: I have a concern that I think is similar to Joe's about doing different increases for each office and looking at each office position by position because I think that does then cast us in the position of doing performance appraisals which we're not really qualified to do or charged to do. I don't think that it's really the function of this Board. The function of this Board is to evaluate what certain positions should make, not necessarily what certain people should make.
Steen: I think that's what we're doing. I think that the Sheriff's department is at number six and if we're going to go by percentages I think that the only way you can do it is to compare it to other counties. I think we're not doing a performance based thing with more of an increase to the Sheriff, we're doing a percentage by County. It has nothing to do with performance based or an individual. So I guess I make a motion for 6% across the board and the Sheriff at 7%.
Hughes: Is there a second to that motion?
Kapp: I'll second.
Hughes: A motion has been made and seconded that the Sheriff receive a 7% raise and all other elected officials receive a 6% raise. Is there any discussion on that motion? Is there any discussion on that motion?
Joseph: Where did that number come from that the Sheriff is ranked sixth?
Hughes: Page 109.
Joseph: I'm looking at it.
Hughes: Bottom of 109.
Joseph: So there are five that are higher?
Kapp: Pottawattamie County Sheriff is the one that is in fifth.
Joseph: Pottawattamie is fifth.
George: That's actually the target and they just gave him 3.5%. So did Hyman's motion fail for lack of a second?
Joseph: My motion failed for lack of a second.
George: Again I go back to not understanding how we compare County to County when we have no concept of how many people are in their department or what other factors they have to deal with that maybe we don't have to because of the police force the size of the City of Iowa City's and the City of Coralville and the growth of the City of North Liberty's police force. How do you weigh those factors in commenting on what position we should be in compared to those other counties.
Steen: I don't know how you do that but the way I look at is either you go with an office by office decision or you go with a dollar figure or percentage. The only way I see that I have to compare those is County by County rank.
Slockett: Page 107 has the number of employees per office.
Hahn: It is not the case that population of a County alone should be the sole criteria for making the judgment.
Hughes: Any more discussion on the motion?
Kapp: I would just say that comparing the number of employees or to the responsibilities of each individual office is possibly in our scope but beyond our capability.
George: But isn't that what your motion does is segregates that one office and says we're going to identify it as more valuable and more important than the other offices.
Steen: No it doesn't, it just moves it up in the rank. It doesn't do that at all.
Kapp: It takes it to the same rank as the other offices.
Joseph: But we don’t know what's happened in Story County, why the Sheriff there gets $95,000. What's the history there? We've got something way out of line.
Hughes: It's right next to Polk County.
Holland: Why does Pottawattamie County have 152 full time people in the department? There's only 90 here.
Hahn: It's Council Bluffs.
George: Unless it’s the rural area that they're counting.
Hahn: Pottawattamie County does have a Sheriff's Department with a lot more employees than Johnson County. Now whether that's right or wrong we don't know.
Steen: Is it a lot bigger County square miles wise.
Kapp: It's probably a bigger jail.
Pulkrabek: They do have a bigger jail.
Hahn: That could explain it.
Holland: They've got Omaha across the river and suspect they get a certain amount of spillover crime coming across the river and that's probably part of it. It is really hard to look at those numbers and understand why they are what they are.
Hughes: Any more discussion on the motion? If you are opposed to this you would want to vote no. All in favor indicate by voting aye.
Steen: Aye.
Kapp: Aye.
Hughes: Opposed?
George: Nay.
Hahn: Nay.
Holland: Nay.
Joseph: Nay.
Hughes: Motion failed.
Motion by Steen, second by Kapp, that the Compensation Board recommend a 6% increase for the Board of Supervisors, County Attorney, County Auditor, County Recorder, and County Treasurer, and a 7% increase for the County Sheriff. Hughes declared the motion denied.
Hughes: Any other motions?
George: Well in the interest of moving along… I think that part of the issue too is that you have to think about with the recommendation we make is how its going to read in the paper tomorrow morning and whether or not we'll be vilified for going well beyond the cost of living increases proposed to the County bargaining units or the people that read it in the paper. I see that Lora has got a thing here that says 11.2% pay raise for the Linn County Attorney. When I saw that I thought that's about five times the cost of living or the CPI right now. That seems a little excessive but then again it goes back to what the issues are in their county and things like that.
Holland: Bob, I've yet to be vilified or have anybody ever call me or stop me and say what did you do?
Hughes: Me either.
Hahn: Yes.
Holland: But that's not my concern.
George: Well because typically we make the recommendation and the Board of Supervisors gets through their budget process and figures that there's no way that they can ask them to anyway.
Hahn: Although I think they're telling us that they may within reason go along with what we recommend as they did last year, but I'm kind of like Joe. I don't really care what's in the newspaper tomorrow. Its not that I don't care.
Holland: We need to do what we think is right.
Hahn: Yes, we need to do what we think is right. There's not a lot of public guff that we get. And if we do, so be it.
Kapp: Also, I think the role we serve is the canary in the mine role. The Supervisors can get a gauge on the reaction to it and if there's not a reaction they can feel more comfortable approving our recommendation.
Hahn: That is a good way of looking it.
George: I would like to revive Hyman's motion. I would make a motion that we offer a 6% raise to elected officials.
Hughes: Do I have a second for that motion?
Joseph: I'll second.
Hughes: A motion has been made and seconded that we do a 6% raise for all elected officials across the Board. Does everybody understand the motion? Is there any discussion on the motion?
Holland: I have some discussion. As far as the Board of Supervisors is concerned, this may be not the year to do it, but I assume that it's within the power of the Board to recommend a salary differential for the Chair of the Board of Supervisors. It may have to come from this Board instead of coming from the Board of Supervisors itself. That's something that I hadn't even thought about until tonight and I'd like some more time to think about it. But I hope that by this time next year people can give that some serious thought because I don't think it's going to turn into a competitive race and I do think that whoever is in that office ought to have a little extra compensation for the increase in duties that go along with that. I'm also in favor again of a slightly higher increase for the members of the Board of Supervisors than for the elected public officials partly because they're still down at about a $45,000 base and for them a higher percentage brings them up. Mike Lehman gave a very eloquent presentation last year and the memo Pat gave us detailed what the members of the Board of Supervisors do and they really are the collective chief executives of a multi million dollar enterprise and I think that as their duties have expanded over the years and I think the role models they've had people put effort into it that we need to try to move that along a little bit faster. I'm thinking maybe eight for the supervisors and six for the elected officials so I'm probably going to vote no on this motion for that reason.
Hahn: I'm thinking the same as Joe. I think the approach we took last year of a slightly larger increase for the Supervisors would be appropriate. I do think an across the Board raise of 6% for the other elected officials might accomplish getting the Johnson County Sheriff up closer to or above the Pottawattamie County Sheriff if that office has had a 3.5% increase. So that's somewhat less than the avenue that we're looking at here. I realize there is a motion on the floor to be voted on but I would be inclined to favor something a little bit more for the Supervisors as well.
Hughes: Any other discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye.
George: Aye.
Joseph: Aye.
Kapp: Aye.
Hughes: There are three in favor. Opposed?
Holland: Nay.
Hahn: Nay.
Steen: Nay.
Hughes: I get to break the tie. I will vote yes.
Motion by George, second by Joseph, that the Compensation Board recommend a 6% across the board increase for the Board of Supervisors, County Attorney, County Auditor, County Recorder, County Sheriff, and County Treasurer. Hughes declared the motion passed.
Holland: I think that probably concludes what we need to do tonight. We have no statutory power to do it but I would like to propose that the Board adopt a resolution supporting ISAC's efforts to decouple the salaries of deputies and elected public officials. I think that would make this process a lot more rational and I think simply if that's the sense of the Board then people like Kim can take that to the legislature.
George: Second.
Hughes: A motion has been made and seconded that we support ISAC's efforts to…
Holland: …decouple the salaries of deputies and elected public officials.
Hughes: What would that advocacy or support entail?
Holland: I think nothing more than that resolution. Just some indication that we support that to make this an easier process and to free up the elected public officials and give them more discretion with the deputies salaries within the constraints of their departmental budgets.
George: It just gives another piece of information that the President of ISAC can take with her to Des Moines and say this is what the citizens of Johnson County think.
Holland: It's an expression of my frustration with this process. I think this is my sixth or seventh year of doing this. That is the biggest frustration with this process.
Hughes: Any other discussion on the motion? Hearing none all indicate in favor by saying aye.
Steen: Aye.
Holland: Aye.
Kapp: Aye.
George: Aye.
Hahn: Aye.
Joseph: Aye.
Hughes: Opposed, nay. Motion carried.
Motion by Holland, second by Joseph, that the Johnson County Compensation Board supports ISAC's efforts to decouple the salaries of deputies and elected public officials.
Hughes: I guess I’m not making this as a motion but going back to what was said earlier in regards to a Chair for the salary differential for the Board, I do like what Sally mentioned earlier in that they don't have specific job description for the Chair. If that's something that either the Board would like us to consider or we would like to consider on our own, I think it would be incumbent on the Board to give us a job description for what the Chair does. Otherwise once again we don’t know what we're really voting for.
Holland: Something that differentiates their duties from other Board members.
Hahn: One other comment that I have, and the packet is great. I do notice that the information on page 33 about salaries of the elected officials and their deputies does not include the salary of Assistant County Attorneys. They are treated in the same way in the sense that their salary can be capped at a certain percentage of the salary of the County Attorney in the same fashion that a salary of the deputies in the other offices can be is capped at a percentage of what the other elected officials make. So I think it would be appropriate to have the salaries of the Assistant County Attorneys in this packet in the future.
Holland: I would just make a comment that the packet is really very helpful and it's evolved considerably over the last few years to where it is a much more helpful piece of information although some of the titles could be a little more explanatory for people like me. Employment in elected offices, it really wasn't clear to me what that meant. When I looked at the Supervisors I thought that maybe there were part-time supervisors who had jobs outside of their office. I just think that there could be a little bit of explanation on some of the more arcane charts in there. But the package really is very good and very helpful.
Hughes: Any other business? Is there any business from the public?
Hughes: Do we want to go through the chore of trying to set a date and a time or would you prefer sticking with what we've done in the last year which is to wait closer to the date and then go from there?
Holland: I would like to do that. I think that has worked very successfully.
Hahn: It has worked very nicely.
Hughes: Is that okay with everyone?
Holland: Casie has done a good job of scheduling that.
Kapp: I'm sure it's Casie's favorite part of the job.
Hahn: She must have a flow chart.
Hughes: Okay. I'm getting a consensus here that we do not wish to set a date and time at this moment.
Kapp: I would like to modify my support of that consensus by saying that I would like everyone to make sure that Casie has email addresses and phone numbers when she is doing that flow chart so that she can reach people quickly.
Hughes: I guess Bill that would mean you. We don't have an email address from you.
Kapp: I'll take that up with her.
Kadlec: I do have Bill's email address now.
Hughes: I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Hahn: So moved.
Holland: Second.
Hughes: A motion has been made and seconded to adjourn. All in favor indicate by saying aye.
Steen: Aye.
Holland: Aye.
Kapp: Aye.
George: Aye.
Hahn: Aye.
Joseph: Aye.
Hughes: Opposed, nay. We're adjourned.
Motion by Hahn, second by Holland that the meeting adjourn. The Chair declared the motion passed.
Adjourned at 7:37 p.m.
________________________________________________________________________
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By:
On the _______ day of _____________________, 2007
By Casie Kadlec, Recording Secretary