• Discussion/Action: Electing a Chair

• Discussion/Action: Previous Minutes (December 5, 2002)

• Discussion: Salaries of Elected Officials

  • County Recorder Kim Painter

  • County Supervisors Mike Lehman and Pat Harney

  • County Auditor Tom Slockett

  • County Treasurer Tom Kriz

  • County Attorney J. Patrick White

• Discussion/Action: Salary Recommendations

• Scheduling Date and Time of Next Meeting

Chairperson Hughes called the Johnson County Compensation Board to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 6:05 p.m. Members present were: C. Joseph Holland, Patrick Hughes, David Maupin, Carol Peters, and Patricia Vunderink; absent: Laura Hahn. The position appointed by the County Treasurer is vacant.

Hughes: I would like to welcome elected officials and any public officials to this year’s meeting of the Johnson County Compensation Board. My name is Patrick Hughes. I understand the acoustics in here aren’t as good as we have upstairs in the Boardroom. So for the sake of the people recording this from the Auditor’s Office for our minutes for next year I would ask that anybody speaking do so clearly and with some volume so that the person taking the minutes or listening to the tape can hear what is being said. With that I guess the first piece of business is electing a chair. I would open the floor in nominations for electing a chair.

Peters: I will nominate you.

Hughes: Any other nominations? Any other nominations? Any other nominations? Hearing none we will close nominations and I will serve as tonight’s chair. Before I go any further I’ve been doing this for 3 or 4 years and I would really like to compliment whoever put this packet together out of the Auditor’s Office. Great job. Great job. I can read it. The font is bigger. It’s really put together in a nice way. Kudos to you. Great job. Thank you very much. It makes it a lot easier.

Hughes: Previous minutes. The minutes were included in the packet. I would entertain a motion that they be approved as distributed unless there are corrections that need to be made. Does anybody want to make a motion?

Maupin: I so move.

Hughes: A motion has been made…

Vunderink: Second.

Hughes: …and seconded that we approve the previous minutes as distributed.

Motion by Maupin, second by Vunderink, to approve the minutes of the Compensation Board meeting of December 5, 2002.

Holland: Can I ask a question about that?

Hughes: Yes.

Holland: Is it possible to get the minutes earlier?

Deputy Auditor Mark Kistler: Yes.

Holland: Quite frankly, I couldn’t remember if this was accurate from last year or not. I take your word for it but…

Kistler: We can get it out very soon.

Holland: I don’t know how soon you do it afterwards but it works best while it’s still fresh in my mind.

Kistler: OK.

Holland: We don’t have to approve them until next year but it would be nice to see them.

County Auditor Tom Slockett: Sure. It’s still good to see them.

Hughes: Good point. OK. Everybody received the information packets and again a really wonderful job on that. I think last year and previous years at this time we’ve asked if any of the elected officials wish to address the Compensation Board because I assume you all have most or all of the same information that we’ve received. I would ask if any of the elected officials would so choose to address this Board. You all did last year. If you don’t want to that’s fine. Kim?

County Recorder Kim Painter: I would just point out one thing since it pertains to the information in the sheets that show the various counties and their population size and so on. We occasionally discussed the placing of elected officials in terms of their salary ranking and mentioned, at least in passing, the size of the county. This is the first year I’ve had, because of a request from the Legislature, some statewide statistics on recording volumes as registered and revenues. Johnson County is at least for the 3rd year… I only have these going back 3 years. I have just the one copy in my hand, is solidly in 4th place although we’re the 5th most populous County. Last year we were ahead of Black Hawk County in terms of revenue dollars from our recordings by a quarter of a million dollars so its gotten to be a fairly substantial difference. I just wanted to point that out as we compare those numbers.

Hughes: Good.

County Supervisor Mike Lehman: Pat Harney and I are here to represent the Supervisors. I think you have information that we gave to you. In summary, I just want to emphasize that maybe our hours have possibly stayed the same or gone up a little bit. But the effort and the intense responsibility of some of the items we’ve had to cover this year have increased and most likely will carry over to next year as far as our strategic planning in light of budget restraints and the Jail Task Force. Some of the situations that we’re dealing with now and in the future probably won’t diminish our time or effort. If you have any questions for us we’ll be happy to answer them.

Slockett: I guess I’m next. The thing I would like to emphasize is the increasing amount of work that we’re accomplishing and the increasing sophistication of that work. In real estate we are using a new GIS software with which you draw the maps. It’s NovaLIS, which allows you to actually draw the lines in the GIS system rather than putting them in AutoCAD and then porting it over to the system. So that has required a great deal of training and some more difficulty and then doing the drawing. We’ve got 14 new TIF’s in the County this year and our first SSMID, Self-Supporting Municipal Improvement District, in Iowa City. With this new development we’ve had increasing interest. You may have seen articles in the Press-Citizen. That was basically from information that was provided by our office. Some of it is information that wasn’t really available before. I have some examples of that as a handout that I’ll get to in a minute. We’re also purchasing in real estate new tax and real estate software. We’ve had an in-house system and we’ve never purchased a system before. It’s been a big job of doing a needs study and getting the training and making the change. In payroll and general ledger we’re also buying new software, GEMS software, for the first time in about 18 years. It’s way overdue but it’s a big job setting up the needs matrixes, doing the RFP’s, and interviewing the companies. We’ve been running payroll dual for the month of December. We’re going to go live January on the new system. We’ll be implementing the general ledger and accounts payable the second half of the year. In elections the amount of absentee balloting is increasing every year. We have another presidential election coming up. We had 20,848 or 39% of the vote was cast before Election Day in the last Presidential Election. So we know that we’re going to have a large job in processing those requests, counting them, and running the satellite voting, which is also increasing. It takes a substantial amount of work to go out to the Hy-Vees, University Hospitals, Iowa City and Coralville Libraries, and Mel’s Holiday in North Liberty and all of the places that we reach out to assist people in casting their votes and lowering the barriers to voting. It’s been very successful and it’s very well received by the public from all indications. We also had 4 elections in 3 and a half months this year. So we’ve been very busy on top of all of these other changes in elections. We’ve initiated scanning of the voter registration forms which is a new process and procedure that increases the amount of time it takes to process voter registration records, but for good effect in the long run. Due to increases in population we’ve had 6 new precincts added to Johnson County. We’ve got 57 now. That means more poll-workers to train, more time setting up equipment, and more supervision. There is Federal legislation called HAVA legislation, Help Americans Vote Act, that has a significant impact on Johnson County, both in the way we program our voting machines and the way we train our poll-workers, as Carol can certainly tell you. Because our system is so old, we’re also looking at new voting equipment. To process the rejected ballots when a voter makes a mistake the poll-workers actually have to write serial numbers on the ballot with an error on it and then write a serial number on a blank ballot, transfer the information and fill out forms carefully documenting that and have a Republican and a Democrat observing it. So that requires a substantial amount of retraining and dealing with resistance because the poll-workers don’t like this at all. I don’t blame them. I don’t like it at all either. That’s just a part of what we’re dealing with. Our website last year had 358 hits a week. This year, 441 a week, a 23% increase. In minutes we have the same number of meetings, about 180, but we’ve lost the equivalent of one full-time person, 40 full-time equivalent hours of part-time temporary help writing the minutes. So we’re covering the same number of meetings with a smaller staff. That sums up what I would like to say about the office. I would just like to briefly cover the 2 handouts that I gave you. The one without the graphics on it is just something that I got from emails from other Auditors and put together. Some of these numbers were put together by the Boone County Auditor and some by the Linn County Auditor, and I added a couple of emails that came in later on. So I can’t verify 100% the accuracy of these but I believe it to be accurate. You folks usually ask what are other counties doing. This is the best information I have about what other counties are doing.

Holland: I don’t understand the significance of the numbers on this. There is no explanation of what they are.

Slockett: OK. I’m sorry it’s very rough. I took it from another Auditor and just printed it out earlier this afternoon. A percentage increase for each office is listed for the small numbers. For the larger numbers it’s the dollar amount increase. That’s just the way other Auditors sent their emails. Then it was plugged into the spreadsheet in that way.

Holland: So for Mills and Mitchell those are dollar amounts. For all of the rest they are percentages.

Slockett: That’s correct. And then you can see for Crawford County a 5% raise was given and the Board of Supervisors has already lowered it to a 0% increase. That’s what it means by cut 100%, they eliminated the increase. In Humboldt they added an additional $500 for the Chair. In Jasper they just set it at $4,000 per elected official. In Mills the Recorder was equalized with the Auditor and the Treasurer. In Mitchell the Supervisors and Attorney asked for zero increase. Any more questions on that one? It really wasn’t clear the way that was presented so I’m glad you asked the question. On the valuations these are produced by the real estate division of the office, which is headed by Mark, who is taking the minutes. The ‘03 numbers aren’t precisely correct. There will be some revision because we don’t have a breakdown on the utility mileage at this point in time. Also, there may be some slight adjustments for the TIFs, the amount of valuations in the TIFs and the amount outside of the TIFs. But he told me that he estimates that it is more likely that the valuation will increase from this amount than decrease, but it should be pretty accurate information.

County Attorney J. Patrick White arrived at 6:20 p.m.

Slockett: This reminds me that I’m remiss in not stating that Pat said ahead of time that he wouldn’t be here until 6:30 so he’s actually 10 minutes early. Bob Carpenter also called and said that he is going to be helping his son move back to Iowa City so he will be unable to attend the meeting as well. You know that the other 2 members of the Compensation Board will not be here. The first page shows the 100% valuations. The quick summary is on the upper right hand corner of the numbers, 2003. Our 100% valuation is about 6.8 billion dollars. The bottom right corner indicates a 9.37% increase from the previous year. The next page shows the rural taxable valuations. This is the total. It’s a billion and that’s up 6.59% from the previous years. That would be the valuations that would be taxed for the rural levies only, Secondary Roads.

Holland: Tom what is this supposed to show us?

Slockett: Well there is usually a question about what kind of shape is the County in. What is the level of activity, and the economic well-being of the County in terms of setting the numbers? So I just thought I would provide this.

Maupin: Could you say that this was a proxy for the increase of the value of the property? This is the increase of the value of the property in the County right?

Slockett: The first page is the increase in the value…

Maupin: For the entire County.

Slockett: Yes.

Maupin: So this would be a proxy for the increase in the value of each parcel of land as it was reevaluated and reassessed on an ongoing basis.

Slockett: Yes, the average increase.

Holland: These aren’t taxable values.

Slockett: No that’s on the next page.

Kistler: The last 3 pages are taxable values.

Holland: So these are with the rollbacks factored in?

Kistler: These would be the valuations actually used to calculate the tax levy with some minor adjustments that come along.

Slockett: The second page is the rural portion. The third page is the countywide taxable valuation, at least in my copy. Is that the order that yours are in?

Maupin: Yes.

Slockett: That shows the taxable valuations of the County and that’s with the rollbacks and that’s the 3.9 billion and the increases over the previous years of about 3.54%. Then the final page is the debt service tax levy that we do. The debt service levy includes the TIF areas and it has increased 5.28%. That’s all of the information I have.

County Treasurer Tom Kriz: From the Treasurer’s Office I can tell you as we continue to work through our office, we’ve had a lot of changes. We have now completed our cross training and we think that’s an integral part of where we’ve been trying to go. We now have people cross trained to be able to work both the tax side of our department and the motor vehicle side. It’s brought us great efficiencies within the office and it builds for a very qualified County employee once we’ve accomplished that. That’s been going on over the last 3 years. A lot of the things we’ve done we continue to look at ways to invest County funds. Interest rates now are hitting 50 and 60 year lows as you see there. Most of what we’re seeing is a million dollar reduction in investment interest to the County over 2 years ago because of those rates. We’d see a bigger loss but we’ve come up with ways now to where even during peak seasons of tax season we are now processing, posting, and depositing the same day stuff is received. That one day edge even in a small percentage generates a nice amount of dollars for the County, especially if its done by weekends, because there are certain holds put on various funds. We continue to look at the future of the Treasurer’s Office. We anticipate that there will be great changes in County government over the next few years as to what is done by various offices. There is legislation out there to look at changing the whole tax assessment roles, how that is done, the possibility of eliminating rollbacks, getting into where it is done by square footage, where the Treasurer’s Office does that. So we’re trying to stay proactive and have the right people in the right places to take on some of that if that legislation changes. I think there definitely will be changes in how property and things are assessed. We continue throughout to look for better ways to serve the public. Our office is really only a service oriented office. All we really have to offer is service to the people of the community. We grew about 2,000 more vehicles this year to where we’re up close to 113,000 vehicles, trucks, and trailers registered in Johnson County, which now exceeds the population. That doesn’t count everything that happens with kids that come here to school that keep their vehicles registered in their home county. That’s units registered here. So the motor vehicle side continues to be busy. The economy has been good and car sales have been good so that department keeps really busy. The key thing we’ve accomplished this last year is to finish our cross training. I think the other big issue is for the 5th year in a row we’ve been able to cut our operating budget, which is extremely rare I think in government today. We continue to cut that. Our salary and benefits now make up 92% of my budget. You can see we’re down to 8% is what we actually use for supplies and postage and everything that we do in there. But we look for purchasing and numbers. We look for specials on things. We been able to make some big strides in what it really costs to operate the office. We’re pleased with where we’re going. We think we’re positioned for changes in the future. If you look in our office you can see it looks like we have a lot of a space in there again. I think we’re positioned to have the space we need for the changes to come.

Vunderink: Can you give an example of what you see as impending. You say in your letter likely that the assessment process for property taxes will see major changes.

Kriz: There is talk right now of revamping that whole system to where the houses and things are assessed on square footage and not by dollar values to bring some parity into that. That issue initially is looked at to be done by the Treasurer’s Office. That would bring it to where we’d have to do the calculations and do some things like that. There are areas that would remove Assessors from the whole process and get into a strictly driven square footage type assessment of properties that doesn’t change until a house changes hands. There are some real negative points to that but we have to be prepared and ready to take on that task if we get to the point where our office is required to have the calculations to do those based on assessment. Rather than if your house is assessed at $300,000, your house would be so many square feet at this amount and this will be how its assessed. There are big changes. There are a couple of pilot counties starting to look at that now. But I think something will happen in that area where I know our office will be more involved rather than where we are now with just collecting the basic taxes. I think the other thing we’re looking at is changes is the distinct possibility of drivers licenses. About 60 some counties in Iowa do drivers licenses in the Treasurer’s Office in the smaller counties. We still have a DOT super-station in town. But as the State looks at ways to cut back and fund things differently there is a distinct possibility that can be without choice given to the Treasurer’s Office. That presents some problems space-wise, let alone facility-wise. But that possibility really exists, and if at some time if nothing else it could be that a satellite office that would have to be run by the Treasurer’s Office. Quite often I think, as the State looks at balancing a budget, that burden trickles down to the County level. Then as taxpayers locally we pick up the tab for that. That is a very likely thing to happen. The drivers license works very well in the small counties. The people in the counties like it. They are dealing with people they know, but it’s an enormous job. It eliminates the necessity of having a traveling team of people coming from the State. There is a lot of staff over there to take care of the population that continually changes in this town. But we need to be ready if we’re asked to step into that or do some of those things. We’re also looking at the possibility of collecting various fees that are now collected through the Clerk of Court, through the cities, where the Treasurer’s Office would collect a lot of those fees. We’re going to start talking about that in January. Those are all kinds of hints of what is out there. But I think when push comes to shove, the County will start doing more of the work the State has done previously, especially in the DOT area.

Peters: When that happens, will there be funds to help support those services like in the DOT area?

Kriz: There will be funds to help support it, but history shows us that the funds are never enough to cover the cost. We’ve reduced our staff, as you can see, by 4 full-time and 3 part-time, but we still lose money running the motor vehicles side. We’re about one staff person from that to break even. We’ve lobbied for a bigger percentage of that to cover it. There are funds but I don’t anticipate that we’ll ever be at a level where it’s a profitable situation. It’s sad to say that we yearn to break even but that’s truly what we try to do on that mandated part of it.

Peters: Thank you.

Hughes: Pat, you’re the only one that hasn’t had an opportunity to say anything. If you want to this would be the time.

County Attorney J. Patrick White: I don’t need to say very much. I have mailed to you again this year the County Attorney’s Association Salary Survey. It tells you as it has for year after year after year that my position is underpaid by $12 or 13,000 by national standards. I think it also tells you that the Johnson County Attorney has lost ground by comparison to other County Attorney’s around the State. Polk and Linn have certainly given their County Attorney’s larger increases over the last several years. You’ll find a good many pretty small counties paying in the 70’s and 80’s which is part of what I mean by losing ground. I think the dilemma always is how much can we afford? I also think, by the way, that the system works better if your recommendations are either across the board or close. In the years when somebody has recommended a significant increase it always causes consternation and problems at the Board of Supervisors process. Although I would like to be paid what those national standards say, I continue to seek reelection because I love what I do. I think the realistic end point in this Fiscal Year is in the vicinity of 2 or 3%. What that says to you in terms of your recommendation to the Supervisors, I don’t know. But I think that is the end point that is realistic for us to talk about. I’m happy to answer questions about my office if you’d like to know what the heck we’re doing.

Hughes: I have a couple of questions and then I’ll ask anybody else if they do. In a couple of the reports that I looked at, one of them listed the actual cost, I think of one percent, and then another one was the increases last year. I recall from reading the minutes that there are no longevity and it doesn’t sound like Cost of Living for the elected officials. I was wondering, it looked like they all got a little bit of a bump above what they agreed to either, .25 or .5 or .9, is that like health insurance or pension? Because I saw you all gave yourself 3% across the board but then on the thing that said percent increases when it included actual costs, it was a little bit larger than that. I just didn’t know what that difference accounted for. Does anybody know? It’s not a lot but I just kind of wondered what that increase was above what you agreed to. For the Attorney and the Auditor it was 3.25 instead of 3. Then we had 6 and a half, 3.9, 3.9 and I just didn’t kind of understand that one chart.

White: For the offices or for the positions Pat?

Slockett: What page is it on?

Hughes: It’s on page 30. It says Board of Supervisors action and it has our recommendation. Maybe I’ve got the wrong year. I thought I had the right year. It’s for last year.

White: 3% is correct.

Kistler: Yes.

White: The people that work for us got more than that so the offices would be higher.

Hughes: I just didn’t know what that difference was about. It would just be clarification for me.

Deputy Auditor Michele Tamerius: If you look at the year, they don’t have the longevity figured in for 2003, so that actually ends a year earlier on the second chart.

Kistler: Because that is actual wages so that they can factor in longevity in everything that gets paid throughout the year so that is a year behind the first chart.

Tamerius: If you look at the first chart and the second chart and line up the years, they will be the same.

Hughes: OK.

White: The elected officials certainly don’t get anything additional.

Hughes: That’s what I was confused on.

White: Whatever you approve is the Cost of Living or more.

Hughes: The other thing that is not a question but I would note or ask about is we ranked everybody else’s wages except the Attorney’s, which you could figure out by looking at the chart, that everybody else was ranked according to 1 to 99. So I kind of had to do some extrapolations to see where you fell in the pack.

White: The County Attorney’s Survey should include that information.

Hughes: It’s probably an error in the spreadsheet.

White: I think I’m 3rd, but the Scott County Attorney is still a part-time position so if you somehow factor that in I think I would be 4th.

Hughes: Does anybody have any questions for the elected officials?

Maupin: I had a question for either Mike or Pat. You mentioned in your summary about the Board of Supervisors 3/4 time versus full-time issue. Your comments were limited to the financial impact for the County if you were to go from 3/4 to full-time. Did you move conceptually in terms of your thinking of whether or not you should propose to be full-time? I think we concluded at the last meeting that you more or less had the ball on that issue. I just wondered where your thinking was on it beyond just figuring out how much more it would cost.

County Supervisor Pat Harney: Did you get the page with how much more it would cost if we did the whole thing?

Maupin: Yes.

Harney: I think the Board in discussions amongst ourselves, has come up with an understanding of 3/4 time for various reasons. Financially I think it would cost the County quite a bit more unless, we cut back to 3 when making it full-time. I talked to other counties and they feel they would like to go to 5 because there is so much bickering and going back and forth. I don’t know firsthand but I understand that was the issue here when they went to 5 from 3.

Hughes: Was there any contact made with either Polk County or Scott County to find out exactly how they ended up defining themselves as full-time. I think that is noted that they knew that would happen.

Maupin: So basically you said that this is no time to be talking about making this move under the circumstances financially.

Harney: That’s the way we felt.

Holland: I have a question about that as far as budget. What does the budget look like for next year because at the State level there is a lot of discussion of across the board cuts. While those aren’t direct cuts to County budgets there is a big trickle down effect when there are cuts at the State level the Counties end up absorbing some of those costs. I don’t know what the budget looks like for next year. I know we’re fairly into that process at this point. Based upon what you know, what do you see things looking like next year? I think that whatever decisions we make are going to be, unfortunately, probably more budget driven than quality of service driven. I don’t think that anybody is in quibbles about the quality of service that people are getting but I think there are serious concerns about what money is there and what message we send to the public with what we do. If you could tell me what you know about the budget at this point.

Lehman: Regarding the figures that Tom Slockett has offered, we’re hoping that some of the growth will give us a little room in our General Fund where there is some more taxation base. But our impact as a County isn’t nearly as bad as Iowa City’s and some of the larger metropolitan areas. It will definitely have an impact. Our department heads have been very responsible when we send the message that there is going to be belt tightening again. They’ve been very good about pulling their requests back and trying to operate on a shoestring.

Harney: If you factor in the growth in the County and all of the dollars coming in, speaking for the Assessor it sounds like most of the valuations and appraisals are going up about 11% this year which really kind of surprised me. Really I think that Johnson County is going to be in pretty good shape compared to last year. It’s the same and we did fairly well. Depending on what the State does, if there are some unknowns that we aren’t aware of that causes a problem, but right now it looks like we’re going to be in pretty good shape.

Holland: Concerning the possibility of a property tax freeze again, I think that may be on the horizon, and may impair the ability to utilize that valuation. Part of the problem is there are just too many unknowns as to what is going to happen at both the State and the County level.

White: Some of the cuts, Joe, are direct. After our budget was certified last year when the Legislature decided not to reimburse Counties for the credits, that was a direct cut and there was some talk about switching the credits, discontinuing the property tax credit system. Again, that would have direct impact on local government budgets. It’s still too early to know.

Holland: With things like Tom was talking about, where you shift a workload out of the State function to a County function but you don’t give the County the bucks to pick up the full cost of doing that, it is a cut but it’s not a direct stated cut.

Lehman: You all know as residents here, a majority of our funding comes from property tax. There’re rollbacks in residential, but there is no rollback on commercial. So if they have commercial property, any increase is direct, there is no protection there whatsoever. It is the full blunt force.

Hughes: Kim?

Painter: I think I spoke a little bit early and since everyone else was being so silent I thought they might not say very much. There are a couple things I would like to add about the accomplishments in the Recorder’s Office for the year. I did hand out a sheet with the heading, Documents Recorded Per Year from 1999 to 2003. 2003, which ended in June, was a particularly busy year, a challenging year in many ways. We topped the year before by over 11,000 documents, which is a huge load for the office. We also, in the midst of the height of that document load, implemented a new real estate system for imaging and indexing real estate to the web. It also provides a new point of sales system, which is something the office has needed for quite a while. It has allowed us to accomplish some of the goals I think Tom mentioned in his report, as far as, making sure deposits are made each day rather than waiting to catch up with the work for that day. So we have positioned ourselves in some pretty good ways. It has posed some challenges too, one of which pertains to the fact that when budgets were cut, as always happens or often happens, one of the first discretionary items to go were staff development kinds of dollars. We have visited with the Board this year in our strategic planning process and one of the things that I advocated for and others certainly agreed with and the Board agreed with was the hope that we would reinstitute some of those dollars. And I think that will help, certainly in my office, to connect especially some of the newer staff with service ideals and some of those things that we work on in the office. But in a year like last year, it’s been a challenging year for the office. There is no doubt about it. We’ve received good marks for the website and we got through a remarkable year that effected us and a lot of our peers in the real estate related industries pretty heavily. So, I am pleased with what we were able to do and just wanted to add those things.

Hughes: Tom?

Slockett: If I could direct your attention to some information indicating the increase in values for the taxable levies. If you look at the graph on the first page, Johnson County Taxable Valuations--the 2nd line entitled Actual Growth in Johnson County Taxable Valuations--shows the 2003 taxable valuations used for the next budget year (FY2005). They are this year’s valuations (calendar year 2003). The increase was 133 million for the County’s taxable valuations for the General Fund. The same levies provide slightly over a half million dollars for the General and Supplement levies, the two General Fund levies of the County. You can see that is an increase from the previous year, which was an increase from the year prior. All of them are significantly less than the increase we had in the year 2000. Some of the rural County Auditors are almost sending out SOS’s. One small county emailed that it looks like their valuations are decreasing by 10 million. They filled out all of the digits. That was a large hit for that county. Another one emailed 100 million cut and it was a large cut for them. By contrast, Johnson County is a very different picture. One of the reasons the State budget is in so much trouble is because there are a lot of counties that aren’t as busy, aren’t developing as much, aren’t doing as well as Johnson County. So, I think it makes a real difference in our workloads and also what our capacities are in this County as contrasted with those counties in the State.

Hughes: Tom?

Kriz: I would make one comment. If you look at the compensation part, I think it is important to remember that the County has a longevity system that applies to bargaining as well as non-bargaining people. It can range as high as 3, but it averages out to about 2% that automatically goes to employees in those categories on a yearly basis. Which means that if straight across the board everybody got a 2% change, it correlates down to basically zero since deputies, because of the Code, can not have any longevity or any pay over what is there. It is important to keep in mind that every year that grows for the non-elected officials by about 2% once they hit the longevity period. It never changes in this area. So what happens is that curve gets closer and closer as the salary levels stay the same. While one increases with longevity, the other doesn’t. That’s a pretty sizable figure over a period of 5, 7, 10 years. The deputies lose ground. They truly do. At least in my office the deputies are the heart and soul of our office. They are the ones that take the challenge and make it happen, along that line. So, it is important to know that the elected officials and the deputies are the ones carved out of that system who don’t receive that longevity each and every year, while that continues to go on.

Hughes: I guess the question that poses to me, and I was going to ask that before you made the comment, has your turnover in any of your departments either gone up or down significantly since we met a year ago? I guess I would be thinking more specifically of the non-elected officials, but maybe in the people that are building up longevity. Are you getting a more senior, more tenured group of employees or is the turnover as great or less in that group as opposed to your non-elected officials?

Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek: Turnover definitely went down during the past year primarily due to the state of the economy.

Hughes: Across the board?

Shramek: Yes.

Painter: I had 2 changes in personnel last year. One was the result of a promotional opportunity within another department for a fairly senior bargaining unit staff member. The other was the result of a retirement for another fairly senior bargaining unit member.

Hughes: That was my next question. Do you have contracts up this year or are you rolling over for a year?

Shramek: We have 6 collective bargaining unit contracts, 3 of which are open. We just had mediation today and we have mediation tomorrow. So they are not settled and of the 3 that are settled with AFSCME, they will be in the second year of a 3 year contract and they are all at 3%.

Hughes: OK, thank you.

Shramek: The contracts also include a change on the health care coverage and plan design. We are increasing the family deductible from $100 to $200 and the family out-of-pocket maximum from $500 to $1,000. That goes into effect January 1, 2005.

Hughes: Does that agreement effect the health insurance for your non-bargaining unit employees? There are some places that whatever the bargaining unit gets, everybody gets.

Shramek: We strive very hard to keep the same plan design, so chances are it is going to effect everyone.

Hughes: OK, thank you.

Slockett: In terms of the bargaining units increases versus the deputies and elected officials, on page 29, it shows the percentage increase of the bargaining units and elected officials. At the very bottom of the page is the summary for all units. The bottom right-hand corner shows the increase in 2003 was 5.7% average for the units and that takes into account the longevity and the step raises that the bargaining unit gets. If you contrast that with page 28, on the right-hand column under 2004, you can see all of the elected officials and their deputies got 3%. The previous year it was the 3.25%, I guess the Board went up 6.5%, the Recorder and Treasurer 3.9%, and the Sheriff 3.9%. Those numbers are significantly below, for the most part, the 5.7%.

Hughes: Do you expect that number to be about the same this year?

Slockett: I wouldn’t know.

Hughes: It looks like it has kind of creeped up every year. So, I was just wondered if we should expect it at 5.7% to be a little higher next year.

Slockett: I’m not involved in the negotiations.

White: I’m not either anymore.

Shramek: I’m not sure where all this reference is.

Hughes: I guess I was assuming that it was the longevity and the other increases that were causing the creep and not necessarily the contract.

Slockett: Well they are part of the contract, the longevity and the step raises are part of the negotiations.

Hughes: OK. Good point. Point well taken.

Slockett: One concern has been that we not increase more than the contracts. If you look at the contracts, the percentage increases don’t include the steps that the employees get and the longevity. But when you look at the actual dollars paid and the percentage increase, the contracts are getting about twice as large an increase as the elected officials and deputies. While we are close to this, I would like to talk about page 31, which shows what a 1% increase would be. That is done so, for example, whatever number you choose, you can take a half of that if it’s going to be a half percent increase or multiples of that number if you were going to make it more than 1%. The bottom right-hand corner of page 32 is broken down by each office and the deputies. That’s making the assumption that the deputy is getting the same amount as the elected official, which isn’t necessarily true, but it’s the potential increase of the deputies salaries. The bottom right-hand corner shows that for all of the deputies and elected officials, a 1% increase would cost the County $12,417. If it is going to be 2%, it would be a total cost to the budget of $24,834 and so on, just to put it into perspective.

Hughes: Any more comments or questions? Hearing none does anyone want to make a motion or begin discussion on a motion?

Maupin: In the way of beginning a discussion let me say that I think it is reasonable for this Compensation Board to recognize that it is possibly a difficult fiscal year that we are about to enter into and that to some extent might be reflected in our recommendations. On the other hand I think it is a mistake, and I think that we are not qualified to pencil-whip the number to try to figure out whether it should be 2.5, 2.75, or 3 because we simply don’t have the knowledge to do that and no ability to predict what the fund situation is going to look like next year. So, I think it is better to arrive at a figure that, though perhaps somewhat lower than what we recommended last year, still gives the Board of Supervisors a certain amount of headroom to work with. I’m sure they would appreciate it and if it turns out that they have to reduce the number that we have suggested, I don’t see any major downside to them other than the fact that people in the departments may be mad at them for awhile. But being Supervisors, they are probably used to that. So, I would recommend that you think about something maybe somewhat less than what we recommended last year. But, not the 2.75, 2.633 that we might suspect the number actually comes in at. It’s just sort of a philosophical position.

Hughes: Do you want to make a motion?

Maupin: I will. I was just trying to catch my breath. I move that the Compensation Board recommend a 4% across the board increase for the elected officials for the coming fiscal year.

Hughes: Is there a second to that for the sake of discussion at least?

Peters: I’ll second it.

Hughes: OK, discussion.

Vunderink: Does that mean that we are recommending across the board or whether we are discussing it.

Hughes: At least at this point.

Maupin: This is the motion.

Vunderink: OK.

Hughes: Any other comments, discussion?

Holland: I’ll have to confess, it has been a real quandary today looking at these numbers and trying to think about what to do. Over the last 3 or 4 years, I’ve got the reputation as the big spender on the Compensation Board. I’ve advocated some significant increases particularly for the members of the Board of Supervisors. I do have real reservations about recommending a significant increase this year. While I understand what Dave says about making a recommendation and leaving headroom for the Supervisors, I don’t think we have to do that because the Supervisors could simply decide that what we propose is reasonable and adopt it as presented. While in the past they’ve made cuts, there is certainly no obligation to do that. They can take whatever that recommendation is and adopt it as its given. On the other hand, I understand exactly what is said particularly about the trickle down effect of the deputies. I, in some respects, have more concerns about them than the elected officials because they made a choice to run for office and are prepared to accept what the compensation for that office is. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be fairly compensated, but they made that decision. Now, you can I suppose say to deputies hired on what the compensation would be but they didn’t do it necessarily because of the same element of public service that motivates people who stand for election. Frankly, I think this year I probably would be more of an advocate for bringing honesty to the process and recommending something more between 3 and 3 and half percent hoping the Supervisors act on that recommendation without deduction.

Hughes: Any other discussion?

Peters: It would be interesting to know though how many years, I forget exactly, when the Compensation Board was instituted, but how many years out of those the Supervisors accepted the recommendation as proposed.

Hughes: I don’t think ever.

Maupin: Out of the 8 I see in front of us, I don’t think ever.

Peters: But I know exactly what you are saying, and I agree with you.

Holland: What happens at the State level is departments come in and always ask for more than they want so that they get what they really want. We’re sort of on the flip side of that, recommending more than we think the Supervisors will give so that they can come in where they think they ought to be. I would hope that in terms of managing fiscal issues that an honest approach to what is appropriate rather than an inflated approach with an expectation it will be reduced will be helpful in managing any business enterprise, which is what County government is, in one sense.

Hughes: Any other discussion? If not, all in favor of the motion, and if the motion fails we can have another motion either for more or less. Actually if the motion passes we could have another motion to at least make it more.

Motion by Maupin, second by Peters, that the Compensation Board recommend a 4% across the board increase for the elected officials for the coming fiscal year. The Chair called for the aye and nay votes. The Chair declared the motion passed.

Hughes: Motion carried. You’ve lost your reputation. OK is there any other motions or any other business? Does the public have any business they wish to bring before the Compensation Board?

Vunderink: Just so that we could get this in the minutes, I wanted to say I appreciated the people who provided us with reports and facts and figures ahead of time before tonight and made it easier to put each department in perspective with the other departments. Although it may look like we made a very quick decision here, I think having a lot of good materials ahead of time was helpful in being able to study and come here and make the process look harmonious and be harmonious as well as hopefully be constructive to the people whose compensation depends on this process. So out of that would come that maybe next year we could get some things before the night of the decision.

Hughes: That’s the next matter of business is when is the night? We need to set a meeting. Is it appropriate to attempt to do that now? It’s never worked before.

White: I think it’s hopeless.

Vunderink: I don’t know how difficult it was given what we did. We surveyed a list of dates at some point this fall. It seemed to work pretty well. I remember last year we set this date and it got cancelled twice before we finally came up with a date. Whoever did that, if that worked well for them it seemed to work well for us here, although anybody else could disagree with that.

Maupin: I think Tom did it, didn’t you Tom?

Slockett: Yes. Mark did it last year when we had the problem, and then Michele sent it out this year.

Holland: Emailing made it much easier because people can respond more quickly from the Compensation Board, instead of phone calls or letters trickling back. I tried to respond the same day or right away to let people know my availability. I thought that process worked pretty well.

Kistler: You don’t play phone tag.

Holland: Phone tag or waiting for something to come through the mail.

Hughes: Does this time of the month generally work? This is the third Wednesday of the month.

Holland: I would rather move it forward a little bit toward November because things get busy around the holidays. I tend to face a lot of year end deadlines and it is a busier time of year. I’ve been in Des Moines all day and had to beat it back here to be here by 6:00. Generally a little bit earlier in November, but there are holiday issues there too, but even earlier in December.

Slockett: At long last I remembered the question you always asked which is when is the ISAC meeting scheduled. It’s scheduled the 14th through the 16th and yes it does start on a Sunday.

Hughes: What is ISAC?

Slockett: The Iowa State Association of Counties meeting that most of us or some of us will be at.

Hughes: Those dates again are when?

Slockett: November 14 through 16.

White: We’ll be back by Wednesday night under new regime.

Lehman: We’ll make sure the President of ISAC is available.

Maupin: Are you talking before Thanksgiving or after Thanksgiving?

Holland: I would rather go before.

Hughes: That sounds like before. Well Thanksgiving is on the 18th next year. Wednesdays turn out to be a pretty good day for me because I’m in a meeting on Wednesday nights, but the day before Thanksgiving might be problematic for people with travel plans. What do you think tentatively for November 10? It would be a Wednesday a week and day before Thanksgiving.

Slockett: Remember there is a Presidential Election.

Hughes: Do you think we’re all going to be hungover or something?

Slockett: I was thinking it was that same week but it’s not, it’s the second.

Hughes: Maybe the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, the 24th?

Maupin: I think that would be better.

Hughes: Joe?

Holland: It looks clear to me at this point.

Hughes: It’s the day after my birthday, you guys should bring me presents.

Maupin: We’ll throw you a big party.

Holland: Are we sure Thanksgiving is the 18th?

Hughes: Isn’t it the 3rd Thursday, or is it the 4th?

Maupin: I thought it was the 4th.

Hughes: Oh, I’m sorry then the 24th is the day before Thanksgiving so maybe we should move it back to the 17th which is the day after your ISAC conference. Tentatively November 17th at 6:00, tentatively. Does anybody have any other business?

Slockett: Could I offer thanks for what you’ve done and some very brief remarks as to why. I really appreciate this. I’ve hired 3 new deputies in the last couple of years. All 3 of them have CPA’s, graduated from the University of Iowa, and have masters degrees in accounting and have grade points above 3.5 and it would be wonderful to keep some of those people. We are blessed in this county, I’ve hired a number of people like that over the years, and they’ve served for a sufficient time to make it rewarding. So I really appreciate what you’ve done tonight and hope that the Board can stick close to it.

Hughes: Well before I say thank you, I have a question. Road plowing, this isn’t a criticism, this is actually a Kudo, who plows State highways like 965 and Highway 6? Is that a County responsibility or does the DOT do that?

Lehman: 965 is the County’s now. Highway 6 is still the State.

Hughes: OK, well I’ve got to tell you. A week ago last Wednesday, we had a snow storm and I was foolish enough to drive up to Cedar Rapids to go to work, I shouldn’t have. I drove all of the way up there and the roads were horrible and then my meeting was delayed so I had to wait 3 hours to go to it, but I told people that the roads just kept getting worse the closer I got to Cedar Rapids, and I started driving back and I drove down 965 and the roads were still horrible. I was driving 35 miles an hour and all of a sudden I hit Johnson County and there was no snow. All of the sudden from Linn County to Johnson County I went from 35 to 55 on 965 because they weren’t out and your people were. I thank you for running good government.

Harney: I’ll pass that on to Secondary Roads.

White: That is a change. We would have to confess that the DOT’s garage and plows are located on 965, so they may have had a hand in it although we’re doing the road.

Hughes: It was a day and night difference. As soon as I hit the County line it was obvious that it was like going through a curtain. I need a motion to adjourn.

Motion by Peters, second by Maupin, that the meeting adjourn. The Chair called for the aye and nay votes. The Chair declared the motion passed.

Adjourned at 7:10 p.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Mark Kistler, Recording Secretary