**Subject to approval by the Compensation Board at a future meeting**
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY COMPENSATION BOARD:
JANUARY 6, 2005
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chairperson Hughes called the Johnson County Compensation Board to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 6:05 p.m. Members present were: Bob George, C. Joseph Holland, Patrick Hughes, David Maupin, Carol Peters, and Patricia Vunderink; absent: Laura Hahn.
DISCUSSION/ACTION: ELECTING A CHAIR
Hughes: I think I’m going to get started. The first part of the meeting is mostly introductions and protocol. When David gets here if there is anything substantive that has happened, we will bring him up to speed. I commented to Joe earlier, our meeting only took an hour last year and I’m going to try to break that record.
Vunderink: I have faith in you.
Hughes: We’ve got one new member tonight, Bob George, appointed by the County Treasurer. Everybody else here I think was here last year. Laura Hahn cannot be here. I believe she is out of town with family. So, I’m going to call the meeting to order as the previous chair and our first action item will be electing a chair. So, with that I would open up nominations for chair.
Peters: Due to the fact that you did such a wonderful job I nominate you, Patrick.
Vunderink: I second.
Hughes: I don’t need a second for nominations. Patrick Hughes has been nominated for chair. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Hearing none nominations are closed. I will serve as chair for tonight’s meeting.
DISCUSSION/ACTION: PREVIOUS MINUTES (DECEMBER 17, 2003)
Hughes: The minutes were sent to all of you. You should have had time to look at them. Barring any incorrections I would entertain a motion that we approve the minutes as distributed. Someone needs to make that motion.
Holland: So moved.
Peters: Second.
Hughes: Motion’s been made and seconded to approve the minutes as distributed. Is there any discussion on that motion?
Motion by Holland, second by Peters, to approve the minutes of the Compensation Board meeting of December 17, 2003.
DISCUSSION: SALARIES OF ELECTED OFFICIALS
County Supervisors Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan
Hughes: OK, any discussion on the information packets? I believe usually at this point in time we’ve let the elected officials offer any salt and pepper they might have on these packets as they’ve been distributed before we start our discussion. Is that OK with everybody? Anybody from the Board of Supervisors have any comments? We’ll start with the Supervisors.
County Supervisor Mike Lehman: I would like to make a general comment. Our workload volume has increased as the County continues to grow and issues surface. We also challenge ourselves through our strategic planning efforts to increase the quality and the direction of our members. Our responsibilities continue to grow as well as the expectations of the taxpayers. That was a general statement. Some of the other Supervisors might have more specific comments of some of the things we have to tackle.
Hughes: Anything Pat?
County Supervisor Pat Harney: Yes, I’ll make a couple comments. We didn’t put together a letter like we did last year.
Hughes: That’s fine.
Harney: I just wanted to make note, and I’m not complaining, and I always feel uncomfortable coming in here like I’m begging for a pay raise and that’s not necessarily the case. But I just want to make you aware of some things that we are doing as Supervisors that really take up a lot more time than other issues that we deal with normally everyday. We began the Public Leadership Summit with Cedar Rapids, North Liberty, Coralville, and that area. That takes time. We meet once or twice a month working together with those entities trying to better relationships between the counties and the cities surrounding us. As you’re all aware we’re working steadily with the jail issues; the over crowding, what we’re going to do for the future of the jail, the situation that we have with space needs there as well as the crowded Sheriff’s Department. We’re looking into alternatives for what we can do in that particular area. As Mike had mentioned the strategic planning that we’ve been doing now long term for Johnson County, moving along, spending a lot of time on road issues in the North Corridor and the surrounding counties are growing so fast. We’ve spent some time going to Washington D.C. Sally and I are going in February. At that time we’re going to work on some issues, trying to get some money for the SEATS program, we’re working on that. They need space because they’re paying a tremendous amount of rent out there and we’re trying to obtain some dollars for that. Even more importantly to me is this issue with the National Guard Armory. Again, that was taking quite a bit of time. I’ve worked on that with Board members. We’re trying to obtain the money for the funding for the National Guard Armory. As you know the space here at this facility, we can’t put an addition on, the overcrowding for Tom Slockett’s Office, the Auditor’s Office, and some of the other offices that we need private offices for the Board that meet the criteria mandated by Code of being separated. With the National Guard, the State last year funded the money for the National Guard to put together their plans for the new facility. Currently the situation is that they are pushing the funding on that back to approximately 2008, maybe even 2010. We’re going to try to push that back up so it’s up where it should be. Our contract with the National Guard actually lapses in ’06 where the contract is null and void if they don’t move along and start something out of that facility. We could extend that contract a little. The Army themselves are going to go with us to Washington D.C. or at least meet us out there and meet with the Congressmen and try to get funding going. These are some things we’re working on that’s taking a lot more time, some extraordinary time to do than our normal daily and monthly duties. Naturally some more legislative duties, we work with issues in Des Moines, we do a lot there, lately more than we had when I started. We’re going into Des Moines as well as locally and working on a lot of the issues and the funding issues that go along with the State budget crisis. As you know Johnson County is coming out pretty fortunate on that because of the growth that is here, and we’re maintaining our financial services here. We have a good Treasurer that’s doing a good job and a member of management that works well. The Auditor keeps track of all these things. I just wanted to bring you up to date that these are some of the things we’re working on and it’s taking a lot more time than it normally does and it’s going to go on for some time.
Hughes: Thank you. Sally? Congratulations on your election as Chair.
County Supervisor Sally Stutsman: Thank you. I’m looking forward to the year. I come at a little different angle. I agree with everything that Pat has said. We do, all of us, work very hard. Our plates are full and we have a lot to keep us busy. I for one love my job, but I don’t do my job necessarily for the pay raise. I always balance your work with what we have to do with the County budget. Trying to present a budget that reflects what the County services are and what the workers are doing and yet not to be out of line with what the taxpayers expect. My personal feeling is that I think you’ve done an outstanding job being pretty realistic and modest with increases. My feeling is if there’s going to be increases I would rather them go to line staff. We have tremendous people working for the County and our support staff in the Supervisor’s Office does a great job, which makes our job easier.
Holland: Sally how does the budget look this year? We’re later than usual so you’re a little farther into the process this year.
Stutsman: Right, it looks good. I think we’ve reaped the rewards of being a growing county plus being pretty conservative in what we have done. As I said before we have outstanding department heads and elected officials who do a terrific job of staying within budget, providing great services, and trying to keep costs within line. In talking to our Budget Coordinator Jeff Horne, he said that budgets that are coming in are pretty much status quo. There are not a lot of increases. There are some in some departments but for the most part most of the departments are pretty much keeping things the way they were last year.
Vunderink: Last year we asked the question about whether you were negotiating any labor contracts and how those were progressing. That was helpful to us. I don’t know if any of you would like to comment on that?
Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek: We have six collective bargaining units. July 1 with AFSCME we’ll be in the third year of a 3 year agreement. That will be for a split 2% increase. That means 2% on July 1, 2005 and 2% on January 1, 2006. That coincides with contributions for healthcare coverage at single $5 per payroll and $12.50 for family. Regarding PPME, we have not reached any settlements but we will be looking at something close to that as well.
Hughes: So that contract is open right now?
Shramek: Right. The Sheriff's Office, Secondary Roads, and the Administrative.
Hughes: Have there been proposals made on either side or is that confidential?
Shramek: It’s not for public access.
Hughes: All right.
Harney: The only thing that I have concern about is not so much for myself but I do have concern for the elected official’s deputies. As the working staff get their pay raises the deputies don’t necessarily always get the money they should get to keep up and stay ahead. In some situations it’s getting to the point where those deputies are actually better off if they’re in the work force without being a deputy because they are coming so close to the others.
Hughes: Rod, I know you are pretty new at this game. Do you have anything to say?
County Supervisor Rod Sullivan: The only thing I would throw out is that I appreciate your folks’ willingness to serve on this board. I think it’s somewhat thankless but I’m glad you folks are willing to take it on.
Hughes: Kim? Got any thing?
County Recorder Kim Painter: Just a little bit of an overview of the past year in the Recorder’s Office with a couple of the highlights that I selected on things that we’ve accomplished. A very comprehensive revision of our website has made it a lot more intuitive and a lot easier to navigate. It’s less clutter and I think it is a lot more helpful for people to use it. That has coincided with the completion of a long anticipated real estate project that has allowed us to do direct to web work right at the point of sale when we take deeds over our counter, to give a short index to people who can then search conveniently from their offices or home or wherever they might be to look at documents. That has been a long time coming. We also completed the scanning of records all the way back to 1983 for that site. I listed a couple of coming attractions. One is a statewide Recorder’s website. We’re looking to create some really innovative functionality in that both with the departments at the State who over see things like birth, death, and marriage records, and make it easier for people to get them anywhere in the State. I heard recently that we are also discussing with the Bar Association the possibility of having a statewide website become integrated in certain ways with the hot docs or the Iowa Bar Association’s document template system so that they can write items directly onto our statewide website. So, that’s exciting to do. I want to follow up on some things Sally said. Sally, as we’ve noted already, is going to be the Chair next year. She’s undertaken a process of visiting with people to talk about the roles for the County and I think it is terrific for us to do that. One of the things I highlight is that the operating budget which in the Recorder’s Office is fairly small, has been holding for a considerable amount of time right at about $30,000 a year. That is considerably less than the operating budget that the Recorder’s Office had ten years ago. We’re happy with the changes technology has allowed us to make in terms of saving funds for the County. I did visit with Sally about possibilities for the Board to consider creating some incentives for elected officials and/or department heads to spend less or to save money in certain ways and perhaps to do some percentage sharing of savings or unspent budget moneys to think outside of the box a little bit. Those conversations have been good as we move forward. The final pages show the office growth over the past four years in terms of fees collected and what it takes to run the office in terms of salaries and also in terms of the operating budget. The excess revenues, as I term it, are just the fees that we collect that go back to the General Fund over and above what it takes to run the office. These are fees that all come predominately from the real estate sector of the local economy and those who do business in that area. It is a considerable amount of money and we’re happy that we have the opportunity to work in that area, collect those fees, and try to be as efficient as possible and give some of that money back. The final page correlates strongly to that increase in moneys, how that document swell affects our income level. That is just a basic illustration. I’d be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Hughes: Mr. Kriz?
County Treasurer Tom Kriz: Just a couple comments, I did mail out to you ahead of time an executive summary that you could go through. It may sound redundant but we are really pleased that we are able to cut our operating budget each year while increasing our revenue and that takes good people and good management in various areas. It’s been a good year. I did mention the biggest challenge that we’ll face since I’ve been Treasurer since January 1999 is the new DOT conversion. I can tell you today it is an absolute nightmare. That will be an even bigger challenge than we thought when I was composing this letter. I handed out one thing today that highlights some things that will correlate a little bit with what Pat Harney said. Of course my deputy’s salaries are set by my salary. So I’m going to use this as an example; a Clerk II in my office, which is one of our lower grade clerks, the $30,000 a year salary Clerk II, looking at what some of the past contracts have been, like Lora said, have been like a 2%/2% split which is a 2% raise as the new contract starts and another 2% raise as the first of the year roles around. That comes to roughly between 3% and 3.05% if you put it together. On a $30,000 Clerk II in our office that would mean roughly a $915 raise. One thing the deputies cannot have, and it’s not part of the compensation package, but the County provides for non-deputies and other employees what’s called longevity pay. That ranges from $500-$900 every year. Now, that is not the salary, but that is a built-in amount of money they get once they’ve been here so long. As you can see for one of my Clerk II’s that would be an automatic built in 1.65% if they’d been there 4-10 years. If they’d been there 21 years or longer, it’s 3% and that is there every year. That’s an every year occurrence once you reach that scale. So when you move down further it shows that a Treasurer’s deputy and the deputies in my office would be paid similar to what Kim’s office or Tom’s office are because all our salaries are very close to the same. So, a deputy in my office would be at $48,000. A same type increase, 3% or 3.05, would mean an increase of $1,464 flat straight across the board. There would be no change based on the length of time they’d been there. To achieve what I would call parity there, and I think it is fair to try to keep salary increases in line with the elected officials, with the union bargaining, and with the non-union bargaining people we have. To really keep that on the same playing field, 1.05% to a deputy’s salary more would be $504. 1.88% percent would be $902, which parallels very closely to what those longevity things are. What that’s telling me that a raise the same for all bargaining units, all non-bargaining, all elected officials is not the same because the elected officials nor their deputies have any chance of sharing in that longevity system that’s built into the rest of the County system. It does amount to anywhere from one to just under 2% every year, which is a built in. If the Board gave no raise to anybody, that would still be a built in increase that they would all get. I thought maybe if we just charted it out and showed how that flows a little bit, it might make that a little more easier to understand. Not too many Counties have that longevity type thing but it does play into a factor here. Even though you can say well, one earns 48 and one earns 30 we have non-deputy positions that earn more than $48,000 and still get longevity pay built in plus their increases. So you can take it on any scale that you look at but it is definitely a factor when you figure that in.
George: What happens with years 11-20?
Kriz: 11 to 20 is graduated $600, $750, and I just took the lowest and the highest. It graduates any place in between that.
George: And how long has it been at those dollar amounts?
Kriz: Lora and Jen probably know that a little better, but it has been pretty close to that the last three or four years. The top end may be raised a little bit up to the $900 in the last years.
George: How many employees is that?
Kriz: I don’t know the total number.
Shramek: Covered by the Administrative unit it would be about 71.
George: 70 employees that have 21 years or more?
Shramek: That I do not know.
Kriz: That would be 70 within our Administrative unit contract not Secondary Roads, not…
George: They get the longevity?
Kriz: Once they’re here, once they pass that four-year point they get that automatically.
Human Resources Coordinator Jen Feldmann: There are 70 employees in the whole Administrative unit. That doesn’t mean all 70 of them get the $900. You have to be here four years before you get it.
Hughes: Is the Administrative unit the only unit that gets longevity?
Kriz: No, I think all units do.
Hughes: OK, that’s what I thought.
Kriz: So, once again, the reference points were just using an example of my salary or Kim’s salary or Tom Slockett’s salary.
Stutsman: Lora, am I correct that longevity has increased in the last couple years the highest…
Shramek: I think it’s four years ago for the Administrative unit and just this past year for the non-bargaining.
Hughes: With the exception of the Sheriff’s Department are most of the employees for the County in the Administrative departments? I know we got that information in the packets somewhere, but just off the top of your head?
County Sheriff Lonnie Pulkrabek: AFSCME has the Ambulance…
Shramek: …Social Services and SEATS.
Peters: Lora, when you were mentioning, and I don’t remember which unit you said, but they are going to start participating in the health insurance premium. It’s $5 for single and I forgot what you said for family.
Shramek: $12.50
Peters: $12.50. Now, is that going to be passed on to those people who are not in a bargaining unit also?
Shramek: The Board hasn’t made a decision on that yet because we are still negotiating with PPME. We’ll make a recommendation after that.
Peters: OK.
Hughes: Mr. Slockett.
County Auditor Tom Slockett: I’ll point out additional supplementary information that was handed out. You got Pat White’s letter. There is also a calendar in case you want to look at that when we’re setting next year’s meeting. There are some blue bar graphs that indicate what Sally indicated earlier, that the County is in a strong position. Then there are three pages I printed off of the Iowa State Association of the County Auditor’s website that indicate what other counties have done at this point in time. You’ll see when you get a chance to look at it, that most counties haven’t posted anything and I think a lot of counties are meeting later this year for one reason or another. There aren’t really any comparable counties that have posted but there are some smaller, maybe 20 or so smaller counties that have posted their results and that is the question that often times comes up. The main thing I would like to talk about is to call your attention in support of what Tom Kriz was saying and what Pat said earlier. On page 27 in the booklet, this is a table that shows percentage increases to Johnson County bargaining units and elected officials including step, cost of living, and longevity increases. The bottom of the page is a compilation of all units. If you go over to the second column from the right and look at the very bottom number right above the page 27 number, 5.2%, that’s the average percentage increase of each of the positions in the bargaining unit last year, 5.2%. The number to the right is the eight year average, 5.16% average over eight years. That compares with the 3% that the Board gave the deputies and elected officials last year and if you look on page 28 in the far right column, the bottom number is 2.58, that is the Consumer Price Index number. The next four numbers above that represent the eight-year average of elected officials. You can see they are all below 4%. That is another way of demonstrating what Tom was saying, that the raises that the elected officials and the deputies get are less each year than the raises the collective bargaining units are getting. It is cumulative overtime and I really think that our deputies, the top management people in our elected officials’ offices are not being paid enough. We need to pay them more for the good work that is being done by those long term deputies, but especially when we go out to the market place to hire new people in order to get quality people for these positions. Whatever weight you can give that would be appreciated. I’ll be happy to answer any questions that anyone has.
County Sheriff Lonnie Pulkrabek
Hughes: Lonnie?
Pulkrabek: The nice thing about going last is that I get to repeat everything everybody else said. I did bring some things that the State Sheriffs and Deputies Association sent out. This is a handout on the Iowa Department of Public Safety which is the state troopers, fire inspectors, division of criminal investigation agents, etc. I would not be here asking for a raise myself, because considering the election I got a raise. But, I do have the same concerns. My command staff are based off of my salary as well. Obviously I want to see them keep pace and pay them well in comparison with what the bargaining unit does. We have a lot going on at the Sheriff’s Office. I was looking through the handout and the book and one of the counties we get compared to often is Story County and Ames because of being a college community. We have a significantly larger population here than they do. I have more staff to oversee than they do. The Sheriff there is paid significantly more than the Sheriff of Johnson County is. Be that as it may, like I said I am here more for the employees than I am myself. We want to get the command staff, there are a lot of them that have been there a long time, we want to make sure that we keep pace wage wise with them as well. The last thing is I would just like to thank you all for your service. Thank you.
DISCUSSION: SALARY INFORMATION PACKETS RECEIVED BY COMPENSATION BOARD
Hughes: OK, does anybody else have any comments on the information packet? OK, that takes us directly into salaries of elected officials. By the way, I meant to say this at the very beginning of the meeting, whoever put this together did a great job. This has just gotten better every year.
Slockett: That would be Casie.
Hughes: You’re using bigger fonts. That was one of my complaints, the fonts were too small. Wonderful job, and I’m glad you’re here to hear me say that.
Administrative Secretary Casie Kadlec: Thank you.
DISCUSSION/ACTION: SALARY RECOMMENDATIONS
Hughes: In previous years we have either gone across the board or if we sensed that there was some sort of adjustment that needed to be made, we have not gone across the board. We are hearing from the elected officials that have administrative staff tell us that their staff is hitting a glass ceiling because they can’t make more than their bosses make and that they annually have been receiving smaller raises than the bargaining unit generally has. And, as Pat White’s letter so eloquently notes, whatever we recommend is going to be less anyway because the Supervisors are always hesitant to give themselves a raise. Are you guys still working 3/4 time?
Stutsman: Yes. That’s what the job says.
Hughes: OK, that was a joke.
Stutsman: Thank you.
Peters: I was going to say, now let’s hear the truth.
Hughes: We know what the truth is. So, what do you guys want to do?
Holland: I’m curious, some of the officials maybe can tell us, has ISAC ever done anything to try to de-couple a deputy’s salary from an elected official’s? Because, as Sally said, I think the people who are elected choose to do that, not because they are necessarily looking for a livelihood, but because of interest in government, public spirit, there are a lot of other motivations, whereas, the people who are a step below that may have some of the same motivations but to a lesser degree. That is one of the difficulties of this is my recollection is that the deputies cannot exceed 80% of the elected official’s salary. So, in order to do as Tom suggests if you want to give the deputies a 5% bump you have to give the elected official probably something closer to a 6 1/2-7% bump. I’m sure that is a problem not just here, but statewide. I wondered if ISAC or any of the other bodies that represent public officials have looked to try to change that formula?
Kriz: Let me tell you Joe, we talked about it at our last Treasurer’s meeting, collectively about that same problem. It was hard to get 99 Treasurers on the same page on that because some truly feel that is all their deputies are worth. So, it’s always a little tough to get to. What we came with and what many of the Treasurer’s Offices are doing, they’re removing their deputies as deputies, having their Board name them as administrative people and then it is wide open. So, they are actually circumventing the law by doing that. But, by taking the deputy and saying you are no longer a deputy, you’re an administrative treasurer, and now you earn 95% of what I earn, and their Boards are approving that. I don’t know that that is the right way to do it, but there is starting to be a trend in that because I think they’ve looked at it and they think it’d be a monumental task to get the Code to change. I think in some cases though it is 80% I know for the Auditor, Recorder, and Treasurer, I believe 85% for the Attorney and Sheriff so there is a little difference there. We tried it, and it was pretty well split.
Holland: At a local level I would encourage people to look at that sort of thing because it is hard for a body like this or for the Supervisors to remove some of the inequities out of that. The example I think of is the Governor’s salary and the football coach’s salary where the Governor’s salary is about roughly 1/20th of what the football coach makes. That’s because of the public service element. I’d like to see the deputies have an increase in compensation but it is difficult because whatever we recommend, as Patrick noted, the Supervisors are likely to cut that. That has a ripple effect all the way down to those deputies.
Slockett: Our Auditor’s Association has proposed legislation for a number of years to that effect and the main reason it usually is not passed, as we’re told by the lobbyists for ISAC, Iowa State Association of Counties, is that it’s seen as a tax increase and the Farm Bureau and other interest groups oppose it for that reason.
Holland: I think you were going to say something Sally and I interrupted you. I’m sorry.
Stutsman: I was going to say that Kim is on the ISAC Board and she probably could talk… It’s not one of the legislative priorities.
Painter: It hasn’t been a legislative priority. As Tom said the Auditor’s have brought it forward and any affiliate is free to do that through the process that we use to generate legislative priorities in a given year. That tends to be one that doesn’t make it through the sieve. As Tom Kriz was saying there comes to be some divided opinion and if and when it appears before the legislature they do not tend to pick that up and run with it but it is certainly something we can keep on the radar for ISAC as a potential and try to generate some better arguments for it collectively.
Hughes: Has there been any discussion in the County at all about delinking like Tom said in any of the departments. Has Mr. White been asked about his opinion on that or is that way down the road.
Kriz: I had talked to the County Attorney’s office a little bit and they thought that was a little strange way to do it but it has been tested and proved to work in other places. Probably that would be my next step to try to do something is to go that route.
Painter: I know that in Scott County the Recorder’s Office has what they call an operations manager. That person in Scott County happens to make considerably more than the Recorder does.
Slockett: Another thing that happens, when that happens and it is legal, the employee is technically an employee of the Board of Supervisors and not an employee of the elected official, which some people see as a good thing and some people see as a bad thing. The other thing that is happening is the Board of Supervisors is directly appointing people to do some of the functions previously done in elected official’s offices and paying those people significantly more than the deputies in the elected offices. Those are some of the trends that are happening. And some people see that as a good thing and some people don’t. Those are some of the trends happening.
Hughes: Tom has that been happening mostly in the larger counties where they’ve been doing these delinkings or is it across…
Kriz: No, Marshall County is a smaller county. Cerro Gordo would be smaller. Polk is larger. Scott is larger. I would say that they are probably linked in the biggest 20 counties or 25 counties.
Slockett: I can give you the benefit of my institutional memory. Johnson County used to have what were called chief clerks. Cletus Redlinger, Ed Steinbrect were both in the past as deputies paid more than the percentage limit because they were classified as clerks. But there was some criticism that this was a way of getting around the law and they eventually changed back and went to keeping the deputies within the statutory limits. But other counties are doing it and especially the larger counties. For example in Polk County some of the administrative people are paid I think more than the Auditor is paid. So I haven’t really seen any kind of compilation of this information statewide but it would be interesting.
Holland: I’m not necessarily advocating either that we use such a system here or that the deputies be paid more than the elected officials but to point out the constraints and the problem is when each person talks about their deputy at that 80%, 85% limitation and then the Board of Supervisors trimming that makes it difficult to do the kinds of things you are talking about doing.
Hughes: Any motions? Do you want to just start with a number and keep working our way up or how do you want to do it?
Peters: Or we could start with a number and work our way down.
Hughes: Well we could do that too.
Peters: We would have to start kind of high.
Holland: Well there is also the issue of the Supervisors when they make a cut that is uniformly distributed. I can’t remember if it’s cut 10% everybody is cut 10% or if it is cut a dollar amount everybody is cut the same dollar.
Hughes: It can be done two ways I think.
Holland: That was my recollection.
Hughes: It can be done either way.
Slockett: I think it is believed that the law says an equal percent and that has been interpreted you could do it either as a percentage of the entire salary or a percent of the increase.
Holland: I think that for simplicity’s sake it has typically been a percentage reduction of the increase because it is way too complicated to go through and figure out the effect the other way. I’ve been all over the board on this. If you look at some of the past numbers I was prolifically responsible for the 10% recommendation increase of the Board of Supervisors and then last year I was the miser. I deal with County government on a regular basis. I don’t know about other people on the Board but I deal with a lot of the offices on a pretty regular basis and I would certainly agree that the quality of service and the efficiency in the offices has shown a remarkable increase, particularly in the past 3 to 5 years. I think some of it is application of technology and some of it is application of better management. The Board of Supervisors, it really is a joke to say that it is a 3/4 time job. If anything it probably is more like a 125% time job. I think it is important to advocate for some significant increases recognizing that the Legislature is looking at a 350 million deficit and unfortunately I suspect that one of the ways that is going to be dealt with is by shifting costs back to not just counties but all local governmental units which has been one of the standard techniques of dealing with that deficit over the last couple of years. We really don’t know what that impact is going to be until the Legislature has concluded its session. I also don’t know about the wisdom of singling out any particular group of people among the elected officials for a higher percentage increase because frankly I think that all of the elected officials have been doing a good job. When I say elected officials I essentially mean the department heads, Treasurer, Auditor, Recorder, Sheriff. I think that County government has become a lot more complex and I read in the newspaper about the constant cry in some other places for consolidation of government and in this county obviously there are people advocating for consolidation of Iowa City and Johnson County government and having a single unitary government. But frankly I think County government functions really pretty well and in a whole different mode than government in the two bigger cities in the County do. I would move a 5% increase for the Attorney, Auditor, Treasurer, and Recorder. Did I leave anybody out? Basically for all of those elected public officials and a 7.5% increase for the Board of Supervisors?
Hughes: Is there a second to that for the sake of discussion?
Vunderink: Could you repeat that Joe?
Holland: 5% for each of the County Attorney, County Auditor, County Recorder, County Treasurer, and County Sheriff, and 7.5% for the Board of Supervisors.
Hughes: Again is there a second to that for the sake of discussion?
Vunderink: I’ll second it.
Hughes: OK. A motion has been made and seconded. Is there any discussion on the motion?
Holland: You aren’t going to make it in an hour.
Hughes: Yes I am.
Holland: You’re not anticipating discussion?
Hughes: I’ve got the gavel here.
George: Is there any thought given to the experience level of the elected official as well as their deputies if there has been change within the last year? I’m looking at that from the standpoint of a newly elected official maybe not having the experience of the person that they replaced as you look at this process or do they just automatically get the benefit of all of that past experience?
Holland: Are you asking me?
George: I’m asking anybody who wants to respond I guess.
Holland: I wouldn’t say that the newly elected official is inexperienced. We have a range. I think that Tom is certainly the senior. He has been in County government longer than anybody else out there. What 25 years?
Slockett: 28.
Hughes: Pat White is right up there with you though.
Slockett: Not as County Attorney but he was in the County Attorney’s Office.
Hughes: Right.
Holland: And also for a considerable amount of time that was a part-time position, the County Attorney. Then you are all the way down to Lonnie, who, I guess you’ve taken office.
Pulkrabek: Right.
Hughes: And Rod.
Holland: But he’s also been at the Sheriff’s Department for a long time. That’s a real hard thing to quantify because then you’ve got Tom Kriz and Kim who fit in between with varying lengths of service. It’s my personal inclination to kind of ignore that and figure that if you compensate people well and do a good job and if they don’t there is another election coming up before too long that will take care of that.
Hughes: I would like to concur with your motion. It follows a strategy that we used about three or four years ago in that it some way forced the Board of Supervisors to accept a raise without placing any punishment or not to the detriment of the other offices because they weren’t going to cut so much from their raise to deny anybody else of getting a raise. It ensured that what our intent was which was to try to help out the deputies wouldn’t be impugned by the politics of the Board not really wanting to give themselves a raise.
Peters: The other thing that does, if you remember a couple of years ago I brought in a chart showing that where the Supervisors had requested that they did not get the raise so this is bringing them up.
Hughes: Pat do you have anything to offer. You seconded the motion in terms of discussion.
Vunderink: I guess I always go with Joe. No.
Holland: That’s a dangerous decision.
Vunderink: No we usually do not see that. It was interesting that Bob brought up the experience issue because I wondered if that was going to be something that we would feel like we needed to deal with at all tonight. I know in the past we’ve not treated it as a separate issue.
Holland: I don’t have any objection if other members of the Board want to vote on those on an individual basis. I started at 5%. You could vote for each office and say yay or nay.
Hughes: I guess as Chair I would want to vote on the motion as is and if we vote the motion down we can have a motion to do it a piece at a time or several at a time. So if you don’t want to do it all at once you should vote no for the motion.
Vunderink: Something to Bob I might say that when you look at that experience issue when you read through the packet and see comparable salaries around the State as well as within the City of Iowa City treating them that way does not make their salaries out of line with other similar types of skills, knowledge, and management of other issues. I think we’ve been sensitive in the past that the County pay has been less than the City of Iowa City pay and we don’t want to see that gap widen and we’ve tried to narrow that. Bob’s probably coming from an accounting point of view where you would deal with that issue. I guess having discussed this issue for the last three years it seems to be the fairest way to deal with it and to make things as equitable with other law enforcement officers within the City.
Holland: I think particularly with the people who run for office that even though they do it out of public service, and I don’t think Lonnie was probably chasing a big salary given what he went through this year, but I think you can to a certain degree either reward or encourage people to take on public service by paying the position itself, independent of the person, but the office carrying a certain compensation with it.
Hughes: Any other discussion? Hearing none all in favor of the motion indicate by saying aye.
Peters: Aye.
Vunderink: Aye.
Holland: Aye.
Hughes: Opposed, nay.
George: Nay.
Motion by Holland, second by Vunderink, that the Compensation Board recommend a 5% increase for the County Attorney, County Auditor, County Recorder, County Sheriff, and County Treasurer, and a 7.5% increase for the Board of Supervisors. The Chair declared the motion passed.
Hughes: Motion carried. Any other business that we need to bring before this body? Is there any business from the public that needs to be brought before this body?
SETTING DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING
Hughes: The next item on the agenda is setting a date and time for the next meeting. Are we legally obliged to do that Tom?
Slockett: No.
Hughes: OK. Joe pointed out that we’ve never met when we’ve planned it anyway and wondered if this was just kind of a fruitless exercise or whether we needed to do it.
Holland: I would suggest Tom that your office start contacting people around the first of October and looking for November and December dates. Everybody’s schedule is hard to plan. What has happened is you with good intentions have helped plan that meeting and then you’ve had to change it because of demands in your office. The ISAC meeting, the Election this year and I think we might as well wait until next year to schedule it.
Hughes: This year.
Holland: This year, that’s right. Two meetings this year.
Sullivan: Patrick I think there are a couple of terms that expire June 30, 2005.
Hughes: That’s a very good point.
Sullivan: So you’ll have a couple of other people that you’ll need.
Hughes: What works for us might not work for them. Everybody is OK with that? All right. Not seeing that we have any other business on our agenda and it’s five till 7:00 I would accept a motion for adjournment.
Motion by George, second by Peters, that the meeting adjourn. The Chair declared the motion passed.
Adjourned at 6:55 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Kadlec, Recording Secretary