• Discussion/Action: Electing a Chair
• Discussion/Action: Previous Minutes (December 6, 2000)
• Discussion: Salary Information Packets Received by Compensation Board
• Discussion: Salaries of Elected Officials
  • County Treasurer Tom Kriz
  • County Recorder Kim Painter
  • County Sheriff Bob Carpenter
  • County Auditor Tom Slockett
  • County Supervisors Mike Lehman and Terrence Neuzil
• 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 6:03 p.m. Members present were: Laura Hahn, C. Joseph Holland, Patrick Hughes, David Maupin, Carolyn Peters, Patricia Vunderink, and Kristene Westphal.

Unless otherwise noted all actions passed unanimously (with the Chair abstaining).

Hughes: We’re going to begin tonight’s meeting of the Compensation Board. I would note that we have 4 new members, Laura Hahn, Patricia Vunderink, Carolyn Peters and David Maupin. I welcome you all to the Compensation Board. This is like a seat change here. We’re changing over half of the Board. Welcome. I hope you found the materials informational that you got.

Hahn: (Inaudible)

Hughes: You’re a reappointment. I appreciate the materials that we got from the Auditor. Although, I would kind of, just out of curiosity, like to know if the person that gave us the spreadsheet here for the County wears glasses or not.

Deputy Auditor Mark Kistler: It’s provided by the Iowa State Association of Counties.

Hughes: I want to tell you what it looks like. When you put it on ledger, you can read it, which is what I did on my photocopy machine. I believe it’s in 10 or maybe 12 font if it’s in ledger. I do appreciate the materials and I appreciate the materials I got from the Board of Supervisors. Again, just a personal comment that the minutes from last year’s meeting historically ought to be very good for the new people on the Board. But, I think it’s just the ADD part of me coming out that I have a hard time with really long paragraphs that don’t end and several of us talked for a long time last year. What the Supervisors sent out this year, in terms of what they’ve done this year, I thought was great. Because it was kind of broken up a little bit and I was able to digest it and actually noticed that a lot of what was said last year, at least on the part of the Supervisors, has already been said by what they sent to me. Maybe that is something to consider in the future is to give the Compensation Board your progress reports previous to our meeting so we don’t have to take up so much time during the meeting with that particular piece of the puzzle. But that will be for next year. First piece of the agenda is to elect a new Chair. Do we have any motions as to who should be the Chair to run the rest of the meeting?

Motion by Hahn, second by Peters, to re-appoint Patrick Hughes as Chairperson of the Compensation Board.

Hughes: OK, previous minutes. Again, the minutes were great as they were sent out. They really refreshed my memory of what happened last year. I should note that 2 years ago when we had this meeting we almost got snowed in, so this is a much better evening to work than it was 2 nights ago. We were really chasing the snowstorm 2 years ago, so maybe November we ought to think about for next year’s meeting, too. We’ve received the minutes, is there a motion to approve the minutes as mailed out?

Motion by Hahn, second by Holland, to approve the minutes of the Compensation Board meeting of December 6, 2001.

Hughes: That would take us to the packets. I note that last year that we did give each of the, at this point in time in the meeting, each of the elected officials here an opportunity to say a few words in regards to their department. We are deciding on wage increases, not only for them, but for their deputies in many cases. I think the minutes point out that they did a great presentation last year. People felt like we really got a lot of good information. I would offer them that opportunity again. Last year we started with the Supervisors because the Supervisor that was in attendance had to leave. Is there anybody here amongst the elected officials that is on that sort of time line tonight and would need to go 1st? OK, we’re pretty laid back here tonight. OK, I’m going to start with the Treasurer. I’m going to work backwards. I did alphabetically last year and this year I am going to try to go the opposite direction. So, we’ll just start with the Treasurer.

County Treasurer Tom Kriz: Thank you Patrick. Mine is pretty brief. I made it bold point type for those of us who seem to have some difficulty with or without glasses.

Hughes: With 7 point.

Kriz: That’s right. I just highlighted a couple of things for you. It gives a little insight. We talked a little bit last year about what our office does. We are one office that’s been able to each year continue to cut our operating budget while we’ve continued to increase our income. That was a goal we set. We’ve been able to do that. Each year it gets a little tougher. But we’ve continued in, with this new budget we’ll be turning in this year, we’ve been able to do that. We are starting to see in our office some of the budget cuts taking a toll. I think it’s important for this Committee to look at the future some that the pressure will be ever, ever more to look at County Treasurer’s Office taking on the Driver’s License Division. That is something we really will have to look at here. I have not been a proponent of that in a community this size. But with cuts, that could be something that could be mandated upon us. So, that’s something we’re beginning to look at, is how we would do that or how we would do that in the long run. That would be something that would be a big difference for a County our size. About half the counties now do it, but they are mostly smaller counties. As you see, vehicle registrations, as the community grows, continue to grow, as well as our tax parcels are now up over 50,000. For this upcoming year we have done some things, as I said, will reduce the operating portion of the budget while we do increase the income based on some of the things we do. So, we continue to try to be more efficient. The other big thing is we talked about last year we do is the Treasurer’s Office handles the investment funds of the County. Over the years you have seen a marked movement upward in those interest rates. That will truly be a challenge for our office this year as interest rates are hitting levels not seen in 50-60 years. That will have some major impact on the County’s budget this year when you are looking at removing possibly $600,000-700,000 in investment income in one year. That is something to keep in mind as we look at budgeting things like that. The bottom line is we continue to look for new and efficient ways to do what we do. To be open to the public, to be there the hours they need us to be, and to provide the service that we think the taxpayers and the people of Johnson County expect. We’ll continue to do that. As Patrick said earlier, the big concern is we look at this as you set or make recommendations to the Board. It affects not only the elected official, but it affects their deputies. In most cases, these are the heart and soul of our offices. These are the people that really make it happen. Those are set by the rates. Those are all set by law. They can’t exceed certain areas. But whatever an elected official receives as an increase, that would be the same increase that is passed on to your deputies. I can say emphatically in our office, those are truly the heart and soul of what happens. It reflects on a number of people. Also, the deputies and people like that do not receive longevity pay and some of the other things that other County employees get. That’s another thing to factor into it. While a 20-year employee will receive this year $900 within the system, a deputy receives nothing for 20 or 30 or I have one deputy who is approaching 50 years of service to the County. Those are other things to look at. With that, you have the summary. I hope it is brief and to the point. Thank you.

Hughes: My question would be in regards to, you mentioned increases in the registrations and tax parcels, how much does that counterbalance that $600-700,000 reduction in investment revenue?

Kriz: As to the income side of that?

Hughes: Yes.

Kriz: Probably 5% or less.

Hughes: So not a lot.

Kriz: Not a lot, no. You look at one area of it, the majority of the larger counties in Iowa, their motor vehicle departments, which are mandated on them by the State of Iowa, lose money. So, you support that as a taxpayer and then you support that as a County taxpayer. What you receive from the State does not cover the cost to do it.

Hahn: Is that true in Johnson County, too?

Kriz: That’s true in Johnson County, too. We’re trying to change that, but that’s going to be a real tough change for the next couple of years with the cuts we have.

Hughes: Is your department being impacted by impending State budget cuts?

Kriz: What we have seen in our department, we have a DOT officer that works out of this area. He used to be here once a week, now he is here once a month. When people have built-up cars, things like that, special inspection things are now required to drive to Mt. Pleasant or get them to Mt. Pleasant rather than him do it on-site here. It’s impacted that part of it greatly. We get very little contact with DOT enforcement now.

Hughes: But not your budget.

Kriz: As to the budget, it has not to this point. They are reducing people within that sector of it. So, that remains to be seen, what will happen.

Hughes: Does that imply that there will be additional costs that you’re going to have to assume based on those cuts?

Kriz: They certainly won’t increase. I think it would be safe to say if we maintained what fees we get for it, we’ll be fortunate.

Hughes: Any other questions?

Westphal: Were there any turnovers in deputies?

Kriz: No.

Westphal: No, all the same.

Kriz: No, the same people. In fact, we started another one here recently. So, yes, no turnover. They are very dedicated to what they do; and what they do, they do well.

Holland: What about overall staff Tom? Do you have the same number of FTE’s that you had last year?

Kriz: We have one fewer, which we’ll continue.

Holland: Do you see that changing in the future?

Kriz: If we can find new and better ways to be more efficient, yes, I think it is possible.

Holland: Is it planned for? I mean, you are always looking for efficiencies.

Kriz: Yes, you plan for that type of thing. But usually it is done through the attrition of people leaving or something or re-staffing or moving people to other spots. So, yes we would like to actually reduce it over the next 2 or 3 years by 2 people. But it remains to be seen and the whole drivers license issue could change that completely, because then we would be managing State employees as well as County employees.

Hughes: Any other questions of the Treasurer?

Vunderink: I noticed that in your last report you talked about increasing the amount of office hours you have and decreasing the amount of wait time. Is that holding true or are you staying the same?

Kriz: It’s continued. We’ve increased our office hours. Now we are open from 7:45 to 5:30 Monday through Friday. We’ve extended it another 15 minutes on the front end because we found that people could get in and still make their job at 8. So, we’ve increased that. The wait time, we still have a very hard core rule that no more than 5 minutes ever in a line. That’s much less than you’ll find in most communities and that is working. Often it is less than that.

Hughes: I think it’s great. I’m in here often enough that I can see the lines and I have never seen lines like I did 5 or 10 years ago. Again, I said in the minutes a year ago that, every time I am in Linn County, I see 20 to 30 or 40 people in a line and I just can’t imagine people having to wait that long. So, I commend you.

Kriz: I appreciate that. Linn is a bigger county, in fairness to them. But, you have to make the commitment to make that change.

Hughes: I bet they have more employees in that department, don’t you?

Kriz: They have a lot more employees. But it has to be a commitment from the employees and the deputies to understand what we need to do and sometimes that is not real easy to get.

Hughes: Any other questions? Thank you Tom.

Kriz: Thank you.

Hughes: Kim?

County Recorder Kim Painter: Thank you. I do have some brief summary material that I will go over. Yes, it also has large print.

Hughes: I’m going to hear that all night aren’t I.

Painter: The Recorder’s Office has had a good year in terms of reaching some of our strategic goals. For our electronic processing of documents, we had our first full year of using those processes of digital imaging and storage. Our Fiscal Year 2001 savings recorded were $23,000 back into the general fund from implementing those processes. We also recently revised our web page, which is something I am quite pleased to have been able to do. We’ve got some new 24-hour, 7-day a week items out there that people have been wanting for quite awhile. A number of forms, some of them are business-related forms, some of them are individual citizen request forms for birth, death and marriage records from the office. Information in terms of some charts to help people figure out certain fees and taxes that we have to pay to get documents recorded and that kind of thing. And some miscellaneous links that are also interesting for people in different situations. The Department of Natural Resources aspect of our office, which is the hunting and fishing, and the boat, snowmobile, and ATV, has a lot of people here in the county who enjoy those activities. We’ve got a lot of direct links to some of their sites for regulations, for fees, questions that people might have about those activities. Coming soon to those pages, we’ll have completed a customer satisfaction survey that will be a fillable document that people can fill out online and send back to us. A photo section where we hope to be able to coordinate some submissions of different kinds of sporting photos or other things people might want to submit and put on the web page and some direct links to some legislative information people might find helpful. Coming up in 2003, we’ve got a software upgrade that I got to look at in Linn County earlier this week to web-enable all of our recorded documents that we currently have indexed electronically. It will allow for search capacity that would include searching by legal description, the possibility to search by a name, document type, a date, a parcel number. It’s basically Windows driven and would reside on our NT server here in the County and very intuitive and a nice addition for people to be able to access from home, from their office, on the web. That’s an exciting thing that I would hope to have implemented by roughly this time next year, maybe December or January. So, we feel we’ve made good progress on a number of our goals. We’ve had some challenges this year that I would like to go over as well. Some of the recent events within the country have actually trickled down to Recorders offices, in terms particularly of vital records. We have a lot more pressure and concern on access that people have to birth, death, and marriage records and what documents they receive from those records. We’re getting basically a new directive almost every week from the Department of Public Health with reminders, with calls for stricter enforcement and more intensive checking of people’s rights to have access to those records and to get copies of those records. It just requires greater vigilance and it translates into some more time spent on those issues. In addition, the federal government is aggressively pursuing a number of policies to stimulate the economy and chief among these has been, as Tom mentioned from his end of things, the promotion of some spectacularly low short-term interest rates by the Federal Reserve. Last week, the Treasury Department chimed in and halted the sale of 30-year bonds. This was widely regarded as a shocking move in the industry to force long-term interest rates down. As I’m sure you know, those particular long-term rates have held stubbornly high throughout this economic downturn. The results of these kinds of policy shifts are real and affect the Recorder’s Office each day. A brief sketch will illustrate this. It’s a snapshot. Last September, the total revenues moving through the office were roughly $96,000. This September, we were up to $117,000. More specifically, last September, mortgage fees collected in the office were $15,200 and this year in September, we collected $31,225 in mortgage fees, which is a 100% increase. Those dollars all come to the County, rather than being shared with the State, which is good news. They also represent different levels of increased workload. Some of that increase is due to the strict number of mortgages per se. Others have to do with the number of pages in each one, which has also dramatically increased as some of the large lending institutions have huge boilerplate forms now for their mortgages. To cope with this increase, we did change a half-time clerical position to a full-time position during the summer. Between summer and early fall, I ended up utilizing a fair amount of temporary clerical help, which is something we did not need to do the prior year. Our processing time lagged during some of that summer busyness and it’s now back to our comfort range of 24 hours or so for turn around time on documents. So, I would say overall, the year has seen us meeting numerous strategic goals of process improvement, economic efficiency and increased service options. Thank you. I’ll answer any questions.

Hughes: Questions? Are you impacted by impending State budget cuts?

Painter: I would say minimally, we don’t really know. We could see less ability to get assistance from some of our friends at the State for odd issues that come up with boat registrations, for example. I’m just trying to think off the top of my head. Or less ability to help ferret out old information on birth records or that kind of thing. They give us quite a bit of help right now and some departments may see a cut that would give us a little bit of a ding on that. But I am hopeful it won’t matter too much to us.

Hughes: Any other questions? Hearing none, thank you Kim.

Painter: Thank you.

Hughes: Is there anybody from the Sheriff Department here?

County Sheriff Bob Carpenter: How about the Sheriff?

Hughes: Excuse me. I don’t think you were here last year, so I didn’t recognize you. Fortunately, I’ve never met you on the road.

Carpenter: My name is Bob Carpenter, just in case for the record.

Hughes: Good evening.

Carpenter: First, I want to start off thanking everybody for participating on this Board. It’s not an easy one to participate with I’m sure. I don’t have a handout to give you because my department is a public service department basically. We basically spend the money more so than take money in. So, there is not much revenue taken in for the amount of money that’s taken out. I’m going to explain to you a little bit of the Sheriff’s jobs and duties in the County. The Sheriff is the number one law enforcement officer in the County. My jurisdiction includes the whole entire County. That means Iowa City, Coralville, University Heights, all of the small towns. We contract the small towns. Besides that we actually are the law enforcement. There is a difference between jurisdiction and actually contracting. Even though we have the jurisdiction in Iowa City and Coralville, they of course are incorporated and have their own law enforcement agencies. They have their chiefs and their own law enforcement departments. But in the smaller towns, Oxford, Hills, Lone Tree, Shueyville, Swisher, we do their law enforcement for them. We have an arrangement with North Liberty where we do a large number of hours for them. They just started a police department here in the last year or two. We still do quite a few hours for them where we do that is part of our income. We also contract with the federal government with the Corps of Engineers. During the summer months we have deputies that are contracted out there. We utilize reserve officers for their particular contract. Because of our regular officers in overtime situations, we have to use reserves out there. The Sheriff is also in charge of the civil department. We not only enact and enforce criminal laws, but we also serve civil papers, court orders, those types of judgements, whatever, for the court. We take care of the civil end of the paperwork on that. Naturally we have the investigative department. I have 4 or 5 detectives, 4 detectives actually and I have another officer involved with the Drug Task Force. We cooperate with Coralville and Iowa City and the State on the Drug Task Force. The topic that of course is on everybody’s mind and that the Sheriff has full responsibility for is the County Jail. You all remember last year there was a bond issue that was defeated quite greatly, I guess. We were told that there are all types of alternatives out there that would take the place of building a new facility. Well, as of to this date there have been a lot of people that have come up with ideas, but we haven’t come up with anything concrete yet that has solved that. In the meantime, the State has put a cap on us. We have a cap, not only on population, but we have a cap also on the types of individuals we have in certain cells, the classification. For instance, we have a cellblock large enough for 8 females. We cannot house over 8 females in there. I cannot have any female on the floor for over 12 hours at a time. That means a mattress on the floor. They enacted this back in June. The Board at that time authorized me to start moving prisoners out of the county, which we had no choice. To date right now, today for example, I had 21 prisoners in Linn County Jail. That’s $60 a day. You figure $10 a day on top of that for transportation costs. My bill last month for Linn County was $30,000. This is kind of in the realm of where we’re at right now per month is between $25,000 and $30,000. We try to stay really close to our cap, so that we’re not moving out more people. We try to get them back as soon as we can, if we’ve got an opening, to keep the expense from building any higher. I’ve asked for an amendment this year on my budget. Roughly $350,000 is what it’s going to take to get through this year, which we didn’t expect last year when the budget was set. So, I think we’ve got an amendment through for I believe it was $200-250,000, to get us through part of the year to see where we are going to be. Our population may go down towards Christmas and into January, which oftentimes it does do, because the courts just actually don’t put them in. The Board also, in last year’s budget, gave us 4 new deputies to help take care of the jail overcrowding problem. My major concern was the atmosphere and the safety of not only our inmates, but also our officers that work up there. When we have 115 people in jail, actually the ratio of officers is probably about 3 to 115 inmates. So, we don’t have an overabundance. Actually, what this did, with these 4 officers would give us 4 on the floor at most times to take care of them. Dave?

Maupin: Does the $250,000 amendment cover those 4 officers?

Carpenter: No. That was actually put in last year for this year’s budget. This was something… If you’ll recall I…

Maupin: So, that is in addition to the $250,000 amendment.

Carpenter: That’s right. But it was already in my budget for this year for those 4. This new budget amendment was for the fact that we are now shipping people, too. That’s kind of basically a ballpark of where we’re at. Right now, the bottom line is, I know you folks are here to try to figure out what the elected officials should get for salaries and their deputies. The only thing I can point out, I think it’s in your packets, what the surrounding areas, their officers get, is pretty heartbreaking for some of my guys to see the difference they’re making from their counterparts that are bringing the prisoners in to us and we’re accepting them. There is quite a difference, when in fact, I think you’ll look closely and see probably lieutenants for a local department here are making more than what the Sheriff does. I’m not saying that the Sheriff doesn’t get paid enough. I’m just saying, something is not quite right here. I just want the Board to take a look at the overall picture of this community. I think we’ve been low for quite a few years and I know that last year the Board really tried to improve and they did do a nice job last year for the elected officials.

Hughes: Does your department have people’s wages that are directly tied to yours?

Carpenter: I have at the present time only one Deputy. But that’s my Chief Deputy. I could take more in, but the rest of them can only make without overtime 80%, I believe it is.

Hughes: So, how many people is that?

Carpenter: Around 58, I believe.

Hughes: Those are bargaining unit people?

Carpenter: Yes.

Hughes: They can only make, what did you say, 80%?

Carpenter: Without overtime they can only make up to a certain percentage of my salary, yes.

Hughes: Does that put stress on your department in terms of you have to limit overtime because of that?

Carpenter: Well, we certainly have to watch our overtime. We understand that there are only so many dollars in the County budget. We have to take into account, I certainly am not here tonight to try to raise… We’re trying to come in with a budget this year that will be even with the Board’s from last year. The Board asked us to not figure cost of increase in wages on our budget coming in. This year’s budget with the exception, I’m going to have to ask for money for prisoners out-of-county to be added to it this year, we will come in real close to what it was last year. We try very hard to stay within our realms and we understand that taxpayers money is what keeps us going. But at the same time, we are responsible for the safety and welfare of a lot of citizens of the county. We try to do our best job and get the best service for the money available. To be quite honest with you, I’ll put my department up against any department around and I don’t think I have to take 2nd place to anybody. Are there any questions that you might have? I know there’s nothing to hand out to you. But it’s just kind of… You’re right, I wasn’t here last year, because, quite honestly, until last year there wasn’t a whole lot to come for. But after you folks made some decisions last year, I thought maybe it was time to come and visit, because I could never get to excited on these meetings up until last year.

Hughes: Well, they’re not real exciting.

Carpenter: Well, when you’re…

Hughes: We’ll have music next year. I’ll bring my banjo.

Hahn: I have a question about service you provide to communities, Shueyville and so on. Is it the case that you charge for services to incorporated areas within the county or how does that work?

Carpenter: By State law, each incorporated community, Lone Tree and those, are required by law to supply their own law enforcement, like Iowa City and Coralville does.

Hahn: Sure.

Carpenter: But what happens… It’s probably 25 years ago now, it was seen that we could enlarge the size of our department to the benefit of us and the small communities and be able to get them better trained officers in those communities by contracting so many hours a week to those areas now. We provide them radio contact. We do their computer checks and those types of things, even for North Liberty. University Heights, we contract with them somewhat, too.

Hahn: The fees that you charge for that, is that set by law?

Carpenter: No, it’s not set by law, it’s set by so many hours. We tell them how much per hour that it is going to cost for an officer in a car and for the radio services and then they tell us how many hours of service they want. That is basically how it works.

Hughes: Is that a break even or do you make a little bit of money?

Carpenter: Actually, we probably end up subsidizing a lot of the small towns.

Hughes: You lost money on that.

Carpenter: Yes.

Hughes: OK.

Carpenter: The problem is, is that if they contract for so many hours and you go over those hours, there is no way really you have of picking that up. That may have to change in the future, too. But, as of right now, we try to keep it as even as we can, so that we are not ahead, because quite honestly, we’re booked for as many hours as we’ve got officers timed for. We’re really concerned. I know the question has been asked what the State’s going to do. We’re kind of waiting for this meeting, I think it’s tomorrow the legislatures going to meet and try to… There has been talk of cuts from DOT; there is talk of cuts of the highway patrol. We’ve been told there aren’t going to be any troopers out after midnight possibly until 6 or 7 o’clock in the morning. Right now we depend on them to take care of all of the accidents on the interstates. It’s just kind of a rule of thumb that we have to do it if they don’t.

Hughes: So, you’re department will be impacted by State cuts.

Carpenter: Very much so. Another good example is they are talking about closing the halfway house out here in Coralville. If that happens, I don’t know what’s going to come back. We’re going to end up picking it up anyway because those people are going to end up back in my facility.

Hughes: You’ve got nowhere to send them to.

Carpenter: A lot of them are and we’re going to end up paying for it. So that you can look at another $60 a day there or whatever. There have been some things talked about, but right now there is nothing concrete about cheaper facilities.

Hughes: Questions anyone? My apologies for not recognizing you.

Carpenter: I’ve gotten over it.

Holland: Bob, could you explain to me how your deputy’s salaries are determined? I know Duane Lewis, his salary is based on a percentage of yours. What about the other staff?

Carpenter: Yes, Duane is… Tom, do you remember what the percentage is of Duane’s? His is like 90.

County Auditor Tom Slockett: 90%, I believe.

Carpenter: He can get up to within 90% and then my other deputies… First and second, but see, the rest of them then are considered like 2nd deputies, I think. But they are 80%, my understanding is, is what they can make of my salary, with the exception of overtime. Now, they can get paid overtime and actually make more than my Chief Deputy with overtime.

Holland: Is that top to bottom through the Sheriff’s Office, that 80% cap?

Carpenter: Yes.

Holland: OK.

Carpenter: It doesn’t make any difference. All deputies are the same whether they are civil, criminal, jail or patrol or whatever.

Holland: So, beyond that it is whatever they negotiate through their collective bargaining agreement?

Carpenter: Right, and they do that now directly through the Board.

Hughes: Do you offer the same service package to every city?

Carpenter: Yes, with the exception of North Liberty.

Hughes: Right, because they just started.

Carpenter: Yes, and they wanted us to go in with them on a grant to hire those officers for them through us and I am not a big believer in grants for personnel because in 3 years, if you can’t afford them…

Hughes: They are gone.

Carpenter: They are gone and I don’t want to hire… We have very little turnover in the Sheriff’s Department. I don’t want to hire somebody and train them and in 3 years lose them. So, we just have stayed away. I’ll take grant money for anything else, but for personnel it’s kind of one of those things if you can’t afford them now, what makes you think with things the way they are looking here in the future, possibly, business will be getting better for us. There is no question. It does and it has in the past when things are starting to look this way.

Hughes: A grim thought.

Carpenter: Yes.

Hughes: Any other questions? If not, thank you, Sheriff. That would move us to Tom.

Slockett: I’ll try to cut to the chase and keep my remarks brief and answer questions. What I want to talk about is turnover in the office. Let’s just go through the list. This is in the last 13 months. Since October of 2000 I’ve hired 2 new deputies, one in Accounting and one in Real Estate. Those have both passed their CPAs. These are professional positions. I have 5 deputies in my office. That is the same number of deputies that were here when I took office 25 years ago. My office is somewhat like, actually most of the County offices like Bob, we serve County government but we also serve all of the other entities of the county. I’ll go into that in a little bit more detail. Let’s get to the clerks. The Deputies are the heart of the office and I can’t overstate their importance, but my deputies are professional people and they are vital to the wonderful County, the operation of the wonderful County that we have in Johnson County in my view. The clerks are also incredibly important. There is at each level of detail there is more of a general nature in the knowledge and ability of the management. The people who know the most about each job are the clerks who do it. They do the daily work, they are vitally important. We have had 7 out of 12 clerks in the Auditor’s division, real estate and accounting divisions and elections leave during this period. An Account Clerk II in Real Estate, an Elections Technician, an Account Clerk II in Accounting, an Account Clerk II in Elections, a Map Delineator, an Account Clerk II in Real Estate, an Account Clerk II in Accounts Payable. Some of these people have left the County and we don’t know for certain why, but I can tell you from exit interviews that often it’s because they can make more money elsewhere. These are also professional positions. They are people who I think everyone of them hired in the least, at least over a decade, has had a 4-year degree in Accounting, unless there was after repeated advertisements they weren’t available. I can think of one instance where we hired someone who had a 4-year degree but it wasn’t in accounting. But that is the preference. I like to have people who I can promote to deputy, who could be considered, who have some possibility of advancing within the office when a deputy position comes up and is made available. Some of the people have transferred within the County, so we know how they have been impacted financially when they have transferred from my office to another County office. The first one is an Account Clerk II who was transferred to Secondary Roads as an Administrative Assistant, whose salary increased from $27,352 and is currently paid $34,845. Oftentimes when people leave a position, their initial pay isn’t necessarily a whole lot more, but the salary range often is much broader. While they’re limited where they are now, they have additional opportunities in the position they go to. So, this was one. This is an Account Clerk II, this was the Payroll Clerk for the entire County. This is a very important position with broad responsibilities and had vast knowledge. She was kind of the Carol Peters of payroll in Johnson County and it is a huge loss when a person like that leaves and takes that knowledge away from that position. I’m glad that she is still around. We get to see her from time to time. But when this kind of a… These are still property tax dollars. In fact, it’s still County property tax dollars. These people ought to be paid more in the Auditor’s Office. We’re underpaid at all levels in the Auditor’s Office. The next person is a Map Delineator who transferred to the City Assessor’s Office and their salary increased from $25,000 to $30,000. Then, I want to also compare what my deputies are paid to what some of the other management positions in the County are paid. The first one is the Executive Assistant to the Board of Supervisors, current salary $56,500. Next is the Supervisor’s Budget Coordinator who has a salary range from $43,000 to $52,000 and current salary $44,000. There is a Human Services Accountant whose current salary is $48,704. There is a salary range in MH/DD, Financial and Statistical Supervisor, that has a salary range of $39,119 to $47,662. The Deputy Auditor has currently in my office… the Sheriff has a hire percentage that he can pay his deputies, and his pay is much higher than mine. I wouldn’t want to have his job; he’s entitled to his pay; in fact, he should be paid a lot more. But I have the additional disadvantage in that I can only pay my deputies either 75%, I can pay 2 of them 80% of what I make. But the rest can only be paid a maximum of 75%. And in my office, this isn’t a hypothetical thing; these people are at the limit. That isn’t the case in every office; in some offices they have a theoretical limit, but they aren’t paying people at that limit. But my people are, so their pay is at that limit, and they’re very underpaid at that level. So, why should I compare my assistants to the assistants that the Board of Supervisors has, for example? Certainly, the Board has an enormous job, and has enormous responsibilities; we have a wonderful County and they’re doing a terrific job in running it. They have a budget of $44 million, and they spend $22 million of property taxes in order to administer that budget. But it’s also true that the Auditor’s Office manages $5.6 billion of valuation in the county. We keep track of all the property in the county. We map every parcel on the computer. We keep track of those valuations. We produce $105 million; we provide the taxes to the Treasurer, who collects $105 million of property taxes county-wide, and those monies go to the 12 cities in Johnson County, as well as the 12 school districts and the other political subdivisions. We administer the elections, federal, state, and local, for the entire population, including each of the cities, and the budgets of each city and the other divisions come through our Auditor’s Office and go certified to our office like the county’s, and go to the State. So, in my mind, my assistants are just as important, just as valuable, and provide just as complex and necessary services as the assistants for the Board of Supervisors, and I don’t think it’s an unfair comparison. I just wanted to lay that out, and I’m happy to answer any of your questions.

Hughes: How long have the 5 people out of your Clerks that you still got, what’s the longevity of them? Are they relatively new, or do you have some long hires there?

Slockett: I have some long hires. I have a part-time person who’s the longest, Kathy Kasson, person who’s been in my office. I have Kathy Elliott, is now in real estate, in the office, she’s moved into different positions in the office. She’s been here for 15 years or so, at least. Let’s see, Harry Rueber has been in the Elections division for a really long time. So, I have a number of people who have been here a long time; there are various lengths of time. I treasure every one of them.

Hughes: Treasure or Treasurer?

Slockett: I treasure every one of them; I value every one of them. I can just tell you, experience really matters in usefulness in the office, ability to help out when unusual situations come forward, and then having knowledge about how to do it, and be able to help each other out in various jobs in the office. When my deputies are spending this much time training people, that takes a really big toll on the office. The office is under a lot of pressure. There’s something called GASB 34, which is a new accounting standards that are established for counties that go into effect for Johnson County starting in July, and this is touted as the biggest change in accounting in the history of accounting. It’s my office that is essentially in charge of implementing that for the County, and we’re also in the process of purchasing new financial software after 18 years. We have absolutely no choice; we have to do it, regardless of the budget situation, because the company that supported it has, package by package, cut off support, and they now don’t support any of it, not Accounts Payable, not Payroll, not General Ledger, nothing. So, we have no choice. We’re also looking, after what happened in Florida, at implementing new elections procedures. Our voting equipment is not designed for the new procedures. I won’t go into that now, because I’m taking too much time as it is, but I’ll be happy to talk to you about it at any time. But we’re looking at new computer and ballot-counting hardware and software as well. These are people that have broad areas of responsibility, great expertise is required, and frankly, they have to consider whether or not they could be making more money elsewhere after spending some time in service in these positions.

Hughes: Are State budget cuts going to impact your department?

Slockett: Yes, they are. One of the things I’m proud of in the type of people that have served as my deputies is what they have done afterwards, and the professional positions they’ve taken elsewhere. One of them is Mike Albers, who’s with the Department of Management, and his position is going to be cut. In fact, the Department of Management recently, went through ISAC to ask counties to chip in to pay his salary. The counties, there was a resounding no, because the county auditors really enjoy working with Mike, but the thought is, if we ever give the State a foot in the door to our County tax dollars, we’ll never get it back out again. People just, regardless of how much they care about these people, they didn’t feel that was possible. He works with valuations and with the submission of city budgets to the auditor’s offices to the State. There’s another position with the State, a gentleman named Jim Nervig, also with the Department of Management, who works with particularly the property tax and levies with all the counties, and his position is also going to be cut. These are the 2 links that we have, the counties have statewide, to State government on those issues, and they’re vitally important positions. I assume their managers are going to have to take over their positions, and they’ll probably be stretched thin, and we won’t get the same type of service. It will probably mean more work for us, because we’re not going to have the answers to questions as readily available, and so forth. So, those are 2 very direct examples of the budget impacts on us.

Hughes: Questions for the Auditor?

Maupin: Well, Tom, there’s no mystery as to what’s happening to your clerks, here. You’re operating under this 75% of your salary, 80% of your salary guideline, or rule, or law, or whatever it is.

Slockett: It’s a law. It’s a legal requirement.

Maupin: I mean, you could hire Lee Iacocca and still only pay him $27,000. It doesn’t matter who you hire; you’re only going to be able to pay them whatever it is of your salary. And I gather that your salary must be keyed off some belief, or fact of whatever, as to your, the relative importance of what you do, with respect to the relative importance of the other departments. The only way to solve the problem for your clerks is to attack the problem of that perception, or that fact, or whatever it is. Other than that, your clerks are pretty much stuck. I mean, there’s not a whole lot that this Board can do about that, except give you a 30-40% increase, I guess.

Slockett: Well, that’s precisely the point.

Maupin: Yes, I thought it was.

Slockett: That you, what is hinged on, is exactly what it is you are determining, this Compensation Board.

Maupin: Yes, but if this Board inches salaries forward 3-4-5% a year, that’s not going to ever impact on your problem.

Peters: But the clerks, they’re under the bargaining unit.

Slockett: The clerks are under the bargaining unit.

Maupin: Well, the rule doesn’t apply, right?

Slockett: Not to them, but it does to the 5 deputies.

Peters: Just to the deputies.

Maupin: OK. Well, all right, then maybe I used a bad example. But it’s true of your deputies, you’ll never be able to do anything for them until somebody does something for you.

Slockett: Well, I think the point I was trying to make, apparently not as well as I should have, was the same one that Bob Carpenter was trying to make. Which I think is that the County just, for some reason or another, compared to other governments and other tax-spending entities, is not viewed in the same way. I think we get a tremendous bargain in County government. I have long felt that the best way to preserve County government, and to not have it begin to look like, frankly, the City of Iowa City or the State government- some of the governments that I don’t think are viewed as being as efficient and productive in the use of their dollars in the programs that they spend- is that we provide the people who are in County government a decent wage, so that we can really keep good people doing these jobs. Because what tends to happen is we have reform and reorganization and so forth, and you hire other people and spend a lot more. The main reason they work better is because you’re paying people a lot better and you’re able to have more competent people doing the jobs after the reform has occurred. I think that County government provides an incredibly good service. The best thing to be done for it is to be able to pay the people who are in those jobs a decent wage, and be able to keep them, and not have them have it be to their advantage to leave. I do feel that that’s the case for the clerks. The Board of Supervisors, in recent years, has had its salary studies done for non-union positions, and has given significant increases to all their non-union positions, and the deputies in the elected offices were not included in that salary survey. They did not get the adjustments that the Board gave its own employees and its own department heads, who were not elected. So, that’s one of the reasons that there’s a lack of fairness here within the County for the deputies in other elected offices. For the clerical people, something needs to be done to pay them more, too. That’s all, and I didn’t want to leave them out, because, for one thing, it shows how important deputies are, because they’re constantly retraining for these positions. But, it also puts a lot of stress on them. It’s much more difficult to manage a position when you have new people in it than it is if you’ve had the same people for many, many years, which we would all prefer to have that situation.

Hahn: But Tom, the salaries of the clerical people, those are not directly affected by anything we do here tonight.

Slockett: No. No, and neither are the deputies that are in the collective bargaining positions.

Maupin: So those are all union contracts, right?

Slockett: That’s right.

Hughes: But the 5 at the top of your page are impacted.

Slockett: They are the management people in my office.

Hughes: OK.

Slockett: Like Bob’s deputies here, the majority of his employees are in a collective bargaining unit, and those salaries are determined by that, not by their statutory limits, which is similar in all of our offices.

Maupin: Maybe by the time my term expires in 2005, I will understand all this.

Holland: Don’t count on it.

Maupin: I doubt it.

Hughes: I’ve got 2 questions based on your excerpts from minutes that you sent to us, and one is, you touched on earlier. Is there any latitude on this 75 to 80, or 80 to 85. Your informal meeting minutes of December 5th at least suggest to me that there might be some latitude in that, that could be based in the County, as opposed to in the State. Is that true or untrue?

Slockett: Well, by State law, the offices are limited for their deputy positions to that level.

Hughes: At which level?

Slockett: Well, it depends on the office. For the Sheriff, it’s either 85% or 90% of their salary, same for the County Attorney, it’s a higher percentage that they can pay.

Hughes: Either/or?

Slockett: No, it’s one or the… Well, they all have 2 levels, like in the Auditor’s Office, I can have 2 deputies at the 80% level, and then the rest have to be at a 75% level. For the County Attorney and the Sheriff, I believe it’s 90% and 85%, or it’s 85% and 80%. I don’t recall from memory which it is.

Hughes: OK, your December 5th informal meeting minutes have you suggesting that the percentage of an elected official’s salary that a deputy could make should be increased from 75 to 80 and from 80 to 85. Now, is that something that can be done in the County?

Slockett: It’s State law. That would require a change.

Hughes: So, you’re requesting a change in State law, basically, that was a comment on that. That’s nothing that can be done at the County level. OK.

Slockett: Yes.

Hughes: My other questions was, based on the informal meeting minutes of January 31st, in which it was said that the Auditor’s Office had built in a 2% increase in the budget, either before or after the Compensation Board had met. Has that been done yet this year? Has the budget been worked on, and has there been an already built-in increase?

Slockett: Wasn’t there an increase built in? I’m not sure.

Kistler: They always just set a starting point for discussion, and then work from there.

Hughes: So what is it?

Kistler: Well, they haven’t started the budget discussions yet, this year.

Hughes: OK.

Slockett: I don’t think anything’s going to be built in, this year. I know they have to take things into consideration, for example, pre-existing collective bargaining agreements, so they’ve got to come up with the money.

Hughes: OK. Any other questions of the Auditor? Thank you. Is there anybody here from the County Attorney’s Office? I’m surprised he’s not here tonight. He did such a good job last year.

Peters: I think he’s, maybe…

Hughes: Prior commitment?

Peters: Aren’t they negotiating?

Hughes: OK. That would move us to the Supervisors, and I assume that would be you, Mike.

County Supervisor Mike Lehman: Maybe Terrence would like to come forward, too.

County Supervisor Terrence Neuzil: Sure.

Hughes: You can do tag-team if you wish.

Neuzil: I’d be happy to come on up.

Lehman: Good evening. I’m Mike Lehman, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors this year, and this is Terrence Neuzil.

Neuzil: He’s my boss.

Lehman: The Board sent you an overview, and I hope you had time to see that. We felt, in light of last year’s, where you have to digest everything right at the meeting, we thought that would be a better approach.

Hughes: Much appreciated.

Lehman: OK. Terrence is a first-year, along with Pat Harney. Carol Thompson and myself are in our 3rd year, and Sally Stutsman, this is her 7th year. What we might be described in tenure as a very young Board, I think we make up with capabilities and qualifications. In my 3 years, the time and quality needed to perform an expanding job description has increased dramatically. As a County, we have an increasing amount of issues to address. There’s no doubt that the increased time spent in committee work sessions has given us a better understanding in such areas such as land use planning, long-term strategic planning, our computer needs, our Geographic Information System, Human Services and Mental Health, Secondary Roads, and Ambulance. It has also helped us institute such changes as the Building Code, the Farmstead Split Ordinance, and Road Performance Standards, that all affect the Planning and Zoning area. I think we have a real good rapport with all department heads and their staffs. Not to say that we try to do it all ourselves; we have great dependency on appointed volunteers. With evaluations of all appointed department heads, and progress reports and site visits from all departments, the 5 Board of Supervisors members are approaching a more hands-on, comprehension of all internal and external County policies and programs. This has also given us more information and understanding of needs during budget presentations. The Board feels that all 5 members have stepped up to the plate and put a considerable effort to accomplish the responsibilities demanded of us. We hope that the Compensation Board will consider that in your recommendations. If you have any questions, Terrence will be happy to answer them.

Neuzil: We’re proud to say that all 5 Board members do get along with each other, and it’s unfortunate that other communities and their elected officials, it doesn’t seem like that’s always the case. But with the Board of Supervisors right now, we are all a team. Thinking about what the Board of Supervisors does, you have to kind of break it down in 4 areas. Whenever I have a chance to speak in front of people, I usually tell them those 4 areas are dealing with that $44 million budget, our land use policies and trying to figure out where good growth should occur and trying to stop sprawl and save agricultural land. The 3rd area is personnel, working with and dealing with over 500 County part-time and full-time employees. And then the area of Human Services, working as best we can to meet the needs of those who are needy, and working and committed to 37-38% of our budget going towards Human Services, that represents all the citizens of our community. In our overview, we had a chance to emphasize a lot of different areas, from strategic planning to land use and such, but again, in our overview, we state that Johnson County is the 2nd-fastest growing county in our State. It has been the goal of the Board of Supervisors to move towards the effective professional management a growing County with a vibrant economy requires. This means that, as Board members, we have had to become more productive, we’ve had to learn new skills, and we’ve had to devote more hours to the management of the County. Going into this position as a new member, in my first 11 months, I didn’t understand and was able to get a fairly good grasp of how many hours that this job was going to be a part of.

Hughes: That was going to be my question.

Neuzil: We’re considered part-time employees, in a sense. I average around 50-60 hours a week.

Hughes: What about you, Mike?

Lehman: I know a few more of the ropes than Terrence does, but it ebbs and flows, but on average, over 40 hours a week.

Hughes: And that would be across-the-board, with the other Board members, too, at least from your observation?

Neuzil: I don’t think there’s any doubt about it.

Lehman: Yes.

Neuzil: No doubt about it.

Lehman: We all have different responsibilities as far as committees. Some meet in the evening, some 7:30 in the morning. I stated last year, it’s hard to have another job, to be flexible.

Neuzil: And we’re really the 2 Supervisors that are trying to have another job in doing this. I work at KCJJ Radio. I work there from basically 5 in the morning until 7:45 in the morning, and then that’s my job there, and then I come and do County work. But it’s not, we do get calls, 11:00 at night. I do get calls 5:30 in the morning, from people that are up late or up early. That’s just the norm for people, and they’ve got a problem, they want to hear someone to help solve their problem, and the Board of Supervisors is that answer. But that’s part of the game and that’s part of the job, and I think all 5 of us understood that when we took on this responsibility. I don’t think that any of us regret the fact that we’re Board of Supervisors, and we’re very proud to serve Johnson County.

Lehman: I do equipment sales, and in the 3 years I’ve been in office, I’ve reduced my time there. I made the commitment when I was elected that, after my family, this was going to be my first priority. I also do some farming, but that’s been reduced, also, which, that was a choice I made.

Hughes: Good year, though.

Lehman: As far as yields, yes. Price?

Hughes: Questions for the Board?

Neuzil: I guess the one thing, as I learn this process a little bit better on that side of the table. Your recommendation and recommendations over the years, as far as Compensation Board, have been pretty generous, and that’s to be very appreciative of the fact that you recognize the kind of work that the Board of Supervisors, the elected officials, and deputies have put in for our County. But as I learn this process, I remember a fairly high number last year, yet, as far as public sentiment goes, if we started talking about maybe even taking half of that, the calls started coming in, the kind of things, that wasn’t very popular amongst a lot of people. Here we are as the Board of Supervisors who truly decide your recommendation, if we should accept it or adjust it, and not go over it. But it does make it a bit difficult, and it’s a difficult decision for the Board of Supervisors who have to deal with that public sentiment, but at the same time, try to recognize, in particular, our deputies, who do work hard, that our cap. It does make it a very difficult decision. It’s almost unfortunate that we’re not able to try to separate things in a better light. So, I hope that there was no offense taken by the fact that we didn’t take your recommendation. It wasn’t because we didn’t think that 11%, or whatever it was, 7%, the high percent…

Holland: 6.

Neuzil: 6%. We would have taken that; that would have been great, but I think that the community also has a problem with those kind of numbers, too.

Hughes: Have you talked to any of your counterparts in Dubuque? I note that they…

Neuzil: They didn’t have a problem?

Hughes: 7, 6, 9, 8, 8, 7, 8, with an overall increase of 11.2 No flack up there, huh?

Neuzil: I bet they had it.

Hughes: OK.

Maupin: Wouldn’t it save a lot of time for you to just, I mean, this is the way these things, in my experience, are normally done, indicate some kind of target or something that you could live with, so that we avoid this, which seems to be an annual event, of us making a recommendation, and you cutting it? I know you’re….

Neuzil: Yes, it just seems like that’s been the history of what’s happened.

Maupin: Isn’t there some way to kind of shorten this process?

Lehman: One of the things is timing. We start our budget hearings the first part of December, and we won’t do a final decision until sometime in February. We need a recommendation ahead of time; maybe we should reverse the tables, instead of figuring, ask you to approve it.

Maupin: It’s always, there’s what you’d like, and then there’s what you can afford, kind of thing. I hear what you’re saying.

Neuzil: That’s what I’m just saying. The system is (inaudible).

Maupin: It’s a political issue and a financial issue. Why waste your time recommending somebody gets 7% when you know darn good and well you’re not going to approve it. I’m just trying to shorten up the process a little bit, here.

Neuzil: Yes. Me too. That’s part of it, too.

Hughes: In your informal meeting of January 31st, to agree with what the gentleman says here, the first thing that was pointed out would be how much it would cost to budget over the built-in 2% that the Auditor’s Office had put it in the budget at $124,000. Is there going to be that same kind of money issue? There’s a money issue every year; I understand that. But is there going to be a greater issue on that, this year? Are we looking at decreasing revenues? Are we in more of a pinch than we were a year ago, based on the economy and everything else that is going on?

Neuzil: I think that you could, if you looked at just a few of the scenarios… If you looked at the amount of costs that the Jail issue is going to cost the County this budget year over, say, next budget year, and in the situation there, the Board of Supervisors -my phone is ringing- but, the Board of Supervisors has made a decision…

Lehman: Another one of those constituents calling?

Neuzil: Yes, they all know my number, too. That’s the thing.

Lehman: Probably his wife.

Hughes: And they’re your boss, not him.

Neuzil: But getting back to it, just in the Jail budget itself, we are going to be allocating $300,000-$350,000 easy that’s going to go towards shipping prisoners. We’ve been able to take money that we had put towards our Capital Projects that the Board of Supervisors had set aside for a new jail, and we took that money out of it. Well, that money is basically depleted, which means that next year, when we’re anticipating more people being sent…

Hughes: You won’t have that money.

Neuzil: Right. So, that’s brand new tax money we’re going to have to deal with, just with the jail issue. Of course, add energy costs and cost-of-living, health care premiums, and then the fact that we’re not going to able to generate additional revenue through interest rates, simply because interest rates are just lousy. If you look at the history of what the Treasurer has been able to do, and Tom Kriz has done an outstanding job of being able to generate revenue through interest. Well, interest this year coming up, is not going to be anything close to what it was last year or the year before. Just with those kind of things right there, we’re talking $1.5-$2 million in the hole, before we even start. So, yes, I think this is going to be a rough budget year.

Lehman: I know department heads were asked about how they were going to be impacted by State cuts. We’re the ones that have to decide how we’re going to make that up. Are we going to do that by property tax? Our main source of revenue for most of our services is property tax, what we don’t receive from the State, which is their source of income, personal income tax and business income tax. That’s not going to be there; we’re going to be asked to make it up. How do we do that? Raising property taxes? People look at it, well, you gave yourself a raise. That’s some of the impact on it, we have to look at it, how to be fair. One advantage we have is this year there will not be an equalization order from the State on farmland. 2 years ago, if we would have froze our budget, it would have impacted the rural people, with agricultural production, 15%. We made some changes and we got it down to 11%, but the headlines said, 11% increase from property taxes to farm residents.

Hughes: Your comment reminds me of something in my world, that… and I’ve asked everybody about State budget cuts. I work at United Way, and 2/3 of our United Way agencies say they are going to be impacted by State budget cuts. Does that place an additional challenge on you, as County government, because I know you fund a lot of those same agencies?

Neuzil: No doubt about it. Our Human Service budget, in particular, MH/DD is going to have a severe impact. Of course, a lot of discretionary money, including Johnson County United Way, through our Budget 20 arena of block grants, is going to certainly be affected. Roads are another big issue that we’ve been warned about.

Lehman: We know about $140,000 already on roads, and maybe more to come. But your question concerning Human Services and the United Way, we have been forewarned that local contributors will be asked to step up to the plate to make up for the lack of the State block grants. The way we make that up is through property tax increases.

Neuzil: And, as you make your decision, I certainly don’t want to, I want you, obviously to think about what you think the elected officials and the deputies should earn, as far as percentages. As far as the climate of what money is out there, I don’t know if that should be a part of your decision, or not. I think that’s a decision I just wanted you to be aware, that’s going to be a part of our decision, not only because of the politics, but because of the economy.

Hughes: When was the last time there was a property tax increase, and do you expect that there’ll probably have to be one this year, regardless of whether we give you any raise at all?

Neuzil: A property tax increase?

Hughes: When was the property tax increase?

Neuzil: There’s one about every year.

Lehman: Since the freeze has come off…

Maupin: According to my mail, there is. I thought I was the only one.

Neuzil: But, as far as what the County had put together this past year, we saw about, in city and the residence, we saw about a 2.5% increase for city residents. That’s about 17% of their tax bill, out of the dollar. In rural residents, 4.5%, and a little bit higher than that, for some, depending on which area of land.

Hughes: So, it’s pretty much automatic, we pretty much have one every year, so it would be unexpected to not have one this year.

Neuzil: We have, except for at various points, when the Iowa Legislature has, in the past, had freezes, particularly in the 90s when there were some freezes on. But, even with a freeze, land valuation will go up, and the County will get money.

Lehman: But, the buck stops with us, literally. You’ve heard other department heads say they’re limited trying to keep some of the personnel. We’re the ones that add to that problem by not giving a full recommendation at the time, too.

Maupin: I don’t hear any number coming from you, and I understand why there’s not a number coming from you, but the sound is not real great. The financial situation out there doesn’t sound that great in terms of the flexibility that you’re going to have to approve things.

Neuzil: It’s going to sound pretty hypocritical if we’re telling people that you’re getting cut in every single department, and, by the way, here’s an 11% increase, for us.

Lehman: I guess, my interpretation is it’s…

Maupin: I’m not only talking about for you guys, but for everybody that we’re talking about in here.

Neuzil: That’s what makes it unfortunate and very difficult. It’s very bold for those individuals in Dubuque to be able to do that. That’s very, very bold.

Hughes: Actually, I think they needed to do that to kind of get caught up, but they must have had a good year last year, because they’re way out front of anybody else.

Maupin: The problem is, Pat, when you look at these salaries, everybody needs to get caught up.

Hughes: Well, that’s Iowa.

Lehman: Do you do it all at once, or do it little by little?

Maupin: You can’t do it little by little. Little by little, you will never catch up.

Neuzil: That’s what’s happened in the County, we’ve been doing it little by little, and look what happens.

Maupin: You will never catch up.

Neuzil: You can see what’s happened, if you’ve compared Johnson County to salaries in Iowa City. There’s no comparison.

Lehman: I think some of the department heads will tell you that some of their union employees have caught up with, and in some cases even surpassed their deputies, because of the limitations.

Hughes: Are there any other questions of the Supervisors, before we get into discussion?

Hahn: Sort of a related question. Why is it that there are 5 Supervisors in Johnson County, rather than 3 as there are in other counties?

Neuzil: Or 7.

Hahn: Or 7?

Hughes: And if I could expand on that question…

Neuzil: It’s what the voters… We raised it from 3 to 5.

Peters: There were 3 originally, and then there was a referendum, and the electorate of Johnson County voted to have 5 Supervisors.

Hahn: So that was determined by the electorate?

Neuzil: Yes.

Hughes: But the State either says 3, 5, or 7.

Neuzil: One of the interesting things is that…

Slockett: 3 or 5.

Hughes: Oh, so there are no 7?

Neuzil: The 7s are gone. Yes, one of the disadvantages, a huge disadvantage for 3 Supervisors- and Linn County is a good example, there are 3 Supervisors that are paid full-time- has to do with the open meetings laws, and the fact that, 2 Supervisors talk about an issue, not in front of the public, and that being considered a majority. What you have in Linn County is what I see as a very tough relationship between the 3, because they can’t talk to each other, basically, unless they’re talking in front of the cameras. So, they’re not able to even have any kind of discussion. At least, we’re fortunate enough where we can have a conversation between 2 of us, and kind of, can walk around a little bit. The Linn County, or any other county that chooses to have 3 Supervisors, really isn’t able to communicate with each other.

Lehman: Carol could probably give more, add to this, but my feeling is, they went to 5, just the number of committees that we’re associated with, work sessions and stuff, it would be impossible, you’d spread yourself too thin with a 3-member Board.

Hahn: You certainly wouldn’t recommend going to 3 Supervisors?

Lehman: There’s no way that I could cover another, whatever the percentage would be if there was only 3, with the growing County that we have, the demand.

Hughes: I kind of highlighted the top 10 counties, and maybe off the top of your head you don’t exactly know who they are, but I’m sure you have a pretty good idea. Are there any counties besides Linn County in our larger counties that are 3 Supervisor counties?

Lehman: We might talk to someone with a little more experience. Tom?

Slockett: I think Story’s got 3?

Lehman: Story.

Hughes: Story has 3.

Lehman: I think Sioux, Polk, and Scott, I think, are all 5.

Neuzil: They’re 5.

Hughes: 5.

Neuzil: Does Linn County have more assistants, or anything like that, to help make up for that? I don’t know?

Lehman: Linn County has several in the finance department, where we have one Budget Coordinator. I don’t believe their Auditor’s Department gives the support; they have separate personnel to give that function.

Neuzil: I think Johnson County structure works; I think the 5 do work. As I said at the very beginning, as long as the 5 are willing to communicate, cooperate, and be a team, and we have that right now on the Board of Supervisors. I think that people in the County are seeing that kind of teamwork take place; I don’t think we hear a whole lot of problems happening in Johnson County government because of it.

Hahn: Well, just to put you on the spot…

Neuzil: Sure.

Hahn: Maybe, given what the Supervisors are making, and given what the Sheriff and the County Attorney and other elected officials are making, are you proposing that the increase in salary for the Supervisors be a higher percentage than the increase for other elected officials?

Neuzil: No, not by any means.

Lehman: It would have to be the same. I think we would basically have to change our job description to make it full-time, as right now it’s considered 3/4 time.

Neuzil: And that is something, I think, that a growing County, the 2nd-fastest growing County in the State of Iowa, needs to consider, and that is to have full-time Supervisors, 5 of them.

Lehman: I know Linn County, with 3 Supervisors, are considered full-time, and their pay is considerably higher than ours.

Neuzil: I think they get, what, $67,000, or something. We’re getting about $35,000.

Hughes: $67,565.

Lehman: They are considered full-time.

Hughes: Polk County considered full-time?

Lehman: Yes, I believe so. There was a little newspaper article about a year ago.

Hahn: We’re not at liberty to say, or are we at liberty to say? Who’s at liberty to say, the County Supervisors of Johnson County shall be, henceforward, full-time employees, and therefore shall be paid X?

Lehman: I think that would be a Board decision.

Slockett: There’s no legal requirement about what time they are.

Hughes: As opposed to salaries.

Slockett: You have full authority to set their salary at whatever level you determine to be proper.

Hughes: And then they can determine their hours.

Slockett: And then they can set the hours, yes.

Hughes: Are Scott County full-time?

Lehman: I believe they are.

Peters: Scott County and Polk County both have County Administrators, full-time professional County Administrators.

Lehman: Would be considered like a County Manager.

Hughes: Black Hawk County, are their Supervisors full-time?

Neuzil: Don’t know.

Hughes: Any other questions for the Supervisors?

Lehman: Thank you.

Hughes: Thank you.

Neuzil: Yes, thanks.

(Continued in Part 2)