The Union County Board of Supervisors will receive a unanimous raise recommendation by the 2015 compensation board for elected courthouse officials Monday.
The board met Dec. 16 and plans to propose a 2 percent wage adjustment and 1.5 percent cost-of-living raise for all elected courthouse officials.
This includes Union County Attorney Tim Kenyon, Sheriff Rick Piel, Auditor Sandy Hysell, Recorder Paula White, Treasurer Kelly Busch and Union County Board of Supervisors.
A new addition to the board’s recommendation is a comparable salary modification.
The modification adds a stipend of $500 for the auditor, recorder, treasurer and supervisors; $2,000 for sheriff; and $3,000 for attorney.
The compensation board added the comparable wage adjustment to try to help close the gap between Union County’s population rank — 61 out of 99 counties — and the elected officials’ salary rank. See page 2A to see where Union County officials rank.
Last year, the board suggested and the supervisors approved a 3.5 percent wage increase for the attorney and sheriff. The auditor, recorder, treasurer and supervisors had a 3 percent wage increase.
All elected officials also received a 2 percent cost-of-living adjustment.
“We did do a pretty good job last year in regard to the percent of change comparative to a lot of the other counties,” Chairman Katie Turner said.
The compensation board is composed of Turner, Vice Chairman Tom Hartsock, Linda Marley, Dorothy McNaught, Jim Norman, Marlin Neisemier and John Tapken.
Guidelines
The compensation board is restricted by Iowa Code 331.907 to review the compensation of elected courthouse officials by comparing officers in other counties of the state or similar entities.
Health-care benefits and county-tax rankings cannot be taken into consideration.
Those factors are considered by the board of supervisors, who can reduce the compensation board’s recommendation. It must be reduced at an equal percentage for each elected county official.
The board of supervisors can consider all three parts separately. Supervisors can elect to not give themselves a raise without altering the amount other elected officials receive.
Retaining staff
Two topics dominated discussion at the meeting — retaining staff and keeping salaries comparable to counties with similar workloads.
“You are not just looking at our salaries, but you are also looking at our employee’s salaries,” Busch said to the board. “All of their salaries are based off of what compensation we get.”
According to Iowa Code, the first deputy receives 75-80 percent of the elected official’s salary. Second deputy is 75 percent and clerk is 70-75 percent.
Kenyon does not have a full time assistant and limited room in his budget to hire any part time help.
“I brought in figures showing that we are the busiest county in southwest Iowa,” Kenyon said. “I do as much or more work as the other counties around here, I do as much as the counties that have an assistant.”
The comparable salary modification was the board’s attempt to bridge the pay discrepancy between Kenyon and Count Engineer Steve Akes.
“A lot of the counties, the engineer and the county attorney are pretty close because it requires a high degree of training, a lot of education, a lot of experience,” Kenyon said. “I’m way behind our engineer. We have the same number of roads in Union County, the same number of bridges that we have had for years. The difference for me is that I have more criminals and more stuff every year.”
County engineer is not an elected position, so the compensation board does not have an impact on his salary.