County compensation boards lower their salary sights

CEDAR RAPIDS - Times may be better on Wall Street, but elected officials in Iowa can expect to feel the chill of the economic fallout for at least another year.

Compensation boards are recommending modest salary increases, if any, for county office holders, according to a Gazette survey of Eastern Iowa counties.

In Iowa, compensation boards recommend salary increases - or freezes - for elected county officials: the supervisors, county attorney, sheriff, recorder, auditor and treasurer.

Linn County's Compensation Board meets at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the supervisors boardroom at Westdale Mall.

The salaries have seen rough sledding in Linn County in past years, with public outcry so strong in 2008 that county supervisors cut their own pay by $16,000 in 2009 - it's now $70,098 per year - while giving other officials a small raise.

In Tama County, supervisors this year ignored the 3 percent salary increase recommended by that county's Compensation Board and froze the salaries for all elected officials - including themselves - at this year's level.

“We decided we had to freeze the salaries of our offices where they're at right now,” said Tama County Supervisor Kendall Jordan. “We're just wanting to keep our heads above water, and to do that, we have to keep the budget where it's at.”

Compensation boards in Buchanan, Muscatine, Poweshiek and Washington counties recommended zero percent increases for their county office holders - which county supervisors are expected to adopt in their fiscal 2011 budgets.

By law, supervisors can accept a compensation board's recommendation or reduce it across the board. They cannot increase the recommendation.

The members of county compensation boards are nominated by county elected officials. The boards meet once a year, generally in January or February.

Freezes common

Bill Peterson, executive director of the Iowa State Association of Counties, said salary freezes will be more of the rule than the exception in county budgets in the coming fiscal year.

“It's pretty indicative what's happening across the state,” Peterson said. “My guess is that most boards of supervisors will either decrease recommendations or zero them out entirely, probably more going to zero than not.”

Peterson thinks county supervisors will be extremely cautious about increasing salaries until the state shows greater signs of economic recovery.

On average, he said, counties rely on money from federal and state governments to cover more than a third of their budgets. Budget issues at the top in Des Moines translate to budget issues at the base, Peterson said.

Need to compete

Cedar Rapids attorney Phil Klinger, a Linn County Compensation Board member for almost 20 years, said budgetary woes don't play a role in his board's recommendations.

“We're charged with setting what we think is the appropriate salary for such a position,” Klinger said.

A former employee of the Linn County Attorney's Office, Klinger, 67, thinks Linn County residents are entitled to question six-figure salaries for their county attorney and sheriff, but public office won't attract quality candidates without adequate compensation.

“What multimillion-dollar corporation, which is what (Linn) county really is, pays its treasurer only $70,000 a year?” Klinger said. “Too often we're just milking a mouse.”

While most compensation boards in Eastern Iowa have been making modest recommendations for 1 or 2 percent salary increases, the compensation board in Delaware County is asking supervisors to increase county salaries by as much as 9 percent.

“Our duty is not to balance budgets,” said Gary Reeder, chairman of the Compensation Board in Delaware County. “We try to recommend salaries based on comparative industries.”

Both Reeder and Klinger say their recommendations don't just affect salaries of elected officials but also of an office's deputies and support staff.

“It's our job to recommend what we see as right,” Reeder said. “It's the supervisors' job to make those difficult decisions. That's what they get paid for.”