Most Linn County supervisors want minimum wage increase

CEDAR RAPIDS - Four of the five Linn County supervisors said Tuesday they support a minimum wage higher than the state mandated $7.25 an hour, but several described the increase of a dollar an hour recommended by a broad-based study group as only a first step.

Earlier this year, the Board of Supervisors organized a group of elected officials, community leaders, business executives and social service experts around one task - determining the pros and cons of a higher minimum wage in Linn County.

On Monday night, less than three months after the group's first official meeting, the group voted to recommend that an $8.25 per hour minimum be implemented at the start of 2017.

The rapid consensus - a move spearheaded by Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett - caught more than a few people off guard, including some on the Board of Supervisors who now find themselves in the midst of a wage ordinance discussion.

'I was surprised that the recommendation came down so quickly,” said District 5 Supervisor John Harris. 'I kind of expected this to be longer than three meetings and a bit more thorough treatment of both sides of the minimum wage issue.”

With Monday's vote, the nearly 20-member working group dissolved and the recommendation now heads to the supervisors to deliberate and potentially craft a local minimum wage ordinance.

The board is not bound by the group's $8.25 an hour recommendation - which is more that the current state wage threshold, but less than that being phased in just to the south by the Johnson County Board of Supervisors.

Linn Supervisors Ben Rogers, Jim Houser, Brent Oleson and Amy Johnson said Tuesday they support a minimum higher than the state's.

Harris, who represents the county's more rural townships, said he needs much more communication with the communities he represents including Robins, Palo and Mount Vernon.

'I'm not absolutely opposed to a minimum-wage increase,” Harris said. 'I don't have enough information that came out of this meeting to be able to help me make a decision one way or another. I've got a lot more work to figure out what constituents are thinking.”

Of the other supervisors, a common sentiment was that $8.25 was not enough.

'It's a first step, but it's not the end all or cure all,” Houser said.

Johnson, who was appointed earlier this year to fill a vacancy and will serve until mid-November, said she was encouraged by the group's quick action.

'Not that we're bound by that, but that's a very important step. No matter how the final number looks, I think last night's meeting was very significant and very exciting,” she said.

Rogers said he'd rather a wage ordinance include an escalator like Johnson County's, which is phasing up that county's minimum by 95 cents until it reaches $10.10 an hour Jan. 1.

Oleson said he was disappointed by Monday's unexpected recommendation, but could support it.

'I'm fine to act if this is the best we can do,” he said. 'This isn't perfect, but it's a good first step as long as we have follow through.”

Rogers said getting buy-in from Linn County's cities is crucial. In Johnson County, on the other hand, some communities opted out.

'It would be great if we could figure out a number that all municipalities, in particular the major ones, could agree on so there aren't different parts of the county with different minimum wage rates,” Rogers said.

Some leaders in the county's three largest cities - Cedar Rapids, Marion and Hiawatha - were left scratching their heads after the surprise vote Monday.

'I wasn't expecting that we would be at a point where we would actually vote on a recommendation,” Marion Mayor Nicolas AbouAssaly said Tuesday. 'This was just our third meeting last night so we hadn't gotten to a point where we had heard all the arguments for and against or really seen any meaningful data on an impact.”

Hiawatha City Council member Aime Wichtendahl took it further, arguing that the $8.25-an-hour recommendation was 'a cop out.”

'Honestly I'm disappointed on many levels,” she said. 'This basically torpedoes the whole discussion. ... Why didn't we just go to Mayor Corbett in the first place?”

Cedar Rapids City Council member Scott Olson said that while his ideal approach would be a statewide, he would support at the least a countywide effort.

'I just think we're not going to get that many shots at doing it, so we need across-the-board support,” he said.