Johnson County Compensation Board recommends double-digit percent salary raises for elected officials

IOWA CITY — The Johnson County Compensation Board has recommended double-digit percent salary increases for 10 county employees: 16 percent for the attorney, 12 percent increase for the sheriff, and 10 percent increases for the auditor, recorder, treasurer and five supervisors.

The seven-member board voted unanimously last month in favor of the increases for fiscal year 2024, which begins July 1.

Linn County’s compensation board is expected to meet later this month to consider pay recommendations for its elected officials.

The Johnson County board’s recommendations will go to the Board of Supervisors for formal approval. The supervisors can approve the recommendations or decrease all of them by the same amount. The board also can lower its own salaries independent of the other elected officials’ pay.

If the recommended increases are approved, the salary changes would amount to:

The compensation board’s recommendations are high because its members anticipate the supervisors will decrease them.

Last year, the compensation board recommended an 18 percent salary increase to remain competitive with other counties’ salaries and be in line with state law changes. The supervisors approved a 2.25 percent raise for themselves, and 4.42 percent raise for the county’s other elected officials.

During the board’s December meeting, County Attorney Janet Lyness reported that she had been misinterpreting a salary cap she thought existed for her office.

Lyness thought county attorney salaries couldn’t be higher than district court judges’ pay. But that cap only exists when a county attorney is appointed to fill a vacancy and when the county has fewer than 200,000 people, she said.

Lyness, who retired at the end of December, said the attorney’s salary is off by about 14.9 percent. Lyness advocated for a salary increase for the county attorney because she wanted her successor, Rachel Zimmermann Smith — as well as assistant county attorneys — to receive fair pay.

Salary increases for elected officials impact salaries of deputies within their offices. The salary of the first and second deputy within the office can’t exceed 85 percent of the annual salary of the elected official, according to Iowa Code.

Other elected officials, including Sheriff Brad Kunkel, also shared concerns about staying ahead of salary compression. Salary compression occurs when there’s little difference in pay between employees, regardless of skills, performance or experience.

Compensation board vice-chair Stacy Claeys said she’s heard other concerns about salary compression come up over the years. Claeys recommended the board consider developing a longer term plan, similar to a previous five-year plan started in 2015 to bring supervisor pay closer to 75 percent of other elected officials.

Chair Ryan From added that the compensation board has not recently received feedback from the supervisors about their vision.

“Our objective here is to make sure we compensate our officials fairly and appropriately according to the Iowa Code and according to what we know they're all doing,” Claeys said.

“If the board isn't going to partner with us in terms of saying ‘Here's some parameters we'd like you to consider,’ then I think maybe we should think about parameters we'd like to consider so we have a strategy going forward,” Claeys continued.

Other compensation board members were in agreement that a plan would be helpful for future discussions and meetings, as well as for new members as they join. Claeys and From will start the process and update the rest of the members on progress.

“We definitely want to have a cohesive plan going forward from the entire comp board,” Claeys said.

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