Johnson supervisors voice frustrations over process of raising elected officials’ pay

IOWA CITY — Discussing elected officials’ pay raises for the coming fiscal year Wednesday, members of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors complained about the “badly broken” annual compensation process — and what can be done about it.

County compensation boards in Iowa typically meet once a year to discuss recommendations for salary increases for county elected officials. The recommendations are then submitted to the county’s Board of Supervisors for approval.

Supervisors can then approve the recommendations or decrease all of them by the same amount. But the board also can lower its own salaries independent of the other elected officials’ pay.

The county budget, cost of living, inflation and other matters factor in the decision.

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors significantly decreased the recommendations for fiscal 2024, which begins July 1, from what the compensation board recommended. The raises range from about 1.6 to 2.5 percent instead of the double-digit raises recommended by the compensation panel.

“We have this discussion every year, and there’s a lot of angst every year,” Supervisor Lisa Green-Douglass said.

The Johnson County supervisors discussed the possibility of a study done by human resources on what the pay of county elected officials should be, as well as setting up a joint meeting with the compensation board so there is more clarity ahead of next year.

“It's very imperfect, and I am committed to improving upon it,” Supervisor V Fixmer-Oraiz said. “It doesn't serve anybody in the way that it is set up. I just implore all of us to really commit to figuring this out so that we're not here to the degree with which we're at next year.”

Recommended raises

Three of the five supervisors support salary increases of 2.5 percent for the county attorney, 1.875 percent for the sheriff and 1.5625 percent for other county elected officials. The supervisors discussed the increases during a work session, but formal approval will come in March when the board votes on the county budget.

Supervisor Rod Sullivan said he has always been opposed to officials getting a raise above the income adjustment for county employees, which is 2.5 percent for fiscal 2024. This was the basis of the cap on the panel’s recommendation. Supervisor Jon Green and Fixmer-Oraiz were the two supervisors who also supported the plan

With these increases, the salary changes would amount to:

The county’s compensation board in December recommended double-digit percent salary increases for elected officials, including 16 percent for the attorney, 12 percent for the sheriff and 10 percent for the auditor, recorder, treasurer and five supervisors.

Green-Douglass and Supervisor Royceann Porter supported raises of 4 percent for the county attorney, 3 percent for sheriff and 2.5 percent for other elected officials.

Linn County’s compensation board last month also recommended double-digit percent salary increases for its elected officials. The compensation board suggested bumping salaries 12 percent for the county sheriff and attorney, and 10 percent for others.

What should the future process be?

There are a handful of bills in the Iowa Legislature that would change the compensation process. One would require supervisors to adopt the recommendation of the compensation board without alteration. Another would eliminate the panels entirely, and a third would allow counties to decide if they want to have a compensation board or not. A fourth would add changes to how compensation boards arrive at the decision.

Sullivan brought up some of the legislation and said he would be in favor of getting rid of the current process, which he said doesn’t make any sense and is “badly broken.”

“The frustration to me with this is if we didn't have this process, we could just any day tell HR ‘Let's do a really thorough study of the county attorney and sheriff and all these different salaries,’ have them come in talk about it and set what we think would be an appropriate salary for all those. But because of this process, we don't get to do that,” Sullivan said.

Even with the current process, Fixmer-Oraiz said there could be a study done by the county. It would be more information when this same discussion comes next year.

The supervisors also discussed setting up a meeting with the compensation board ahead of time or making a recommendation the majority of supervisors would approve of. Compensation board chair Ryan From said both of these options would be helpful.

“We would love a letter from you guys as a cohesive unit, or at least a majority unit, saying, ‘this is what we would like to see,’” From said. “That would go a long way with us to tailor our recommendations because with the process, to just be honest, we're kind of shooting blind.”

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