Floyd County Compensation Board starts salary recommendation work

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A newly reestablished Floyd County Compensation Board held its first meeting Wednesday evening, Dec. 18, operating with several new members and under new state guidelines.

The Comp Board’s job is to make recommendations to the Board of Supervisors regarding the salaries that county elected officials should be paid in the new fiscal year that will begin July 1, 2025.

Although it has been rare in the past for the Floyd County supervisors to follow the Comp Board’s recommendations exactly, this year the supervisors will have even more flexibility – including ignoring the recommendations entirely.

That flexibility had some of the Comp Board members wondering at their Wednesday meeting what their purpose was, and also wondering about some of the rules they are required to follow under a new state law, including a requirement that they “show your work.”

Kurt Herbrechtsmeyer, who was appointed to the board by County Attorney Todd Prichard, said requirements that the board compare locally elected officials’ salaries to similar positions “in other counties of this state, other states, private enterprise, and the federal government” didn’t make sense.

“Local wages are the only thing that’s relevant,” he said.

Lisa Garden, a returning member appointed to represent the county auditor, suggested offhandedly that maybe the recommendation they should make to the supervisors is “disband this board.”

The Iowa Legislature last year passed a law abolishing existing county compensation boards, which had been part of the salary-setting process in Iowa since the 1980s. But the Legislature gave county supervisors the option of re-establishing the boards or doing the required work themselves comparing salaries to other positions with similar duties and responsibilities.

The Floyd County supervisors voted in September to re-establish the compensation board. All three supervisors said they felt using the compensation boards in the past has been valuable.

The supervisors appoint two representatives and each other elected official appoints one representative to the seven-member Comp Board. Some officials chose representatives who had served on the previous board, and others chose new representatives.

Representatives of the elected county officials are:

• Supervisors – Kalen Schlader (returning) and Jerry Joerger (new).
• County Attorney – Kurt Herbrechtsmeyer (new).
• Auditor – Lisa Garden (returning).
• Recorder – James Davis (new).
• Sheriff – Troy Jaeger (returning).
• Treasurer – Jason Daniels (returning).

In the past, supervisors were limited on what they could do with the Comp Board recommendations.

They could not increase pay raises above what the Comp Board recommended, and if they wanted to reduce the recommendations they had to do so for each elected office by an equal percentage across the board.

Now the supervisors have much more latitude, being able to increase or decrease the recommended salary for each elected official individually, including being able to give some officials a larger increase than the Comp Board recommends, and other officials a lesser increase than what is recommended.

Also included in the new state law is a “show your work” requirement.

Whether the recommendation is being made by a compensation board or the supervisors are coming up with salary decisions themselves, the law says they are required to show that they have compared the local salaries to “comparable officers in other counties of this state, other states, private enterprise, and the federal government.”

Gloria Carr, the current county auditor who was elected to become a county supervisor the beginning of next year, told the Comp Board members that the law says it is their job to compare the officials’ salaries to salaries paid to other people in similar positions and make whatever recommendation is required to reach that level.

The board isn’t supposed to consider the county budget, tax impact, the economy or cost-of-living increases that other businesses might be giving, she said.

“It’s not your job to say, ‘well, we can’t do this much in a year,’” Carr said. “Do the comparables, period, is what I would recommend, because that’s your job.”

An additional requirement that remains part of the law is the Iowa “Back the Blue” provision that has been in effect for a couple of years, requiring counties to pay their county sheriff a salary “comparable to the salaries paid to professional law enforcement administrators and command officers of the state patrol, the Division of Criminal Investigation of the Department of Public Safety, and city police chiefs employed by cities of similar population to the population of the county.”

The Floyd County sheriff has been given pay increases greater than other county officials in the past two years, but is still not at a level comparable to the other positions mentioned in the law.

Carr said if the board decides that the comparable wage for the sheriff requires a 20% increase, that’s what they should recommend, rather than some lower amount because they think the county can’t afford the full increase.

“That’s where the supervisors have that role of saying ‘we can’t make this work in our budget,’” Carr said. “That’s the supervisor part of this, not your job. You’re not doing budgets. You’re just doing comparables.”

The board discussed a goal of bringing county officials to a pay level slightly above the county’s population rank when compared to officials’ salaries in counties a few steps above and below Floyd County. But they also recognized that’s a moving target, because those other counties will also be granting increases this year.

No specific salary recommendations were made or discussed at Wednesday’s meeting.

The board decided to hold another meeting at 3:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 23, and Schlader, who was voted in as the chair, asked each member to bring in salary recommendations and the comparisons they made to come up with those figures.