The raises break down as follows: nine percent for the treasurer, seven percent for the sheriff and auditor/recorder, six percent for the county attorney and three percent for the supervisors. As the item came up for consideration, Mark Eaton, who represents Sheriff Joel Phillips on the compensation board, called this year’s gathering of the board, which lasted two days, “interesting” due to the new rules put in place by the Iowa Legislature during the previous session.

“We worked pretty hard on that, pretty diligently. We don’t make any of these recommendations lightly because we know the fiscal pressures that everybody’s under,” Eaton said.

Another challenge was working around union negotiations as the Comp Board works to avoid compression between salaried and hourly staff — with some sheriff’s deputies receiving 10 and 11 percent pay increases as part of their new contracts. As in past years, Eaton also referenced Iowa’s new “Back the Blue” law that requires sheriffs to be paid at comparable rates to police chiefs in similar sized communities along with administrators and command officers with the Iowa State Patrol and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

Until the last few years, Phillips’ salary lagged far behind that of now former Marshalltown Police Chief Mike Tupper and State Patrol Major David Halverson, who is assigned to Marshall County, but Phillips has received bumps of 20 percent and 10 percent the last two years and is now paid $132,771.59 annually. Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Carol Hibbs asked Eaton if the comparables he used were based on budget size, and he said he focused on population.

New Marshalltown Police Chief Chris Jones started at $138,000 but is set to be bumped up to $142,000 on March 1. Thus, Eaton recommended a seven percent pay increase for Phillips, which would put his annual salary at just over $142,000, in hopes of avoiding having to approve larger jumps in the future.

Additionally, Eaton expressed the compensation board’s opinion that the combined auditor/recorder’s position, currently held by Nan Benson, is underfunded, comparing it to a city administrator, finance director and human resources department all in one — jobs that cost the city of Marshalltown close to $400,000 annually. Benson and the supervisors thanked the compensation board for their “thankless” work before Chief Deputy Ben Veren stepped forward to share his view on the issue of pay compression.

“I’m coming up on almost 20 years here at the sheriff’s office. I’ve been the chief deputy for almost four years. I’ve enjoyed working for the sheriff, for the board, for the citizens here, but the reality of it is that I’m not a lot of years from being out of this position, and what we look at is transitioning down the road, we want good leaders to come up in these roles,” Veren said. “And when you have that compression, there is a lot of responsibility in these salaried roles. Especially as the chief deputy and the jail administrator, we are tied by the code to the sheriff’s salary, 85 and 83 percent.”

He added that he loves what he does, but the late night phone calls and extra responsibilities can weigh on both the people who hold the positions and their spouses and families. Phillips then commented that recruiting people into those roles like the courthouse security deputy can be a struggle due to some of the reasons Veren laid out, noting that top jail staff can also make more than lieutenants in supervisory roles with overtime pay included.

Benson then noted the challenges in keeping high quality personnel across all departments with the close proximity to both Story and Polk counties, and Supervisor Jarret Heil sarcastically described the process of publicly considering the pay rates of employees as “fun” while acknowledging its necessity because of the taxpayer dollars involved and the need to keep the county in a sound financial position.

Heil ultimately said he would be comfortable with a three percent across the board raise, three for every official but the sheriff or following the compensation board’s initial recommendation. Supervisor Kevin Goodman felt a compromise could be reached because employees were being asked to tighten the belt, but he wanted to go higher than a three percent raise, especially considering the sheriff’s office’s situation.

With the new rules, the supervisors can essentially take any course of action they wish and ignore the compensation board’s recommendations entirely if they so choose, but Heil felt their work should be respected and considered due to the time and effort they put into the process. Over the previous two years, the supervisors had accepted the board’s recommendations as presented.

Eaton came back to the podium and said that with the recent increase in assessed valuations, he didn’t feel that the $24,000 difference between the full recommendation and a three percent across the board increase was a deal breaker or a budget buster. County Engineer Paul Geilenfeldt commended the compensation board for trying to bring Marshall County in line with other comparable counties and hoped that by accepting the larger jumps now, they wouldn’t have to continue doing so in the future. He also hoped that elected officials could avoid being the lowest paid in their fields compared to the private sector.

Goodman said Eaton had made “a compelling case” for accepting the full recommendation, and Hibbs and Heil suggested examining the pay of non-elected department heads as well. Although Marshall County ranks 15th in the state in population, it is below that in all elected official pay rates.

“If we went with the Comp Board recommendation, I think it would get us very close to the correct ranking within their affiliates,” Heil said. “But I think we really need to look at our department heads’ pay as well.”

Heil motioned to accept the compensation board’s recommendations as presented, and it passed unanimously.

——

Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

maharry@timesrepublican.com.