Supervisors approve union contract, park transfer

    The Washington County Board of Supervisors approved the changes to the County Roads Union Contract for next year that includes an additional funeral day and a 25 cent pay increase at its weekly meeting Tuesday morning. The additional funeral day is a paid leave of absence and applies only to attending the funerals of the employee?s aunt or uncle. In order to receive the paid leave, the contract states that the employ must attend the funeral.

    The contract covers 21 employees in the union, which includes the county?s maintenance employees. The revised contract increases the base wage rate by 25 cents, or 1.37 percent. Employees will also receive $60 per year to purchase steel-toed safety shoes. The contract is for one year, which disappointed at least one member of the board.

    ?I?d prefer that it were for three years instead of just one,? said Supervisor Adam Mangold.

    Assistant County Engineer Jacob Thorius said the county was hoping for a longer contract to avoid having to pay contract negotiation fees every year.

    Members of the Workplace Learning Connection in Cedar Rapids addressed the board about a request for $840 to create job shadow opportunities for high school students in the area. The supervisors informed Workplace Director Mary Lou Erlacher that they would consider the request when they put together the 2010-2011 budget over the next few months.

    Erlacher said there were 90 students from the area who enrolled in job shadowing courses last fall. Mid-Prairie School enrolled 61, Highland had 43, Washington signed up 13 and Mid-Prairie Home School had two.

    Students who enroll in job shadowing get the chance to sample a career of their choice to see if they would be interested in pursuing that career after high school. The 13 students from Washington who enrolled in the program last fall attended the Health Academy to get a taste of nursing. The students from Highland and Mid-Prairie job shadowed a wider variety of occupations such as athletic trainers, dentists, accountants, historians and lawyers.   

    Erlacher said that some students have job shadowed veterinarians and that they were even allowed to witness surgeries.

    ?The students learn what skills are needed to be a vet from an experience like that,? said Erlacher. ?They don?t participate in the surgeries, though, so your cat is safe.?

    The board approved the conveyance of the Iowa Township Park to the City of Riverside. Tina Thomas, the city administrator of Riverside, expressed her gratitude to the board for giving the city ownership of the park and vowed to enhance its image. 

    ?I would like to thank the board of supervisors for this gift,? said Thomas. ?It is a wonderful gift for the City of Riverside. We have a lot of improvements we would like to do to the park to make it a better, more modern recreation facility for the city.?

For the full article, see our Jan. 12 print edition.