Washington County raises staff, elected officials’ pay

WASHINGTON — The Washington County Board of Supervisors voted to raise pay for all staff and elected officials at a meeting on Tuesday, continuing a trend of higher-than typical wage increases in the county faced with climbing costs of living.

For nonelected personnel, the county passed a motion to raise base wages by $1.75 across the board, rather than by a percentage, as it did last year. The vote was a unanimous 5-0.

“If we do the percentage, like has been done, it widens the gap between the top pay and the bottom pay,” said Supervisor Jack Seward Jr., who made that motion. “At least with $1.75, that allows the top and bottom to buy the same amount of gas and the same amount of bread.”

Seward said the continued raises kept Washington County competitive with others in the region.

“We have good people, we don’t want to lose them, so that’s what we did,” he said. “I think we’re doing a good job of paying attention to our people, taking good care of them. We need to keep things going like that.”

Pay raises for elected officials proved more contentious.

The County Compensation Board sets the maximum allowable rate of increase each year. For the next fiscal year, the group set those amounts at a pay raise of 10% for all elected officials, except for the county sheriff and supervisor positions, where it set the cap at 12% and 4%, respectively.

Compensation Board Chair Katie Mitchell said the group had department heads’ deputies in mind. While not elected to their positions, the high-up assistants’ wages are tied to those of their elected department heads.

“One reason that it’s important to keep it consistent or at least competitive with other counties in our area is to maintain a good workforce,” she said. “It’s not just the elected officials’ salaries that are effected, it’s their deputies as well … the nonelected officials who have positions in the courthouse.”

Supervisors said they were skeptical about raising rates so much after FY 2023’s historical increase of pay for elected officials.

“Last year, I had more than one person come up who was really hounding me about such an unprecedented increase,” Board of Supervisors Chair Bob Yoder said. “I’m still taking grief over that one. There’s just no way to explain that to the public, we never did anything like that before.”

Supervisor Marcus Fedler made a motion, seconded by Supervisor Stan Stoops, to raise most elected wages by half the recommended amounts. The vote failed in a 2-3 split, with all other board members voting no.

“I know tons of folks out there that are paying these taxes that we’re spending that are having a hard time finding qualified labor, and we haven’t seen that here,” Fedler said. “I don’t want to see that continue to escalate, where the only good job in this county is a county job.”

Seward followed with a motion to raise elected officials’ pay by 75% of the recommended amounts, for every position but county supervisor. That motion passed, in a 3-2 vote with Fedler and Stoops voting against.

Seward said it was a fair enough compromise.

“Between what was given first at 50%, and what was compensation board’s recommendation, 75% seemed to be a reasonable, ‘Meet you in the middle,’” he said.

Pay increases for supervisors were a separate action item from those of other elected offices. In a 5-0 vote, the board agreed to leave the Supervisor Chair’s $3,500 stipend unchanged.

Fedler made a motion to leave all Supervisors’ salaries unchanged, currently at $47,116. That motion failed on a 1-4 vote.

In another motion by Stoops, the board passed a plan to raise their own pay by the recommended 4%, up to $49,001. The vote was 3-2, with Fedler and Seward dissenting.

“I’m not in this job to make money, but in the future, if we’re going to entertain people to get in this job, we’ve got to be looking to the future,” said Supervisor Richard Young, who seconded the successful motion. “I’m not saying it’s a job either, but some of us spend a lot of hours up and above our 4 hours on whatever day we have in our meeting. There’s some of us that are here every day, or doing other things because we’re getting phone calls.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com