Washington County won’t reinstate compensation board

WASHINGTON — In a 4-1 vote Aug. 5, the Washington County Board of Supervisors declared it would set its own pay — and that of every other elected county official — rather than reinstate an advisory board that’s traditionally led the process, but was recently dissolved by a state mandate.

Supervisor Bob Yoder was the lone no vote. He said he worried the public would grow skeptical of salary decisions if they weren’t shaped by a more neutral third party.

“It’s not going to look good for us supervisors to decide our own raises,” he said. “I have to hear it all the time, ‘Supervisors voted themselves another raise,’ … if it was up to me, it’d be a separate board entirely, that decided that. What Kim Reynolds did, the law is the way it is, but I don’t personally agree with it.”

Board of Supervisors Chair Richard Young said he’d heard similar concerns from eight of the nine constituents he consulted.

But decision-makers argued the supervisors would increase transparency, with their board meetings more regularly attended by the public and local news reporters.

Supervisor Jack Seward Jr. said he wasn’t too worried about checks and balances, since a recently passed state law requires salary-setting decision-makers to systematically compare every position to its pay level in other counties as well as the private sector, and document those comparisons in detail. But he said he did worry about that proving too much to ask of an unpaid, all-volunteer compensation commission.

“We have to explain why we do what we do anyway,” he said. “Is it reasonable to think those volunteers are going to want to show up to more than one meeting, in order to come up with a document, and write that report? … It’s just extra work for the volunteers to do.”

The dissolution of the compensation advisory board may also help slim down county budgets, according to some. Supervisor Stan Stoops said he’d seen the commission inflate its numbers before, either to make supervisors look efficient when they ultimately slashed raises, or to create leverage against decision-makers who didn’t want to raise spending in the first place.

Heightened supervisor spending control may come as a boon, as the county seeks to trim an ever-tightening budget. The compensation board has recommended raises higher than supervisors have approved for the last several consecutive years.

“The first two or three years I was in office, the Board of Supervisors didn’t take a raise,” Stoops said, later adding, “A future board of supervisors may do something that the public totally resents, that’s their problem.”

County staff also said supervisors could decide on salaries earlier in the annual budgeting process, compared to the commission, which typically meets in November or December. They said that would give every department a clearer picture of their funding earlier, allowing for more efficient spending decisions with less need for ambiguity.

Most other elected officials at the meeting said they could go either way on the status of the compensation board. County Attorney Nathan Repp, Treasurer Jeff Garrett, Auditor Dan Widmer, Recorder Teresa Mangold, and Sheriff Jared Schneider all said they were more or less neutral on the matter.

Tammy Stewart, currently a deputy auditor and the only nominee from either political party nominated to run for the county auditor’s position in November, said she leaned slightly in favor of reinstating the board.

“Granted, the fact that people don’t come to compensation board (meetings,)” she said. “But I still feel like they give good recommendations to you guys who do make the ultimate decision. They do give you a basis of where to start.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com