Iowa County Supervisors weigh calculations for sheriff’s salary

MARENGO — Faced with a state law they find “vague” and conflicting opinions from attorneys, Iowa County Supervisors struggled this month to set a pay increase for the county sheriff for fiscal year 2027.

In fiscal year 2023, Iowa County spent $982,000 on the sheriff and wages tied to the sheriff’s wage, said Supervisor Abby Maas during a Feb. 13 meeting of the Iowa County Board of Supervisors. “This year we’re spending 1.6 million.”

That doesn’t include jail and dispatch expenses, she said.

Nearly 28% of every property tax dollar in Iowa County went to the sheriffs’ office in 2025 — including jail and dispatch, said Maas. Of that, 45% went to patrol, she said.

Meanwhile, only 11% of the county’s money goes to the county engineer’s office, Maas said. Compared to the rest of the state, Iowa County is on the low end in what it spends on secondary roads, she said.

The budget for the sheriff’s office is growing faster than that of the rest of the county departments, said Maas. From 2018 to 2025 the increase in property tax was 19% countywide, she said.

“The subsidy going to our sheriff’s office, including dispatch and jail, went up 60% in that same time frame,” Maas said. These numbers don’t include debt service for the jail and jail kitchen that serve the same office, she said.

Yet the Iowa County Compensation Board recommended a 15% pay increase for the sheriff to meet the requirements of the what is known as the Back-the-Blue law. The law requires that salaries for administrators of like-sized law enforcement agencies be considered when determining the salary of a county sheriff.

When Maas researched salaries herself, she came up with different numbers than those presented by the Compensation Board. Averaging salaries from like-sized counties in Iowa and Nebraska and comparable federal positions, Maas came up with $132,974, which is a 5.7% increase.

“I’m aware there’s grumblings of potential lawsuits,” said Maas. “I don’t quite understand that..... We have deputies that are making very good wages,” said Maas.

According to Association of Countys, Iowa County is 46th in population and 39th in sheriff’s salary for 2026, said Maas.

“I think either way, we have to just be unanimous on this because we’re all going to be potentially litigated on it,” said Maas.

“There is potential for lawsuits,” Supervisor Kevin Heitshusen told the board. “So you have to be firm in your conviction of which way you want to go.”

“I’m still confused on the law,” said Supervisor Jon Degen. It says to look at comparable wages, he said, “but what is comparable?”

“That’s my problem is, it’s so vague,” said Supervisor Seth Meyer.

“We’re getting so many different numbers as what these salaries are when one person looks at it a different way and one looks at it another way,” said Degen.

“If the state wants us to do something, why don’t they tell us exactly what to pay,” said Heitshusen.

Iowa County Sheriff Rob Rotter said Iowa Code clearly spells out what salaries to compare, but he and Maas disagreed as to which salaries should be used in the salary calculations.

“Could we not just sit down and have a civil conversation with two supervisors, [Rotter] and [the sheriff’s] representative from the comp board? Is that legal? Is that possible?” asked Degen.

“So we’re looking at the same numbers and everybody can see where the numbers are coming up,” said Degen. “Let’s interpret the code together and then let’s … make the formula together.”

“Right now, already, sitting here, you guys had different opinions of where you got your numbers from and you came to a common understanding,” said Heitshusen. “So I kinda agree with Jon that we need to go one step farther and do this to figure out where the numbers are truly coming from. and if we can come to an agreement that way.”

Attorney General opinion

In a February 2026 opinion from Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird to Wayne and Ringgold Counties, Bird noted that the Legislature enacted the “Back the Blue” law in 2021, removing the discretion that county compensation boards had in “considering” the salaries for comparable professions and mandated that certain, specific, comparable professional salaries be used to set the annual compensation for county sheriffs.

The Legislature removed the discretionary language and mandated that the county compensation board set the compensation so that it is comparable to other salaries of similar positions in municipal and state government.

There are two prongs in section 331.907(1) for setting the salary of a county sheriff, said Bird. The compensation board shall “review the compensation paid to comparable officers in other counties of this state, other states, private enterprise, and the federal government,” and “shall set the sheriff’s salary so that it is comparable to 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.”

Those two prongs must be satisfied in setting the annual compensation for a county sheriff, Bird says in her opinion.

Bird calls the language of Iowa Code section 331.907(1) “clear, plain, and unambiguous” in requiring compensation boards to “set the sheriffs salary so that it is comparable to salaries paid to professional law enforcement administrators and command officers.”