Not everyone on board with proposed county wage increases

     Several Fiscal Year 2026 budget items were touched on during the March 4 Jones County Supervisor meeting.

   The board held a budget work session on Feb. 28 and approved the wages for elected officials and non-union county employees for budgetary purposes only. The official increases will not be set until the FY2026 county budget is set and adopted in late April.

   A 3-2 vote set the salary increases for elected officials. Supervisors Joe Oswald, Jon Zirkelbach, and John Schlarmann were in favor; Supervisors Jeff Swisher and Darrick Hall were opposed.

   The motion included a 3 percent increase for the supervisors, 4 percent for the sheriff and treasurer, 5 percent for the auditor and recorder, and 6.5 percent for the county attorney.

   The board unanimously approved the wage increases for non-elected and non-union county staff. Those receiving a 4 percent increase include: County engineer, Conservation director, Community Services director, Senior Dining director, GIS coordinator, road maintenance supervisor, court security officer, assistant engineer, engineer in training, Conservation ranger, Conservation naturalist, Conservation natural resource manager, and Conservation office manager (part-time).

   Those receiving a 4.5 percent increase include JETS drivers and JETS office assistant.

   Those receiving a 5 percent increase include: JETS director, Veterans Affairs administrator, IT coordinator, facilities maintenance director, jail administrator, Sheriff's Office manager, and Secondary Road Office manager.

   A 6.5 percent increase was approved for the county attorney's secretary.

   No wage increases were approved for Environmental Health administrator (due to a new administrator starting in March) and Public Health coordinator (due to receiving a wage increase in the fall of 2024).

   During the Public Comment period of the board meeting, County Treasurer Amy Picray commented on the decision made on Feb. 28.

   "I want to be clear that this is not about money for me. I love my job; I love serving the public," she said. "The accolades that I hear back from our customers is what motivates me. After last year’s budget session, I honestly expected no raise this year. And I am shocked 5 percent was thrown out at the beginning of the budget process. I’m disappointed in how the decision was made."

   She said Iowa Code 331.905 states that if there is no Compensation Board, which the Jones County Supervisors dissolved in November, the board (of supervisors) sets salaries pursuit to Iowa Code 331.907.

   331.907 states that the board "shall review the compensation paid to comparable officers in other counties of this state, other states, private enterprise, and the federal government."

   " It does not say to other comparable counties by population," Picray said. "The justification given for Friday’s salary resolution was comparables by population; one variable.

   "When you select a bid for a project or a purchase, do you consider just one price, or do you take other factors into consideration?" she continued.

   "The decision on Friday says we are going to do what all the other counties are doing. Is that sound support? Do we know what justifications those other salaries set by the other counties are based on? If all counties based their salaries on what other counties have done, over time, how does that give any legitimacy to the justification of those salaries? If a department head or elected official comes to you needing your approval on something, and their only justification was this is what all the other counties are doing, would you accept that and grant their request?"

   The board set a public hearing for 9 a.m. on March 25 for the proposed property tax levy. This hearing has to be held separate from a regular board meeting.

   County Auditor Whitney Hein explained the basis for the mailing that will go out to all property taxpayers in mid-March.

   Taxpayers will see three columns on the notice. The first column is "Current Year Certified Property Tax." The middle and last column speak to "Budget Year Effective Tax" and "Budget Year Proposed Tax."

   "The budget year effective tax is basically showing what the levy rates would look like if we were levying for the same amount of tax dollars," Hein said. "That's considering our new valuation, the same tax dollars as the current year, and then that gives us that levy rate.

   "For your total rural rate, you're proposing $9.65152," she continued. "So the levy rate would be the same as the current year. If you add up the total tax dollars, the difference is $142,733 than FY25. So over the whole county, you're only asking for $142,000 more than current yr. I don't foresee that as a huge increase."

   The confusing part, Hein said, is the residential and commercial property taxes for both urban and rural taxpayers. The budgeted year proposed tax and percentage of change are misleading.

   For example, the notice shows that urban residential taxpayers should see a 5.59 percent increase in their FY2025-26 property taxes. That's not true.

   "It depends on the individual if their valuation went up or not," Hein said. "But if their valuation stayed the same as the previous year, they're actually going to owe less (in property taxes)."

   For a rural residential taxpayer, it shows a 12.75 percent increase.

   "If a rural person's property valuation stayed the same, they're actually not going to see any difference because the overall levy rate is the same," offered Hein. "This could be alarming to some people because it looks like the percent changes are very high. But it's because of that calculation that's comparing the 10 percent increase in valuation.

   "The average person is going to have a very minimal valuation increase, if at all," she said.

   For budgetary purposes, Hein outlined the proposed General Basic (GB), General Supplemental (GS), and Rural Basic (RB) funds.

   GB: Levy rate, $4.06863 (same as the current year); total tax revenue, a little over $5.4 million; total revenues, $9.2 million; budgeted expenses, $10 million; projected ending fund balance, $4.3 million (a decrease in carryover).

   GS: Levy rate, $1.73289; total tax revenue, $2.3 million; non-tax revenue, $140,000; total revenues, $2.4 million; budgeted expenses, $2.6 million.

   "That leaves our ending fund balance at $1.2 million, which I'm very comfortable with," noted Hein. "Going into FY26, we're projected to have a beginning balance of $1.4 million, so we are decreasing that carryover a little bit."

   RS: Levy rate, $3.50; tax revenue, $3.3 million; non-tax revenue, $350,000; total revenues, $3.7 million; total budgeted expenses, a little over $3.6 million; projected ending fund balance, $560,000.

   "We're increasing that carryover by $54,000," said Hein. "We're increasing the tax revenue over FY25 by $470,000."

   Overall totals: Levy rate, $9.65152 (a 0 percent change in levy rate over FY25); tax revenue, $11.5 million (a 1 percent change over FY25); non-tax revenue, $4.3 million; total expenditures, $16.9 million.

   The board invited Jones County Conservation to the meeting to discuss changes made to the proposed salaries of Conservation employees. Director Brad Mormann and Conservation Board member Dan Zimmerman were present.

   While the Conservation Board proposed 5 percent wage increases for their staff, the supervisors cut those down to 4 percent to be more in line with other county employees.

   "The big concern that I had when I first got on this board is the wages that the Conservation Board gives the employees out there," voiced Supervisor Jeff Swisher. "We really don't have any say in it. The only thing we can do is cut your funding, which hurts the parks. I get what you're trying to do, bring people up to comparables, but I think that's our job.

   "If we give the employees of Jones County 4 percent and the Conservation Board gives 7 percent, you see where we get blasted in the paper?" continued Swisher. "It's the board of supervisors who did it. Conservation Board sets their own stuff. The only recourse we have is to take money away from you, which I don't think is fair for the parks in general. We all use the parks. We wanted you guys to be involved in how we were coming to the conclusion of what we're giving employees so you know what we're working with and what we’re trying to do for a fair wage for people. This year it was refreshing to see what you offered (5 percent)."

   "The Conservation Board agreed on the 5 percent," said Zimmerman. "We were going off of, back in December, very early in the game, you were projecting 5 percent. We thought that was very fair and kept us at a competitive pay scale with similar counties of our size. For several years, we were quite low compared to adjacent counties, so we were playing a catch-up game to be more competitive that way. I think we've accomplished that now and feel pretty good where we're at in comparison with other counties."

   The board thanked Conservation for looking for ways to be efficient within their departmental budget.