The Carroll County Compensation Board approved a motion Tuesday night to recommend pay increases for elected officials ranging from 12 percent up to 28 percent depending on the office. The meeting opened at 5 p.m. at the courthouse, and the board began by selecting Mike Franey to serve as chairman, Paul Greteman as vice-chair and Diane Janning as secretary. Jean Ludwig, who represents the supervisors, opened discussion by clarifying the compensation board’s role.
Greteman, the sheriff’s representative, made the first proposal for elected officials and suggested the office receive a substantial 28-percent jump to $119,503. He acknowledges this figure seems large, but it complies with regulations laid out in the Back the Blue Act passed by the Iowa Legislature over the summer. The law requires the compensation board to recommend adjustments to fall in line with other similar law enforcement positions. Greteman says he used a comparable position in the Iowa State Patrol as a starting point.
This large of an adjustment for one office makes modifications to the others challenging. The board of supervisors has the final say on compensation, but Chair, Gene Meiners, explains that if they want to make cuts to the recommendations they have to be done equally.
The compensation board voted in favor of moving forward with the 28-percent increase for the sheriff. Initially, the respective representative had planned to recommend a 12-percent increase for the auditor, 10 percent for the county attorney, 12 percent for the treasurer and nine percent for the recorder. However, they anticipate those values to be reduced by at least half due to the high sheriff adjustment. Treasurer representative, Chris Whitaker, made a motion to account for that.
The motion was approved by the compensation board, and their recommendation will be brought to the supervisors at a future meeting, where they can accept these figures or adjust them to fit within the county’s budget. Full audio from Tuesday’s meeting can be found below.
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