When government officials attack

Johnson County politics is usually pretty genial.

Sure, there are fights within and between governmental bodies, but rarely are they as contentious, or as publicized, as what erupted this week between the Board of Supervisors and the board that oversees the new joint emergency communication center.

I want to get to the good stuff, so rather than bog this down with background, click here for a short story.

In short, the seven-member communication center board has control over the center, including the tax levy that funds its operations.

A few days ago, the board said it would set next fiscal year's levy at 75 cents per $1,000 of taxable value. A year ago, they had set the current rate at 77 cents.

But a year ago the county, unbeknownst to communication center board,  changed that to 68 cents.

And cue the fireworks.

Supervisor Rod Sullivan blasted the communication center board in a “special edition” of his weekly newsletter, saying he had never seen anything in local politics “as egregious as the management of the Joint Emergency Communications Center (JECC).” Other supervisors also questioned the 7-cent levy increase and the center's budget.

Communication center board members, however, said they thought they were lowering the levy. They held a special meeting Wednesday to find out what happened.

Dave Wilson, the county's emergency management coordinator and a communication center board member, said he could find no documentation that his board had OK'd lowering the levy to 68 cents.

That's because it didn't.

Rich Claiborne, the county's budget coordinator, said all he does it put in the numbers given to him, and at some point he put in a certain figure for operating expenses for the center, and that came out to a 68-cent levy. No one told him to backfill up to 77 cents.

Claiborne said there was documentation in the form of a televised public hearing and written minutes when the county budget was set, but he couldn't find anything on, nor could he remember, who instructed him to put those numbers in for the center. He also took offense to some of what Wilson was saying.

“To attack the budget coordinator, you better back off,” he said.

Wilson said he didn't mean it like that.

Later, when it became clear that county had changed the levy, it was communication board members who took offense.

“We request, you grant, you don't monkey with. That's the job,” said Regenia Bailey, who's also on the Iowa City Council.

The supervisors didn't back off when they met for a budget meeting later in the day. They said while they were happy the levy was lowered from what was initially proposed, they still thought the center's budget was too high, primarily because of the number of administrators to be hired.

“The problem is the fat in the budget,” Sullivan said.

Terrence Neuzil said communication center board members didn't seem to have a problem hiring people when the county taxes for it.

What he was alluding to is that many local governments are squeezing their budgets because of the recession. The seven-member communication board has six elected officials on it (Wilson is the exception; ironically, the county has the most representatives on the board with three).

Also, the levy is on county tax bills because that's the only way to implement it countywide, which is part of the reason the supervisors are so sensitive to the issue.