Linn County supervisors vote themselves six-figure incomes

CEDAR RAPIDS - Linn County's Board of Supervisors decided Monday to cross a perceptual threshold and give the five board members six-figure incomes.

The vote was 3-2.

Supervisors Brent Oleson and Ben Rogers failed in an attempt to limit any salary increase for the five supervisors to 1 percent, which would have increased their annual salary by $987.86, from the current $98,885.01 to $99,872.87 for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Instead, Supervisors Linda Langston, John Harris and Jim Houser opted for a 2-percent increase, which will increase the supervisors' salary by $1,978.69 to a total of $100,863.70.

'I'm not going to get my way today,” Oleson said at one point, '… I'll take my lumps.”

Oleson said staying under the $100,000 salary figure brought with it some perceptual bonuses.

For his part, Rogers said he hadn't forgotten the supervisors' recent history, when he and others on the board voted to move from 80-percent time to full-time in early 2013 with an accompanying jump in salary. The move brought with it citizen criticism, and Rogers on Monday said a 1-percent salary increase now made sense since the board moved to full-time with an associated pay hike relatively recently.

Iowa's elected county officials operate with county compensation boards, which are comprised of members appointed by county elected officials to recommend salary increases for the elected officials.

Rogers, Langston, Oleson and Harris said they want the Iowa Legislature to do away with the compensation boards and let supervisors, like city councils, vote to set the size of salary increases on their own.

Last week, Linn County's Compensation Board recommended 3-percent raises for the five supervisors and the county auditor, treasurer, recorder, which currently make the same salary as the supervisors.

The board also recommended a 3-percent raise for Linn County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden, but a 10.41-percent raise for Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner, after Gardner argued that his salary was significantly below other top law enforcement officers in Iowa. Both already make more than $100,000.

In years past, state law required the supervisors to adjust Board of Compensation recommendations by a similar percentage for all elected officials, but that no longer is true for the salaries of supervisors, Langston said.

In other words, the supervisors on Monday could have given themselves a 1 percent raise and then separately dealt with the salary recommendations for the other five elected county officials.

However, this option did not come to a vote.

Afterward, Oleson said he thought the Compensation Board's recommendations should be reduced in similar fashion - by 66.7 percent - for all 10 elected officials, which would have given nine of the 10 a 1 percent raise and the sheriff a 3.55 percent raise.

In the end, on the 3-2 vote, the supervisors settled on a 2-percent raise for nine of the 10 elected officials. The size of the raise is 33.3-percent below the Compensation Board recommendation, a reduction applied to the recommendation of the sheriff's salary as well. The sheriff's raise will be a 6.94-percent increase, not the recommended 10.41-percent increase, which will take his annual salary to $138,566.

Sheriff Gardner's new salary will place him in seventh place on a list he provided to the Compensation Board of the top-paid law enforcement officers in Iowa. He is currently 13th on that list.

With their current salaries, the University of Iowa's public safety director, police chiefs in Des Moines, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Marion and the Polk County Sheriff make more than Linn Sheriff Gardner's new salary.

Supervisor Oleson said he did not think a comparison between police chief and sheriff salaries made sense. He said Gardner was already Iowa's second highest paid sheriff in Iowa's second biggest county.

'I just don't see this great injustice,” Oleson said of Gardner's request for a salary increase larger than the other elected officials.

Gardner told the supervisors that he belonged between sixth and eighth and not 13th on the salary list he provided to the Compensation Board.

Twenty-three top deputies in Linn County government have their salary increases tied to those of the elected officials. Ten of the 23 are in the Sheriff's Department.