Opinion : Don’t do away with county compensation boards

By Robert Leonard

Some of the very worst elected public officials in Iowa are members of our county boards of supervisors. Sure, there are some fine ones, but many don't have the sense God gave a goose.

I've covered boards of supervisors meetings in seven different counties over the years, and generally, I'm not impressed. One supervisor engaged in repeated acts of domestic violence; another's sole purpose of being on the board was to make sure he got enough gravel on the road in front of his house. Others are election deniers and conspiracy theorists, and after one supervisor got a divorce he moved two counties away for months to crash on a friend's couch, yet maintained that his residence was still in the county that cut his check.

One friend told me before he ran for supervisor he was doing it because it could supplement his retirement plan. He has served more than one term and is looking for more. Another runs a reign of intimidation in the courthouse and imagines the county as his kingdom. For him, it's always "I," "I," "I," and "me," "me," and "me." At one recent meeting, his most repeated utterance was "I don't care."

Violations of open meeting laws are common. When I worked in local news, I received an anonymous complaint that one board of supervisors was often violating open meeting laws, and I told the county attorney about it, and he told them about the complaint.

I naively thought they didn't understand the law and would self-correct. Boy, was I wrong. One supervisor went office to office in the courthouse demanding to know who sent me the complaint. At the next board of supervisors meeting he addressed the anonymous complaint publicly, calling the person who made it a "coward."

In another county, one member of the board called the sheriff a "yellow-bellied coward" on Facebook. She seemed to envision herself as Queen of the County. In another county, an employee went to the basement of the courthouse to retrieve something and heard whispers from behind a closed door. He opened it to find the full board of supervisors whispering together in the dark, clearly a violation of open meeting laws.

When we rural news people get together, we collectively agree that the worst elected officials in our counties are the boards of supervisors. One newspaperman from the northwestern part of the state calls them the "Board of Stupid-visors."

Some of the worst are business people who think government should be run like a business, and who run the courthouse like it is their own. They either don't understand or don't care that local government is in the service business and that not every department makes a profit. And a few are malicious. They don't want government to work.

Don't get me wrong. There are good people on boards doing their best. For other members, the nicest thing I can say about them is they are power-hungry and arrogant.

Standing between the public and the bad actors on the board of supervisors are what we call the other "electeds." The sheriffs, county attorneys, auditors, treasurers, and recorders. Some "not-so-supers" don't like the electeds because they can't hire and fire them. They are protected by you and me, the voters. And I will also say these electeds also serve to protect us, the taxpayers, from some members of the board of supervisors.

In general, board of supervisors' hiring and firing policies are not transparent. One friend learned that he lost his long-term position when he heard on the radio that his department had been "reorganized." In one county, a new department head was recently appointed at a salary that greatly exceeded that of elected officials who had been in office for many years. Some supervisors hire friends, family members, and acquaintances at high salaries and build a small network of sycophants to surround them who often live in fear of losing their jobs.

It makes no sense, but it doesn't have to given the power of the board of supervisors over county employees.

Contrastingly, the only power the board of supervisors has over the county attorney, the auditor, the treasurer, and the recorder are their office budgets, and their salaries, which are negotiated every year (sheriff and other county law enforcement salaries operate under a different Back-the-Blue compensation system).

By state law, these elected officials have a compensation board that advocates for salary adjustments. Each elected official has their own representative on the compensation board. These representatives are volunteers from the community who have subject area expertise that helps them advocate for salary adjustments for elected officials based on comparable jobs in other counties, cities, the federal government, and the private sector.

The board of supervisors does not have to abide by the recommendations of the compensation boards, but there are ripples in the community when they do not - especially when non-elected positions are filled with people who are given higher salaries.

Now the Iowa House is considering House File 2514, a bill that would eliminate county compensation boards, giving even more power to county supervisors.

County auditors, attorneys, treasurers, and recorders are some of our best and brightest, all with specialized training and a desire to serve. Here in rural Iowa especially, without adequate compensation and the work environment they deserve, there are great incentives for them to move on to better opportunities - which may be the goal of this legislation - weakening our county governments.

It's unclear, but my reading of the legislation suggests the possibility of the county board of supervisors decreasing the salary of the elected officials. What if the board didn't like, say, an election result and pressed the county auditor to change it under threat of a reduction in salary? If any elected official resigns under pressure, the board of supervisors then may appoint their successor, who may be more compliant.

Given that Gov. Kim Reynolds is doing her best to dismantle Iowa government and consolidate power, and since most Iowa counties are rural with largely Republican boards of supervisors, this may be part of that effort.

The Iowa State County Treasurers Association, the Iowa County Recorders Association, the Iowa County Attorneys Association, The Urban County Coalition, the Linn County Supervisors, the Iowa State Association of County Auditors, the Iowa State Association of Counties have all registered against the bill. As of March 11, no one had registered in support. Someone supports it or it wouldn't have been written.

Let's hope this bill is going nowhere. I hear that it is stalled, but you never know.