Comp board recommends pay bump for some elected officials

LEE COUNTY – Earlier this year, the Lee County Board of Supervisors re-upped the county’s compensation board.
Iowa law passed in May allowed the county the choice to disband the board that recommends pay increases for the county’s elected officials. The 2024 law also gives supervisors more latitude in what they do with the comp board’s recommendation.
On Wednesday, the board recommended zero increases for the Lee County Sheriff, Lee County Attorney, and the Lee County Board of Supervisors for the upcoming fiscal year beginning July 1.
The compensation board, after about a 90-minute conversation, agreed to move the Recorder, Auditor, and Treasurer’s office to an equal salary that would put them above the deputy salaries in the assessor’s office, which was settled on at $84,000. However, they seem to have missed the mark,  specifically with regard to the Lee County Assessor's office where Chief Deputy Stacie Dickens will make $86,700 in the upcoming fiscal year.
The Assessor has its own levy and the Lee County Conference Board approves their budget, along with Emergency Management's budget. Those were both approved last week and included a 7.9% raise for the assessor. Her deputies are tied by statute to that position as a percentage.
Wednesday's meeting descended into a visceral discussion about the qualifications of assessor staff and elected officials and, at one point,  Dickens got on via zoom and defended her position.
The 2025-26 Lee County Assessor budget approved by the Conference Board last week gave County Assessor Patti Meierotto a $7,500 raise taking her salary to $102,000. Dickens' salary is 85% of Meierotto’s and her published gross wages in 2024 were $78,670. Deputy Auditor Megan Kirchner’s salary moved to $71,400 from $68,981 in wages, and appraiser Andrea Jorgenson’s salary jumped to $61,200 from $54,892 in wages. All those positions are statutorily linked to the assessor’s.
The levy for the assessor’s office this year will be 36.3 cents/$1,000 assessed valuation, which is estimated to raise $579,064 for the department.
Lee County Recorder Nancy Booten told the comp board Wednesday that she’s a department head and runs her department including budgeting and human resource functionality. She said department heads should make more than deputies in other departments that don’t have those responsibilities.
Dickens countered that not everyone can be an assessor, but anyone can be elected. Dickens said there are testing and qualifications that have to take place before someone can be a deputy assessor or an assessor.
Booten said those qualifications can be obtained while on the job and anyone can be hired in the office and be trained to do the work, just like in the other county departments.
Iowa code now allows supervisors, who have final approval of the salary increases, to do whatever they want despite the recommendations. That final say will come prior to approving the final budget in March.
Prior to the law change in 2024, supervisors couldn’t go over the recommended compensation changes, but could reduce them. If they did reduce them, they had to reduce all recommended increases by the same percentage. When the law changed to allow comp boards to be disbanded, those restrictions were removed as well.
Lee County Attorney Ross Braden spoke and said, despite his assistant attorneys being tied to his salary, he was not looking for a pay raise this year.
“Our numbers as far as criminal activity always seem to be on the rise, but with that being said, I’m not looking for a raise this year, particularly in light of the current circumstances of our county’s finances,” he said.
Braden said he’s aware of the impact of House File 718 and its impact on the county’s budget saying the bill “cut the legs out” from under the county. Braden was paid $134,027 according to a published report of 2024 salaries.
Lee County Sheriff Elliott Vandenberg also declined a raise. Vandenberg has restructured the sheriff’s department budget and is looking at more changes to focus on staff pay rather than administrative pay.  Vandenberg was elected in November defeating two-term sheriff Stacy Weber. The sheriff’s pay for 2024 was $136,495
Nancy Booten was paid $79,366 as county recorder, Denise Fraise made $80,360 as county auditor, and Becky Gaylord had a $79,760 salary in 2024 at County Treasurer.
Supervisor Chairman Denise Fraise said Friday there is an agenda item for Monday's meeting to disband the compensation board.