DONNELLSON – The Lee County Farm Bureau board queried the Lee County Board of Supervisors at an annual meet-up at the Farm Bureau offices in Donnellson Tuesday night.
Farm Bureau officials have been inviting supervisors to a meeting in February to talk about issues facing the county and usually tax-and-spend is an agenda item.
After a brief summary of what the county is focusing on and concerns over legislation aimed at siphoning off local control and Home Rule precedents, the conversation did shift to spending.
Past Farm Bureau Board President Brent Koller, pushed supervisors on spending in the county and the tax levy rate. He specifically mentioned pay raises being considered.
The county board is currently performing the duties of the Compensation Board and supervisors used information from Iowa State Association of Counties and gathered data based on the three counties above Lee County in population and three counties below to set pay raises this year.
Supervisor Chair Ginger Knisley said they also used some other factors including department head salaries that were behind in comparison to other similar positions in other counties.
“Have you looked at we're 88th in median income compared to the other 99? I’m not sure population is a great demographic,” said Farm Bureau board member Joel Bobb.
Supervisor Chuck Holmes agreed with Bobb that population may not be the best metric.
“I don’t think we’ve taken that into account and we should. So, our process is somewhat flawed,” Holmes said.
Supervisor Garry Seyb said he’s pushed for a study to see where the county is regarding wages from top to bottom.
“It would be difficult to replace our county engineer, for example. The DOT is continually looking at enticing engineers away and they’re able to go there and make more money than the county level. Likewise, with county attorneys, they are being courted to run for a position in another county,” Seyb said.
Koller said he watched the compensation meeting online and said the county keeps using the county’s rate of 22nd in the state in most of the comparisons.
“What if we just made everything 22nd,” Koller asked. “Bring our property taxes down to the 22nd rate, or the levy rate. I looked it up and, if we dropped our property tax revenue to 22nd, we’d drop $3.2 million in property taxes going from 16th to 22nd.”
Seyb said it’s not a congruent comparison and things aren’t that simple.
“You’ve got a robust ambulance service that maybe not everybody has down here," he said.
As of early 2025, 21 counties in the state had voted to designate emergency medical services as an essential service to allow collection of a tax levy to help offset costs of the service. Those counties have all passed essential service levies to collect up to .75/$1,000 of assessed valuation to support EMS services. However, there are 724 authorized EMS providers in the state.
Currently, just eight of 99 counties in the state own and operate their own ambulance service including Lee, Iowa, Jefferson, Johnson, Shelby, Scott, Adair, and Ida counties. Those services are only subsidized by county funds with private pay still a major piece of revenue for operations. Supervisor Chuck Holmes said the ambulance service operates at about a $1.5 million loss annually.
Koller said the ambulance issue isn’t unique to Lee County.
“You name the courthouse and the ambulance service and those are two unique things, but the ambulance, there are other counties with ambulance services. Yeah, there are lot of counties that don’t have a lot of things, and counties that do have a lot of things, and there’s counties that have the mandates we have,” he said.
Knisley said other counties have resources available like robust hospital services, and neighboring metropolitan areas where people prefer to go for DMV services because they work there.
“Down here in this corner, were limited in our resources. Our population does tend to rely on local government a little more, but these are interesting points you make.”
Koller said the deficit of $1.5 million in the ambulance department still creates a $2 million hole compared to the county’s ranking for levy rate.
Seyb said the county also contributes $200,000 a year to the Lee County Economic Development group and a lot of counties don’t make the contribution. But he said instead of eliminating that, he would like to see it increase.
“People will struggle with me. But there’s an old adage that you need to spend money to make money. If we’re ever going to get ourselves dug out of the hole of the direction we’re going, these are the places we need to start putting our money to give us any hope of a trajectory out,” he said.
Seyb also said the two courthouses issue is under investigation by the board. That law was changed in 2024, ending a 176-year mandate specific to Lee County requiring court services in both Keokuk and Fort Madison. Supervisors just passed a resolution to spend just under $50,000 on a study to look at the possibilities of moving all court services to Keokuk.
Seyb said the county is working diligently to reduce its footprint while securing the financial future of the county.
Bobb thanked the supervisors for their work over the past six years.
“Thank you for what you do. Hats off to you and I don’t want your job,” he said. “But what have you found as the impetus to reduce real estate and get properties back on the tax rolls, cut staffing, get more efficient? And I hear you barking because the state’s making you, but I’m wondering would this have had happened had you not been driven to that point by the state?”
Bobb was referring to state property tax changes that currently require the county to be at a general fund levy of $3.50 by 2029. Sentiment in Des Moines is that requirement will change this year, but Seyb said every proposal now has growth capped at 2% not including new construction and schools.
Property tax bills being shuffled around the state legislature this year haven't received a lot attention yet. However, with this week being funnel week, legislative proposals should become clearer before the end of the week.
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