Supervisors lash out at state's squeeze on counties

THEY DON'T CARE

All they care about is the email they get that says property taxes are too high. They will not, they do not, they shall not, take the time to find out how that money is being spent.”

Tom Schulz, Lee County Supervisor

LEE COUNTY – Lee County Republican Supervisors lashed out at the Iowa legislature following a District 5 meeting with state officials last week.
Lee County Supervisor Chairman Garry Seyb and Supervisor Tom Schulz lambasted the state legislature for its dismissive approach to fiscal restraints being placed on the county’s budgets throughout the state.
Schulz went so far as to call the move by the legislature a squeeze on counties to tighten up budgets, while the state sits on more than a billion dollars in reserve and more than a billion in the state’s rainy day fund.
“One thing I take away from that meeting is I don’t think we can count on any lifelines being thrown to us by the state government with regard to our ability to continue operations at the county level,” Schulz said.
“I don’t think they care how many people we have to fire. I’ve never seen anything so tone deaf and it's very disconcerting to me.”
Schulz was talking about a law passed last year that mandates county’s reduce their general fund levy to $3.50/$1,000 by 2029. There was some talk that maybe legislators would take up the issue again in the session that starts in January to help the state’s more rural counties continue to function.
“I had further discussion in the parking lot after I left the meeting and I really don’t know what to say.”
He said he was accused by someone of being nasty when he brought up the state’s billions in revenue and a billion dollar rainy day fund.
“We’re the ones that worry about making payroll on Friday, yet we’re the ones overtaxing? I don’t know how you have that level of stupid quite frankly, or that level of ignorance,” Schulz said.
He said the state always compares rural counties to large counties in the state such as Polk County who operates with a lower tax rate. Schulz said their population base dictates that, and then consider how much of Polk County is made up of cities.
Seyb said they indicated the state was doing this purposely to squeeze county budgets because they believe they are bloated.
“They are looking at the upper half of counties, the Polks and Story counties and places like that, and they fear because assessments are going up, those areas are going to see an influx of monies and they want to squeeze them,” Seyb said.
“But the problem is, they are using a cookie-cutter (approach) and we’re not seeing those revenues. When we don’t and they squeeze everybody, then there’s nothing left to cut but services,” Seyb said.
He said he tried to express to the legislators that at the same time they are constricting budgets, they want the counties to grow population.
“If there’s any one ray of hope, they do realize that there is a very big disconnect in locking us in at our current levy rate. Basically, they’ve strangled us the $5.85 on the general levy fund, and will not let us go incrementally to the $3.50. What they’re making us do is either run at $5.85 or at $3.50 and so we have to find creative ways to reduce our overall levy so that when we do go to the $3.50 it’s not, quite frankly, devastating.”
Schulz says legislators are not analyzing what they are voting on.
“There are very few people in the state capital that give a crap whether or not an ambulance shows up at your house when you call 911. There are very few that care that a sheriff’s deputy is there when you need help,” he said.
“All they care about is the email they get that says property taxes are too high. They will not, they do not, they shall not, take the time to find out how that money is being spent.”
The Schulz expanded his comments to say the legislators then violate the state’s constitution when they push unfunded mandates upon counties.
“We need to pressure our representatives to stand up against their own party leadership – my party leadership – and give some support to local governments,” he said.
“It’s out of control.”
Supervisor Chuck Holmes, the other republican supervisor, asked why counties couldn’t sue the state government over the violation of the state’s constitution.
Schulz said they probably could but it would be ten years before anything was handed down, again at the county’s expense – money he said we don’t have.
The Iowa State Association of Counties District 5 Supervisor meetings are annual winter meetings of counties within the district to talk about legislative priorities. Elected officials representing the southeast Iowa counties are invited to attend the meeting as well as ISAC officials. Seyb said no state House or Senate representatives from Lee County attended the meeting.
Schulz said he has been asked why Lee County hasn’t closed one of its courthouses, which was part of the new property tax bill called House File 718. He said he replied that the state has the county held hostage on what it has to provide in the courthouse and that would require substantial funding to renovate the South Lee County Courthouse.
“Where’s that money going to come from? We don’t have it. We certainly can’t bond for it and get it passed. You think people in Fort Madison are going to vote for a bond to close the Fort Madison courthouse? I find that highly unlikely,” he said.
Seyb said one of the dumbest things he’s heard was from a politician who said, “We have to pass it to find out what’s in it.”
He said that applies to both sides of the aisle and, if they would just listen to people and local authority, they would have something to tell you.
“What I heard in that district meeting from one of our legislators was ‘Well, it’s been in place for two years now, so we’re starting to see what it did.’ Well we were telling you what it was going to do before it ever happened,” he said.
Schulz said it was also said at the meeting that county employees are paid too much and there should be no pay increases.
“Literally, that was said. At the same time, they’re shoveling out pay increases, trying to pilfer our employees to come work for them, they're telling us that we shouldn’t increase the pay of our people,” he said.
Holmes said State Sen. Adrian Dickey, CEO of Dickey Transport out of Packwood told the group his employees haven’t had a raise in eight years.
“Can you imagine that? He said, ‘You know, public employees should follow our example’,” Holmes said.
In other action, the council appointed Chad Cangas and Jonathan Deen to the Lee County Civil Service Commission. Cangas' appointment was for six years, while Deen's was for two.