Town hall picks apart trustee bill

DONNELLSON – A town hall to discuss a bill in front of the Iowa legislature that could change the way Iowa townships operate painted a rare picture of solidarity around the county's 16 townships.
The meeting, called by Lee County Supervisor Garry Seyb, drew about 75 people Tuesday night to the Pilot Grove Community Room including a brief statement from State Sen. Jeff Reichman and then a question-and-answer with mostly elected officials representing the townships and their approximate $860,000 combined budgets.
The meeting was originally called to discuss Senate File 2431,   which originally stripped most of the responsibilities of trustees away dropping them in the laps of the state’s county boards. The meeting was also set to get into Senate Study Bill 3113,  which would have allowed cities with 6,000 residents or less to outsource their policing responsibilities to the county or another city’s police department if one of those options is cheaper than running their own police department, and if such a change is approved by voters.
Reichman said 3113 didn’t make it out of the funnel week and was essentially dead for this session. He said he spoke to Senate leadership today and didn’t know where the trustee bill was at, but said he didn’t expect any further action on it.
“It did get out of committee. I don't see this bill going any further,” Reichman said.
“The intent was to get one less tax structure and get that consolidated into another entity. We've got school systems that are building and buying administration space when we’ve got shrinking school populations and building $5,000,000 music rooms and building schools without bonds.
He also said the county is wasting money on socialized hospice care, hiring police officers in small towns near the sheriff’s office, and paying three superintendents in a county of 33,000 people.
“So I hope the predominance of this meeting is gonna be spent on how can we consolidate services. Who can we join with, who can we partner with cities, towns, townships, the county next to us, the county to the north…anybody,” he said.
“We should be doing everything we can to streamline.”
Seyb told Reichman he agreed with most of what he said, but disagreed on the importance of consolidating township services. Seyb said the township budget of $860,000 produces 64 elected officials, nine fire departments, and keeps numerous cemeteries maintained.
“I don’t agree that we should all be focused on how to cut taxes and how can we reduce the expenditures of property tax,” Seyb said. “(The bill’s) still not dead, but it sounds like it's not going to go anywhere and that's good because there is no way that I can see how the county, if we eliminated townships, could provide for nine fire departments, mow everything, and settle all fence disputes for $860,000.”
One township trustee said the legislator was “stepping over dollars to pick up dimes” indicating that there were bigger savings to be realized than reducing the value of trustees and township operations.
Seyb said one of the scariest parts of the bill is taking fire fighting services essentially away from the trustees many of whom volunteer on the township fire and rescue squads.  The bill was amended as it moved through both funnel weeks and now would require the Boards of Supervisors to appoint three trustees to each township and then have final approval of the township budgets.
Supervisor Denise Fraise said, as a supervisor, she would want to get the townships what they needed and would weigh heavily their recommendations in budgeting. However, Supervisor Ginger Knisley said the board changes regularly and maybe not everyone would have the same thoughts and priorities.
The meeting was another pulled together by supervisors to discuss issues in front of the county. Past meetings have been held to discuss ordinances for future energy projects, to gather public input on county issues.
Seyb said beyond the legislation, he wanted to start conversations around fire services.
“Hey, let’s look at our fire departments. Some of them are getting very old and how are we going to fund them into the future with budget constraints everywhere,” he said after the meeting.
“Even the full time fire departments are struggling with inflationary costs in city budgets. When I saw the legislation originally written, it bothered me immensely. It said, literally, that all duties and responsibilities and levies transfer to the county. That meant that the county just inherited nine fire departments and we’re going to have to fund them.”
He said the county would also be responsible for finding 48 people to appoint as trustees, who would be told that they don’t have final say on their own budget.
Knisley said she was impressed with how vested the people were in the discussion.
“They obviously are totally involved in their local communities. I’m just so impressed. I don’t know they’ve ever been all together like this before, and it was very impressive,” she said.
“We need to be having these conversations. This is all sectors and a common theme. It’s not just rural health, fire, early childhood, they want it all consolidated.”