The Dallas County Board of Supervisors met in regular session Tuesday morning.
During open forum, Larry Lyons spoke on behalf of the compensation board, recommending a wage increase of 9.5 percent for the County Attorney and Sheriff, 8.5 percent for the Auditor, Recorder and Treasurer and 5 percent increase for the Board of Supervisors. Lyons says they feel implementation of these increases is necessary in order to keep the quality officials they currently have in place, as they are under-compensated in comparison to their peers.
The Board then tabled the acceptance of an F31 traffic safety improvement grant until the next meeting on February 3rd. Payroll changes notices were then approved for the Sheriff’s office, EMS department and death investigator.
Three vehicle purchase requests were then approved for the Sheriff’s office. Two 2012 Dodge Chargers will be replaced with 2014 Chargers and a 2009 Jeep Grand Cherokee will be replaced with an unmarked 2015 Dodge Durango to be used for investigations. All three replacements are part of the normal vehicle purchase schedule.
The annual maintenance and checkup agreement with Cummins Central Power was then approved for the emergency generator at the jail.
A 28E agreement with the City of Adel was then approved. This is for the “selection, acquisition and prep of a site and education of the public on the needs and desirability of building a county administrative building for Dallas County near the downtown district of the City of Adel”. The agreement is valid through December 1st of 2018. The plan is to have Supervisor Kim Chapman continue to serve as the County representative and Chair of the Adel – Dallas County Public Corporation, as opposed to current Board of Supervisors Chairman Brad Golightly taking over that position. Chapman says the Corporation plans to start meeting again soon.
The Board then discussed the Human Resources compensation study. Director Erin Freeman said they had an outside firm come in and evaluate job descriptions and responsibilities of positions in each department and give each position a grade which will then be reflected in the compensation recommendation. Supervisor Mark Hanson said if they implement these adjustments, it will be when they’re able, and it’s possible they won’t be able to do an across the board adjustment all at one time depending on the budget. The Cost of Living Adjustment is recommended at a 1.7 percent increase, for those currently making the exact minimum or maximum of money on their position’s scale. County Engineer Jim George thanked the Board for their willingness to do a study and consider the recommendations as he feels it was long overdue. Recorder Chad Airhart expressed concern in continuity across departments so that clerks in the different offices are not alarmed when they notice during annual publication that they are making less money than someone with the same type of job in another office, despite possibly having more experience. Assessor Steve Helm said he feels the compensation study does a lot of good things as he’s seen employees who were trained in Dallas County, leave for higher paying jobs in other counties or cities. Overall he said some people will be happy with the changes that this compensation study brings, while others may feel like they have not been brought up to where they feel they should be. The overall price tag for the full, recommended adjustment is around $313,000. No formal action was taken on the issue.