The Greene County Board of Supervisors met Monday in regular session.

During reports, County Engineer Wade Weiss talked about a meeting with a representative from the Iowa Department of Transportation. Weiss said the discussion was about a proposal to reduce Highway 4 in Jefferson from four lanes to three lanes, with a center turn lane. He told the Board that because it was a city of Jefferson topic, he didn’t think there was a reason for the county to be involved, and the Board felt the same. Jefferson City Administrator Scott Peterson weighed in and said there will likely be public informational meetings this fall to gauge if there is community support to do the project, but that it will not be forced if there’s not enough community support.

The Board then approved the 2025 fiscal year wage and salary schedule for all county employees, as well as 85 percent of funding appropriation for county departments and officials with their budgets. Additionally, they renewed a two year service agreement with Howard Nyhart Company for actuarial services related to a law required post employment benefit program for a total of $3,600, and a 28E agreement with the Jefferson Police Department and the Greene County Sheriff’s Office to cost share an administrative assistant position.

The Board then transitioned into being the Drainage District Trustees and they approved a public drainage system protection agreement with Alliant Energy as presented, as well as authorization to send drainage tile repair request to Union Pacific Railroad as presented. County Attorney Thomas Laehn said the result of which could be to take the UP to court to mandate UP to fix a drainage tile issue that is on their property, if they fail to do so, after the County has followed steps to notify them of the problem.

Finally, the Board discussed the HVAC project for the Greene County Courthouse. It was mentioned that the Board has $1.8 million from the American Rescue Plan Act (APRA) to use for the project until next year, and the project costs $3.2 million. There are $300,000 already reserved for the project. Following the discussion, the Board will act next week on paying for designs of the project to be done by their contracted architect firm and continue to look at putting the adjusted revenue purpose statement back on the ballot for Local Option Sales and Services Tax for public vote by unincorporated voters in November.