The Greene County Compensation Board met Thursday.

The meeting began with electing Tim Heisterkamp as the board chair and Tori Gettler as the board secretary. Each county-elected official has a representative on the compensation board that is an advisory entity to the Greene County Board of Supervisors for salary increases. 

The Compensation Board discussed new legislation that would reduce the amount of property taxes that the county would receive. It was mentioned that the 2023 valuations in the county increased by eight percent. Heisterkamp said the cost of living adjustment for Social Security last year was 3.2 percent. Once each county-elected official had their chance to speak, a motion was made for a four percent across the board increase in salaries, which was approved unanimously.

Heisterkamp talked about one of the main reasons why the Compensation Board felt good about its decision on a four percent increase.

“Because I feel like we have good people in the county and we are pretty close to being at the median salaries relative to the rest of the state of Iowa in those positions. So that part of the discussion went very, very well. We didn’t feel like we had to play catch up with any department.”    

As for the cost of living increase of 3.2 percent, Heisterkamp said they felt they needed to round up to four percent to keep up with the median of the other county salaries. The recommendation by the Compensation Board will now go to the County Board of Supervisors for consideration. See the list of Compensation Board members below.

Supervisors: Steve Fisher and Terry Johnson

Auditor: Lori Mannel

Attorney: Tom Heater

Sheriff: John McCormick

Treasurer Tim Heisterkamp 

Recorder: Adam Pedersen