Tama County Administration Building, 104 W State St., Toledo, Iowa. NEWS CHRONICLE FILE PHOTO

The birds were chirping in the trees, greeting another delightful, sunshine-filled morning, which held the last Tama County Supervisors meeting of the month. With Supervisor Curt Kupka absent, the roads report was briefly entertained with a supervisor mentioning that they believed roads were being rocked.

As it is the season of budget talks, this was the main topic on the docket. After looking at competing counties, statewide averages, population, land value, and other key factors, they approved a resolution for elected officials’ salary adjustments for the 2027 fiscal year. The County Attorney received an increase of 14.794% to $136,596. The County Auditor received an 8.26% increase to $85,010. The County Recorder received a 3 % increase to $80,660. The County Sheriff received a 4.249% increase to $125,306. The County Supervisors received a 3.873% increase to $40,224. The County Treasurer received a 3.0% increase to $80,771.

Chairman Mark Doland explained these increases.

“The back the blue bill that was put into law requires us to keep the, according to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, to keep the sheriff at the statewide average, which is what we’re suggesting. And then all of the others of these piggyback off of that. Our county attorney was actually making less than the county sheriff, which is not true of any of the other counties in the state, and so we had to catch him up,” he said. “And so overall, the auditor’s office was also behind and has taken on a considerable amount since we’ve deleted a couple of departments, and saved nearly hundreds of thousands of dollars in our budget, and we’re reflecting that in the pay increases. The only other note that I would make is that the, us as supervisors, didn’t take a raise last year. We’re five new board members, and seeing how that would go and we are still kind of not taking a raise. We have budgeted $2,000 each for expenses, and none of us ever claimed any expenses, so we’re moving that expense line into the salary adjustment. It’s a net neutral, so even though it shows as a pay raise, it’s not costing the taxpayer any more money.”

The supervisors approved the County Auditor as the Budget Director.

Tama County Attorney Brent Heeren.

The supervisors approved a 3% pay increase for non-elected, non-union employees for the fiscal year 2027.

The supervisors approved 1.5% pay increase for secondary roads, 3% pay increase for 911 dispatch, 3% pay increase for jailers, and 6% for the union employees.

The supervisors then approved a public hearing for the proposed 2027 budget for April 20 at 8:45 am.

The supervisors also approved utility permits for Windstream Iowa Communications and Olsson on behalf of MidAmerican Energy.

Rumble panels for T47 were approved as well.

Claims totaling $142,949.15 were approved.