A 100-page memo hit the Tama County Supervisors’ meeting like a brick. It is an explanation of the recent problems the board has had with the union representing the county’s secondary roads employees. A tale of two contracts, the county states that only one is official, as the other has changes that were made without the previous board’s approval — four changes between the contracts, the majority of which were made in the last few months of the previous board’s tenure, and one item the current board won’t budge on.

Compiled by Human Resources specialist Paul Greufe, the memo starts by explaining the “background,” or the timeline of events. The county started negotiations with the Roads Union in February of this year to make changes that would go into effect in July of this year. After the February contract negotiations, Greufe requested a signed signature sheet from the union and did not receive one for months.

On July 8, the union representative, Greg Cross, supplied a signature sheet that had a different contract duration on it. The contract the county had, which was filed with the Iowa Employment Appeal Board (EAB, formerly PERB), stated that it was effective from 2024 to 2027. The page Mr. Cross had said the contract was effective from 2024 to 2032.

Suspecting this wasn’t the only change made to the contract between July 1, 2024 and the end of 2025, Greufe requested a copy of the contract the union had. Greufe explained the difficulties in that procedure.

“And so I reach out to the union rep and say, ‘Would you please share with me the contract that you believe is in effect?’ And I think I must have asked him for a copy of the union contract maybe six different times, and he would never give me the one that he believes is in place,” he said.

Greufe explains that it was essentially the EAB that had Cross, the union rep, hock over the 2032 contract after the signature page for the contract had been uploaded to their website.

The memo expounds on four changes that were made to the contract that were never voted on by the supervisors, who at the time were Bill Faircloth, Dan Anderson and Curt Hilmer. One change is the duration of the contract in question. The official contract is set to go from 2024 to 2027.

The memo states, “The Union claims the contract duration is valid from 2024-2032, but this adjustment was never voted on by the Tama County Board of Supervisors.”

This also goes against the Iowa Code, as Chapter 20.9(4) states that the contract shouldn’t exceed five years. Wages were different in the union contract, as the memo states, “Employees were given a 1.5% wage increase on July 1, 2025 and a 1.5% wage increase on January 12, 2026.”

Another change is vacation. The original agreement was that one year of service receives five paid days of vacation, two years receives 10 days, eight years receives 15 days, and 15 years receives 20 days. The unapproved changes state that employees, after 60 days of service, receive five days of paid vacation, one year receives 10 days, two years receives 15 days, eight years receives 20 days, and 15 years receives 25 days of paid vacation.

One of the many questionable things about this is the document on which the agreement for this vacation change was made. The document is dated 2024, lists the 2024 supervisors, is signed by the 2024 supervisors and union rep, yet lists a phone and fax number with a 515 area code. Tama County changed to a 641 area code in 2000.

A similar document dated 12/9/2024, listing the 2024 supervisors and the pre-2000 area code, makes changes to the grievance procedures. This document is not signed by the supervisors listed, but by members of the union, and is dated January 2025, after the current supervisors took office.

The change to the grievance procedures is the use of an arbitrator. The official contract states that all grievances will be handled in-house with the board of supervisors. The 2032 contract says that an impartial arbitrator sourced from the Public Employment Relations Board will be used, and the expense for which will be split between the county and the union. Greufe estimated that this may cost approximately $10,000 per arbitration.

After learning of all the changes and wishing to resolve the matter easily without affecting employees, the supervisors sent Greufe to negotiate with the union. They offered to keep the wages and vacation as it stated in the 2032 contract, but to go with the 2024 to 2027 contract duration and to stick with the official grievance procedure that does not include outside arbitration. The union declined.

Greufe states in the memo, “Even after discussing with the union representative that if this goes to court and Tama County files a petition for declaratory judgement, we are likely to have all of the improper changes rescinded, (vacation, wage, grievance, and duration), the Union said they would rather go to court and lose than accept the compromise.”

On the 22nd, Greufe went to meet with the union employees to share all the facts and to make them completely aware of the situation. As of Monday’s supervisors’ meeting, there had been no word from the union. It was decided that if they do not hear back by next Monday’s meeting, the supervisors will approve Greufe to go ahead and seek a declaratory judgment.

Hilmer, who was a supervisor when these changes were not approved, ruminated about the issue and how it came to be after Greufe’s talk. Hilmer spoke about his ignorance and how he’d trusted his fellow two supervisors.

“I came in (to) a new job, and I just went along with how things were done, and that’s how were done. Things came up. HR proposed a lot of things, and the other two guys were up for it, so, a lot of times I went with it. A lot of times I didn’t, but as far as raises and stuff,” he said.

Supervisor Mark Doland stated that the grievance procedure is the main point on which they aren’t willing to budge. He went on to talk about the suspicious document that the new grievance procedure is on.

“I think that if I was somebody who put that document out, I would be embarrassed of the work they put in,” he said.

Supervisor David Turner reiterated Doland’s statements on the document, stating he’d be “ashamed” if he was the one behind it, due to its poor quality.

“And you guys all know what I used to do in the military, and I’m a better forger. So, that’s my point,” Turner said.

When Current Board of Supervisors Chair Heather Knebel was asked who was to blame for the current issues, whether it was the previous supervisors, the previous HR director, the secondary roads union, or a combination of them, and if she thought this was done maliciously or ignorantly, she had no comment.

Bill Faircloth, previous Tama County Supervisor and Chairman, could not be reached for comment.

Greg Cross, the union representative, made these comments on the topic.

“I think it is unconscionable that the current Board of Supervisors would even consider harming the road crew employees ( who go out in the most adverse weather, often missing Christmas with their families, so others can spend the holidays safely with their families) because of alleged incorrect actions of the previous Board. I find this more to be an attempt to void a contract that was negotiated in good faith by the previous Board, than an attempt to correct any actions from the previous Board. I state this because the current Board I believe has violated Iowa Code just as they alleged the previous Board did by not voting on the Tentative Agreement that was reached in February 2026 between Local 886 and the Board. The Union ratified the Tentative Agreement, notified Paul we did so, but to my knowledge the Current Board did not vote to accept or reject the Tentative agreement or notify the Union of their decision. Additionally, the current Board never provided a copy of the agreements that were reached in the 2024 and 2026 negotiations to the Employment Appeal Board, as required by Iowa Code. The Union ended up having to do so. For the current HR director to state he did not know the 2024-2032 agreement existed until 2026 is not plausible,” Cross wrote. “Paul was the Human Resource Director in July of 2025 when the first pay raise of the Contract that was negotiated in December of 2024 was implemented. If he did not know of the agreement or have a copy, how would he have known the amount of the raise he authorized? On January 11, 2026, the second raise of that negotiation was implemented, again, if they didn’t have a copy of the agreement, how did they know they were to implement that raise? Additionally, Curt Hilmer attended the entire 2024 negotiations with the other two Board Members. I watched as all three Board Members approved to include the Vacation that had been previously approved by the board into the contract. I watched them agree to extend the Contract until 2032, I watched them agree to put Binding Arbitration back into the grievance procedure and I watched them agree on the wage increase. Mr. Hilmer is also on the current Board of Supervisors, so I can’t imagine the 2024-2032 contract never came up for discussion from December of 2024 to 2026, as Paul claims. The Union and its members did everything correctly. We presented our written Initial Proposals for negotiations to the Employer first, in an open meeting. We had extra copies for anyone who would have requested one. We negotiated in good faith to reach a Tentative Agreement. We timely presented the agreement to our membership and by secret ballot, approved the Tentative Agreement, then we timely notified the County the membership approved the tentative agreement. The workers did everything correctly and yet the Board of Supervisors is trying to take away Binding Arbitration from the negotiated agreement. The County has claimed Arbitration could cost thousands, so in good faith the Union proposed to limit what grievances could be taken to arbitration to only two issues, Employment Terminations and Group Grievances, yet the County declined our offer. I emailed the Human Resource Director the Union is willing to discuss further ways to limit the cost of arbitration for the County, but the Human Resource Director emailed back stating he and the County are only interested in a grievance procedure that has the Board as the last step. So cost is not the real issue as stated in the Board Meeting.”

The memo can be found on the county website in the agenda packet for this week’s meeting. If the union does not concede the grievance procedures, the supervisors stated that a declaratory judgment will be on next week’s agenda.