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Publication Name: GAZETTE

Publication Date: 01/13/2008

Page: 1A

A full-time job, full of meetings

Professional manager not on the horizonBy Adam Belz

The Gazette

CEDAR RAPIDS Many Linn County residents may not have fully understood the significance of voters

decision in November 2006 to go from three to five county supervisors, but the county Compensation

Boards recommendation not to cut supervisor pay made it clear.

Linn County government is now even more fully invested in the idea that elected supervisors should

work full time as both policymakers and administrators, and that they should be paid well nearly

$90,000 a year to do the job.

The county has moved further away from the type of professional management and elected, part-time

oversight that Cedar Rapids voters adopted for their city government in 2005.

To some leaders in the community, the movement is in the wrong direction. Others question the size of

the salary.

But the supervisors say the scope of their job as budget decision-makers, complaint takers, program

administrators, mediators at the intersection of state and local government and myriad other

responsibilities is so broad that adding two new members will make no difference in their workload.

The upshot is that they have a growing, scattered set of responsibilities and, if they so choose, can workconstantly. The new members of the supervisors who take office next January, the incumbents say, face

a steep learning curve and may be unprepared.

The job just has grown, said James Houser, a county supervisor since 1993. There are so many things

going on.

The county Compensation Board a seven-member volunteer panel appointed by county elected

officials to annually set limits on those officials salaries on Tuesday recommended a raise in

supervisor pay by 6 percent to nearly $90,000, in large part on the argument that getting qualified

candidates to run for the office requires a competitive wage.

While some criticize the proposed salary, Lee Clancey, president of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of

Commerce and former mayor of Cedar Rapids, is more concerned about the structure of county

government.

We were offered a new structure, but after that, I dont think people really clearly understood that

they simply wouldnt have a say in either a salary discussion or in whether or not these folks ought to be

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full time, or part time with a full-time administrator, said Clancey, a champion of the citys council-

manager government and one who voted against expanding the Board of Supervisors.

Despite what he says are the heavy demands of the job, Houser thinks its important that residents

know their elected officials are directly involved in the government that affects their lives.

What would this community be like if we didnt have active government leaders? he asked.

Polk County, Iowas most populous county, with the city of Des Moines inside its boundaries, is the only

Iowa county with a full-time manager, and even there, the authority of the position is less than that of

city managers like Cedar Rapids Jim Prosser.

Counties have auditors, recorders, sheriffs, treasurers and county attorneys, and theyre all elected.

They administer their departments and are independent, though boards of supervisors set limits on

their budgets.

According to research by the county auditor, Linn County supervisors spent 74 hours in Board of

Supervisor meetings over the past six months a little under three hours a week.

This is budget time, so supervisors will spend far more time in decision-making meetings over the next

three months, but Supervisor Linda Langston said that regardless of internal meetings, supervisors

spend most of their time outside the office.

They attend meetings of community groups, county departments, regional government organizations

and city councils around the county.

They plan department strategy and try to cooperate with other government entities.

Meanwhile, they have to pay attention to the state Legislature and lobby representatives because

decisions in Des Moines directly influence county programs.

I think the job is pretty much what you want to make it, said Dave Machacek, an Alburnett farmer who

led the campaign for the county to add two supervisors and to elect them by district.

Machacek said the goal of the expansion was to make sure rural residents were represented on the

board.

While he doesnt think people are ready to consider a professional manager until they see how the

expanded board works, he doesnt rule it out.

I think its entirely possible that Linn County will wind up there, he said.

Johnson County Supervisor Pat Harney thinks the need for a county administrator is becoming more and

more apparent at least in his county.

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Theres a lot of duplication sometimes when you have one member working on something and then

someone else gets involved, he said. If you had a manager of some type (who) could coordinate that

and bring it all together, it would certainly help matters an awful lot.

Both Johnson and Linn counties have full-time assistants to the Boards of Supervisors Mike Sullivan in

Johnson County and Michael E. Goldberg in Linn but their authority stops short of what a professionalcounty manager would do.

Langston guesses it will be two or three years before the idea of a professional manager is again

seriously discussed in Linn County. In the meantime, she thinks its worth questioning whether county

government is the best way for people to deal with a fastchanging world.

We have to get government to do things differently than its ever done before, she said. People need

to be more professional, and more strategically minded, and Im not sure weve taken that step.