County to consider hiring freeze

LEE COUNTY -  With budget woes weighing heavily on the minds of county officials, supervisors will consider a seven-month hiring freeze at Monday’s regular meeting.

Supervisors will consider a resolution freezing any hiring by county department heads from March 1 through Sept. 30, 2023 as a way to help control additional county expenditures.

The resolution does not include appointments to commissions or compensation boards and does allow for exceptions to replace employees and even possibly hire employees, but no position can be advertised without first coming to the Board of Supervisors for approval.

Supervisor Matt Pflug even suggested at a workshop following the last regular meeting on Monday that the county might consider a wage freeze in addition to the hiring freeze.

Initial budget discussions had included a 7% wage increase for county employees, but that figure has since been reduced to a projected 3.5% in anticipation of supervisors reducing those budget recommendations.

“This is a mess,” Pflug said on Monday of the county’s financial situation.

Officials are now looking at possibly using America Rescue Plan Act funding to help meet payroll and other obligations until spring property tax payments start coming into county coffers.

The county currently has about $3.85 million in ARPA funds in an interest bearing account. However, they currently are also sitting on a resolution that obligates the county to $5.4 million for the proposed new Lee County Health Department/EMS bay.

Preliminary estimates for that project came in initially at $5.5 million in 2021, but the current construction landscape coupled with facility needs for the health department and the attached EMS ambulance facility came in closer to $7 million in January.

The county has secured $970,000 in USDA funding for the building and is working with Southeast Iowa Regional Planning Commission on a $600,000 Community Development Block Grant.

In a related agenda item, the county is also considering a letter of engagement with Dorsey and Whitney Law firm for services to establish an urban renewal zone on 7.7 acres of property donated to the county by the Glen Meller family in 2022.

That designation will allow the county to bond for any remaining funds necessary to construct the health department without going to voters on a bond issue. Voters can petition to have a special election on the measure, but that would require a signatory petition.

The county is also considering a hold harmless with Alex Meierotto to dismantle and remove the current Keokuk EMS bay to make room for a new county EMS facility on that property which has already been purchased by the county.

In an unrelated issue, supervisors will also consider five agreements with Teva, Allergan, CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart as part of national opioid settlement agreements. The county currently has about $240,000 in settlement funds they are working on distributing per settlement guidelines.