Mahaska County Supervisors Start Off Year With Organizational Meeting
Mahaska County Board of Supervisors – 2014
Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Mahaska County Board of Supervisors met at 9 am on January 2nd, 2014.
The supervisors appointed Mike Vander Molen as Chairman of the Board, with Mark Doland being named Vice-Chair.
Meeting dates are to remain the same for the coming year. The first and third Mondays at 9am will once again be the official meeting times for the board.
Document signing authority repeated the language of years past, in case of the absence of the Chairman, any Supervisor could sign a document for the board.
The Supervisors then divided up the responsibility of participating on the various boards and committees they serve on.
The board set the holidays for 2014, official newspapers and official custodians, appointee to trust pool, safety coordinator, among others during the organizational meeting.
The supervisors signed off on the Equal Opportunity Policy Statement for 2014.
Official depositories for the county were named. The Sheriff, Recorder and Auditor utilize Midwest One.
The records retention policy was approved the same as in past years.
The Supervisors approved the county engineer to execute Farm to Market construction projects and to also execute governmental construction projects.
The Supervisors approved payment of bills for December 2013, as well as the minutes for the December 16, 2013 meeting.
The Supervisors approved compensation changes for an open custodian position.
Appointments to various commissions and boards started with appointees to the Compensation Commission. Barry Versteegh was re-appointed to the Mahaska County Conservation Board, and Jeanie Bieri was also re-appointed to the Stephen Memorial Animal Shelter Board.
In other appointments, The Pioneer Cemetery Commission appointees are, Ed Elder, Pam Kingery and LeRoy Nugteren.
A resolution passed that changed the Sheriff’s transportation/mileage rate to 56 cents-per-mile. This puts the current rate on equal terms with federal rates.
The Compensation Board sent its recommendation of a 3 percent increase in pay for elected officials. The Supervisors then settled upon a 2 percent increase for each of the elected officials.
The RUSS arbitration award was tabled until the Mahaska County Attorney Charles Stream was able to attend the meeting to help clarify the terms.
Mahaska County Engineer Jerry Nusbaum approached the board at the end of the meeting, questioning the boards recent move to begin the process of hiring a new county engineer.
Nusbaum, who is in the final year of his contract with the county, then asked to be placed on the next meeting’s agenda in order to discuss extending his contract with the county.
During his most recent contract negotiations, Nusbaum had been diagnosed with cancer, but now states he has been told he is cancer free.
Nusbaum has been an integral part of the Highway 63 project as well as the regional airport, something he eluded to during his last negotiations when he said, “We have a number of projects ongoing. We have some things coming up that I think I need that year to carry through on the projects that we have.”
The Board will take up the discussion at their next scheduled meeting on January 20, 2014.
