County Attorney’s Office To Make Part-Time Position Full-Time

Mahaska County Attorney Jim Blomgren discusses the current situation in his office with the Mahaska County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Mahaska County Board of Supervisors met on Wednesday to discuss staffing at the Mahaska County Attorney’s Office.

A part-time employee for the office quit unexpectedly, leaving a need to fill the position.

Mahaska County Attorney Jim Blomgren spoke with the supervisors and made the case as to why that part-time position needs to be replaced with a full-time employee.

That position helped to build trial information and witness lists for the county. Part of those responsibilities was to make sure the speedy trial requirements were met. If there were a failure there, the case would have to be dismissed.

Blomgren brought information to the supervisors that demonstrated Mahaska County’s current caseload in comparison to nearby counties.

Blomgren said that his office has worked with over 1000 criminal cases this year as of the middle of October, which is two-and-a-half times more than it was just three years ago.

“It appears to me that the initiation of those cases is not going to slow down,” said Blomgren.

“They are very active,” said Blomgren of the law enforcement in Mahaska County.

“Our open cases through the middle of October are 1047. In 2014, for the total year, 471.

Blomgren used Marion County as a comparison for statistics to help draw parallels between his office and that one.

Blomgren said that Marion County has ten full-time staff people, which includes five lawyers and five non-lawyers.

Blomgren estimates that Marion County’s budget is near $700,000 a year, “that’s not even near where ours is.”

Blomgren said that from the most recent statistics, Marion County has less indictable offenses than Mahaska County. According to those figures from three years ago, Mahaska had 613 indictable offenses versus 605 for Marion County.

“We have roughly the same load with a third of the budget and forty percent of the staff,” added Blomgren.

Bomgren is unsure if Marion County’s caseload has grown, like Mahasaka’s has, since the stats available from three years ago.

Marion County has 33,000 people, while Mahaska County has 22,000 residents.

The cost to the county to add the full-time position may be an additional $15,000 in payroll and $10,000 for benefits.

The supervisors approved the change for the position from part-time to full-time.

The supervisors also released MidAmerican Energy from the roads agreement that was in place during the construction of the wind turbine farm.

“They’ve [MidAmerican] been very good to work with,” said Mahaska County Engineer Dave Shanahan.

MidAmerican reports that everything with the 84 turbines is on schedule, and they will be coming online in the following weeks.