The five-member Linn County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously today to reduce their salaries to $70,098 per year. The decision came amid mounting public outcry and a state legislative proposal that would allow citizens to recall county officials.

The salaries earned by Linn County supervisors have become a political hot potato recently.  In 2006, voters decided to increase the number of supervisors from three to five, which meant the county had to pay two more full-time salaries. At the time of the vote, Linn County Supervisors earned just over $87,000 per year. In March 2008, supervisors voted to make themselves part-time employees and slash their own pay, but shortly after the November election, just days before the pay cut would finally take effect, they decided to rescind it.

With so many in Linn County still reeling from the June floods, the public outrage toward the supervisors’ decision was palpable. Many described the earlier pay reduction as an election ploy.

It was that outrage that prompted Rep. Kraig Paulsen, the Iowa House minority leader and a resident of Linn County, to file proposed legislation that would allow voters to recall local elected officials. The measure was co-sponsored by Rep. Renee Schulte and Rep. Nick Wagner, two newly-elected Republicans who also represent parts of Linn County, but at this point its passage seems unlikely.

Today, while voting to re-lower their own pay and classify themselves on paper as part-time employees, the supervisors also voted to freeze the salaries of all other county elected officials.

This contradicts recommendations made by the county’s compensation board late last year that county officials receive pay increases. In their proposal, the recorder, treasurer, auditor and sheriff were allotted a 3.5 percent increase, and the county attorney was allotted a 5 percent increase.

A series of public hearings have been slated for next month for discussion on the pay freeze.  The final decision regarding salaries in Linn County will come in March, when the supervisors finalize the county’s annual budget.

Because Iowa law requires all county salaries to be tied to one another — that one office can’t have a reduction of salary without the same reduction being applied across the board — State Rep. Wagner plans to file additional legislation that would separate supervisor salaries from the salaries paid to other county officials.  That proposal has already garnered bipartisan support from Linn County legislators.