T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Marshall County Sheriff Joel Phillips addresses the Board of Supervisors about collective bargaining agreements with the sheriff’s office clerical staff as well as deputies and jailers during Wednesday morning’s regular meeting. Both were approved by unanimous votes.

The Marshall County Board of Supervisors moved through its regular agenda in about 20 minutes on Wednesday morning, but not before approving the annual rates for employee health, dental and vision plans along with three collective bargaining agreements for sheriff’s office clerical staff, deputies and jailers, and Public, Professional and Maintenance Employees (PPME) Local 2003.

Board Chairwoman Carol Hibbs read off the full monthly cost — including the amounts paid by both the employer and the employee — of each plan, starting with health and prescription drug benefits: $1,011.14 per month for a single individual, $1,622.02 for an employee plus one and $2,165.50 for a family. On the dental side, the amounts are $42.30, $84.60 and $96.46, respectively, and for vision, the figures are $8.66, $16.50 and $23.10.

County Auditor/Recorder Nan Benson noted that the provider is changing for the vision plan, which is 100 percent employee paid, and explained a few of the other major changes before the board voted unanimously to approve the rates.

“As you can see when you look at those total costs (for the health plan), it looks like a big dollar amount, but when you go out and look at what it is (in) other places in the world, they’re still pretty good numbers,” she said.

The board then moved on to the collective bargaining agreements, the first of which was a three-year contract with the sheriff’s office clerical employees. Benson said most of the changes amounted to “tidying up the document” before Sheriff Joel Phillips came forward to provide further explanation. By the beginning of the third year of the contract, the starting rate will be $21.32 per hour and will increase to $21.89 in year three, $22.98 in year six, $25 in year nine and $26.31 in year 12. A motion to approve it passed unanimously.

The agreement with the deputies and jailers is a five-year deal with wages locked in for three years and negotiated after that. By the beginning of the third year of the contract, the hourly wages will be set as follows: $32.45 for step one, $33.76 for step two, $35.11 for step three, $36.51 for step four, $39.67 for step five and $42.30 for step six.

Phillips felt it would help to bring Marshall County “up to the standards of public safety” as he is currently hiring due to the recent retirements of a pair of full-time deputies.

“We did have five certified (officers) apply, so we’re going through that process. So it kind of speaks for itself that we’re getting up to those standards and comparables with area local law enforcement agencies,” he said. “I think this bargaining was really good for some of the employees to understand what benefits they were actually receiving compared to other agencies, and I think that was kind of eye opening. So being transparent among the parties involved, I think, was really good.”

Benson called it “a clean document,” and Phillips added that he felt it had been very well-received by the deputies and jailers themselves. The contract was approved unanimously.

County Engineer Paul Geilenfeldt came forward to discuss the contract with the secondary roads employees and said it also involved “cleanup” to make sure the agreement matched the personnel policy. One big change he highlighted is that secondary roads workers will now get their vacation on a monthly basis like all other county employees.

“That’s a big change, and it’s just gonna make things a little cleaner in our department as far as payroll,” Geilenfeldt said. “It also helps new hires, because it used to be (that) a new hire didn’t get any vacation for quite a period of time… This way, when someone’s a new hire, they’re actually earning vacation and they can use a little bit of it as they go on.”

Benson said the engineer really wanted to change the vacation policy to allow new employees to start accruing it even though they can’t take it until they are out of their probationary period. She called it “a good negotiation,” and Geilenfeldt felt the parties involved worked well together to come to an agreeable solution. By the third year of the three-year contract, all full-time secondary roads employees will be paid a wage of over $30 an hour.

In other business, the board:

Approved a State of Iowa tobacco license renewal for the Prime Stop in Melbourne.

Approved a proposal from Dan Corbin Inc. to readjust the Marshall County Geodetic Control Network.