PHOTO VIA THE TIMES-CITIZEN Central Iowa Juvenile Detention Center Executive Director Tony Reed was terminated from his position on Friday, Sept. 26.

ELDORA — After a closed session meeting on Friday, Sept. 26, Tony Reed of Marshalltown, the Executive Director of Central Iowa Juvenile Detention Center in Eldora, was terminated immediately, and the commission directed legal counsel to draft a termination letter.

However, the vote to go into closed session was not unanimous, as Palo Alto commission member Keith Wirtz voted no. Following the closed session, Wirtz “motioned to postpone until everybody on this board was able to visit with the interviewer and listen to the tapes,” according to minutes from Friday’s meeting. His motion failed for the lack of a second. Wirtz also was the lone no vote for Reed’s termination. Seventeen commission members were present during the closed session.

Fiscal Director Kassie Ruth will fill in as interim Executive Director, and the executive committee is authorized to work with her through the transition and to ensure no lapse in service and operational efficiency, according to the minutes.

During the commission’s June meeting, Reed’s performance was discussed and Reed opted to not go into closed session for the discussion. When he was told that members could request that he leave for parts the discussion, Reed said that he would prefer that it be conducted in open session.

Some of the items of concern included how Reed banked PTO (paid time off) and comp time. CIJDC employees have been able to choose to add comp time to banked PTO which results in IPERS contributions not being deducted on that pay.

During the June meeting, executive board member Lance Granzow of Hardin County said that he believed that it was an illegal act and asked if Reed had reached out to Ahlers and Cooney, the center’s human resource attorneys, to find out.

“No, but I think we can reach out to IPERS, and just ask them,” Reed replied. Granzow then expressed frustration that Reed had not looked into whether combining the two was legal and asked, “Since I said (I believed) it was illegal, why would we not find out?”

Reed replied that “We had looked into it, but we didn’t think it was.”

However, during the August meeting Reed told commission members that a draft policy had been developed that would allow employees the ability to bank up to 240 hours in comp time.

Following Reed’s explanation, Commission Chair Kyle Stecker of Kossuth County asked Reed if the policy had been approved by the center’s HR legal counsel Ahlers and Cooney.

Stecker said that in the substantial emails that he had seen going back and forth that he had not seen anything indicating that the lawyers had signed off on it. “I think it would be dangerous to approve a policy that our attorneys have not given their blessing to,” Stecker said.

The commission took no action on policy changes at that time.

Granzow then addressed problems he saw in how Reed answered questions regarding getting a legal opinion as to who the commission’s voting members were.

Questions about correct submission of an updated 28E agreement that formed the detention center and detailed how it is governed have resulted in pending litigation. Hardin County is currently involved in a lawsuit questioning whether the agreement listing the counties currently represented on the commission was validly submitted.

Reed posted the following statement on Facebook after his termination.

“After 32 years, 29 as Executive Director, I am no longer with Central Iowa Juvenile Detention Center. Started on day 1 of the organization’s existence, I still remember that day.”

Reed then thanked the customers, board, family and teammates, later clarifying that he did not retire, but was eligible to do so in nine months.

Reed has been the Executive Director of the Central Iowa Juvenile Detention Center CIJDC since 1997 and started there when the building first opened in 1994, and he is also the owner of All-American Property Management in Marshalltown. In 2020, he unsuccessfully ran for a seat in Iowa House District 71 as a Republican against Democrat Sue Cahill, also of Marshalltown.

CIJDC houses both girls and boys between the ages of 12 and 18, after which they are transitioned into one of the state’s general prisons. Of the 45 current juveniles within their walls, most are in for the more extreme, higher-level incidents, things like felonies, serious assaults, kidnapping, murder, and attempted murder.