Rain or freezing rain becoming likely during the afternoon. High 33F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precip 60%..
Light rain and freezing rain in the evening…then cloudy late. Low 31F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of precip 50%.
Updated: February 5, 2025 @ 1:22 am
It was a brief and somber meeting but the Lee County Board of Supervisors tended to several orders of business during their meeting on Monday.
The meeting started off with a moment of silence in tribute to District 100 State Representative Martin Graber (R-Fort Madison), who died Friday morning of a heart attack at the age of 72. Graber has served the district since 2020.
“I would like to have a moment of silence for a lost colleague, a good friend of Lee County, and a lifelong servant of this area,” said Board Chairman Tom Schulz. “Our friend and former colleague Martin Graber is in the hands of God now. And I am quite certain they’re both smiling.”
“May he rest in peace,” added supervisor Charles Holmes.
Board members Garry Seyb and Denise Fraise were not present at the meeting.
The board voted unanimously to approve a motion not requiring county department heads to seek approval for replacement hirings if those departments already have budgets approved for the salaries of open positions looking to be filled.
“In the past we have asked department heads to come to us for approval (for) replacement hirings, and at times we have said that they do not have to,” Schulz said. “(We’ve always taken into account) whether the position was necessary, whether the position was already budgeted, and whether this was a replacement.”
Holmes expressed concern that future budget cuts could potentially lead to a county employee being fired and the county being responsible for their unemployment benefits.
“Even if we approved the position based on the fact that it was in their budget, we’d be in the same boat because we wouldn’t know that before we were there,” Schulz countered. “And at any point, we can do what we’re doing right now and amend this policy to have (department heads) come before us (to approve hirings).
“If we really can’t afford (a replacement hire), we’ve got a department head that has already determined whether or not they could. If we’re of so steadfast in our belief that we can’t, (that would be) the time we could express our opinion…The other part of this: we’ve never said ‘No.’”
Schulz also noted that the county’s various departments have already helped the county cut over half a million dollars out of this year’s budget.
The board then approved a motion for the county to form a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) committee.
HIPAA is a federal privacy law that protects health patients’ health information that was signed into law by former President Bill Clinton in 1996.
Lee County has not had a HIPAA committee for several years now, and this committee will be tasked with managing all of the county’s departments so they are following the law and maintaining consistency among practices, and will be made up of several current county department employees.
Supervisor Ginger Knisley noted that the committee wouldn’t actually be undertaking new work so much as formalizing a process.
“We need to be cognizant of the fact that (healthcare issues and practices) is something that’s very litigated, and we need to protect out county and our county taxpayers, and I think this is a very positive step forward,” Schulz said. “We should be leading these things, not following.”
And the board voted to not require county employees to pay an increase in their contributions to their health insurance plans.
“Since we are looking at giving employees a raise of 0.75%, now is no time to be asking them to increase their contribution in insurance,” Holmes said.
It was previously proposed that employees pay an extra $5 a month for insurance.
But Holmes said the county has come up with a work-around solution, which will be a accomplished by lowering the partial self-paid fund by that same amount.
“It comes to about $12,000,” Holmes said. “We’ll be paying that much more for the administrative (part)of the insurance policy itself, that we can reduce the amount being paid into the self-paid fund by $12,000 because we have a pretty good fund built up right now. So it would actually be a wash.”
Holmes added that Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield policies provided to county employees were going to go up by around 13 cents per month, but said the change was minor.
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Rain or freezing rain becoming likely during the afternoon. High 33F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precip 60%.
Light rain and freezing rain in the evening…then cloudy late. Low 31F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of precip 50%.
Sunshine along with some cloudy intervals. High 43F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.
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