Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Tuesday, August 4, 2026Official site

The Warren County Board of Supervisors approved a consent agenda, a preliminary plat for Rosewood Estates, and resolutions for medical examiners and a Veterans Service Officer position. A significant discussion occurred regarding a Memorandum of Understanding for E911 duties, addressing concerns about supplemental pay and long-term funding.

About this meeting

Government Body
Board of Supervisors
Meeting Type
Board Of Supervisors
Location
Warren County, IA
Meeting Date
August 4, 2026

Published excerpts

Only published remarks appear here. The full transcript is not published.

24 sections (from 28 segments)

13:57 – 14:20•Travis DeWitt

Well, the driveways, we've had some issues with driveways lately. Have you met with the county engineer and gotten these driveways set in stone? I mean, are they... Does he see any issues with them? The one that is a little bit farther to the south looks like maybe it would have some issues with the corner.

14:31 – 14:43•Travis DeWitt

Okay, and then as far as zoning goes, zoning has zero issues. Everything's been looked at really well by zoning. No issues? Correct.

19:21•Travis DeWitt

I'll make a motion to approve the backfill of part-time position in the Certified Veterans Service Officer.

21:17 – 21:57•Travis DeWitt

I'll have to say this is a project that I see moving the city of Norwalk forward but I don't know until this project came up that I've ever received emails not to help improve infrastructure. Likewise, I agree. I know there's a Hot Topic project possibly coming to Norwalk, but to not improve our infrastructure, with the help of the government, the state of Iowa, the feds.

22:01 – 22:17•Travis DeWitt

It just doesn't make sense to me not to support this. So I'll make a motion to approve endorsing the city of Norwalk's grant application for funding through the Iowa Department of Transportation's Revitalize Iowa's Sound Economy program. Second.

24:50•Travis DeWitt

So we'll have to revisit this every year is what...

25:21 – 25:55•Travis DeWitt

we're giving some pretty substantial raises, supplemental raises to the departments and the employees that are performing these duties. I think the pro rate of reduction, if next year, I guess I giving somebody that amount of money and they get accustomed to it and But in the next year, it's pulled out from underneath of them.

33:15 – 33:41•Travis DeWitt

Looks like dispatch would be administering and maintaining E911 call handling systems used to receive and process 911 calls, including hardware, software, and network components essential to operations. Managing CAD-related E911 functions, including system configuration, interface with GIS data and address points, user management, and continuity procedures directly tied to dispatching from 911 calls.

35:13 – 35:57•Travis DeWitt

assigning these duties to other people or other departments to make sure the job is getting done for the money that we receive to complete these jobs. Say in five years, the E911 money is almost completely gone. Are these employees going to be asked to continue to maintain these tasks, and then we are going to have to help as the county, we're going to have to give these raises back to those people through county money. Does that make sense?

36:56 – 37:09•Travis DeWitt

But in five years when that money's all gone, and somebody says, well, I used to be paid $15,000 a year for this. And they're still doing the same job, but now they're getting... $1.50 extra an hour.

38:52 – 39:45•Travis DeWitt

i could show you an employee who got a twenty thousand dollar raise and they're no longer doing that job but they're still receiving the twenty thousand dollars i guess it's my opinion that this is a better alternative than hiring somebody to do one specific duty with the wages that they would be paid plus insurance and benefits and all that stuff yes i guess My opinion is I'm going to look at this as a stopgap for this year, and we have some serious discussions about it during budget season, and we can figure out maybe a better path forward. I just think we're opening the door to expectations

40:36 – 41:08•Travis DeWitt

And I'm with Tim. I want our employees that are doing extra work to be compensated for that. I don't, if somebody goes on, leave or whatnot fmla whatever it is and somebody takes over their duties yes they should be compensated for the duties the extra duties they're taking on so i understand all of this i've just like i said i think we're opening the door to expectations that probably won't be able to be met in the future so i'm going to look at it as a stop gap for this year and we revisit it and move on move forward

41:40 – 42:00•Travis DeWitt

I mean, it's possible. Well, it's in the MOU to document and not to call anybody out. But Heather, can you kind of speak to the documentation and whatnot? Are you going to have to keep track of all the hours that you spend on this? I don't really know.

42:13 – 42:35•Travis DeWitt

So there's a clawback clause in the MOU that if records don't match up to time spent. Yeah. So I would think some documentation is going to have to be pretty detailed to make sure that these hours are covered.

50:50 – 51:45•Travis DeWitt

Stephanie, looking at the reimbursement procedures and controls, the salary documentation, each employee will keep track of the time spent on database management and work directly associated with E911 and work directly associated with E911 addressing timesheets, must document each employee's time on the assigned additional duties. So is this a, when we say, this mou that they're going to get x amount of dollars added to their salary to cover these additional duties is this an hourly wage or is this something that these time sheets will solely reflect so we can't necessarily say that they're go

52:35•Travis DeWitt

And I appreciate you for bringing all this together because I know how hard EMA is to get together.

52:43 – 53:08•Travis DeWitt

I just want to make sure that we are doing... best that we can do and like i said if this is our stop gap for the first year i can accept that and we go through the year and make sure and see how things are working i don't think it's a long-term deal though i think there's also a 30-day termination clause in it too so i mean that that

55:37•Travis DeWitt

Without the time sheets and stuff. Without the record keeping.

56:40 – 57:00•Travis DeWitt

I just want to make sure we're not treading on thin ice with doing the back pay and not having any kind of record keeping on it. If the state of Iowa or EMA has to report that, then

57:24 – 57:40•Travis DeWitt

I will make a motion to approve the MOU with Warren County Emergency Management Commission regarding E911 duties and responsibilities and funding allocations.

59:54•Travis DeWitt

But if it passes, because I don't think it's a long-term solution.

1:00:11 – 1:00:41•Travis DeWitt

As far as the Crystal, as far as the dispatch center... It calls out the salary increase to the dispatch supervisor and then $10,000 to be allocated to a dispatcher assigned additional E911 duties. I guess maybe if you look at it as maybe like a bidding opportunity through that, that may ease some of those concerns.

1:04:18•Travis DeWitt

But I think Stephanie's looking towards the future.

1:04:57•Travis DeWitt

I'll resend my motion and let you make the motion.

These excerpts are remarks by officials whose identity a person confirmed, from a transcript generated automatically from the official public meeting video and presented unedited. Accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.