Newly elected Polk County Supervisors Mark Holm and Jill Altringer have indicated they plan to work in the jobs they had before the November election in addition to their full-time, $150,000-a-year supervisor jobs.
Neither said that on the campaign trail.
In addition to overseeing the county and its budget, the board makes major decisions affecting regional economic development, establishes tax levies, enacts ordinances, appoints individuals to serve on boards and commissions, and makes final decisions on who receives community grants from Prairie Meadows proceeds. . The board has the ability to hire and fire department heads, including the district administrator.
Polk County District 3 Supervisor Mark Holm speaks during a meeting of the Polk County Board of Supervisors at the Polk County Administration Building on Thursday, January 2, 2025 in Des Moines.
Holm and Altringer made waves this week when news broke that they had reportedly asked County Executive John Norris to resign just 24 hours after they were sworn in. That allegedly led to Supervisor Tom Hockensmith threatening to fight Holm and Matt McCoy.
Polk County supervisors’ salaries and benefits are among the most generous in the country, several Register reports show. A majority of supervisors have chosen to give themselves a pay increase every year for the past sixteen years. Their latest, for the fiscal year that started in July, was 4%.
Supervisors’ pay was well above that of administrators in similarly sized Midwestern counties. Their pay also exceeds that of Gov. Kim Reynolds, who makes $130,000 a year.
In addition to the state pension program, elected officials in Polk County are eligible to participate in a deferred compensation program that provides an additional way to save for retirement. The county receives $1 for every $2 contributed by the elected official, up to a maximum of 6% of their base salary.
The county’s handbook for elected officials states that supervisors “have the flexibility to set their own hours to fulfill their duties.” But according to the county’s website, the supervisors’ primary function is to be “available full-time to the constituency and able to respond to issues of interest to citizens.”
Holm works at the Iowa Department of Transportation and Altringer, a former Grimes city councilman and attorney, is a lobbyist who represents agricultural groups before the Iowa Legislature. She said she hired a partner to help her with her work in the Capitol while she balanced her new supervisor position.
“I have been lobbying for over twenty years and have built long-lasting relationships with clients, some of whom I have worked with for decades. Throughout my career, I have served on Grimes City Council for sixteen years, training four active members. children, and recently running a campaign – all with a busy schedule of more than 40 hours a week,” Altringer said in a statement.
Polk County District 2 Supervisor Jill Altringer speaks during a meeting of the Polk County Board of Supervisors at the Polk County Administration Building on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in Des Moines.
Holm said he successfully served as mayor of Ankeny while working for the DOT. But as mayor he served a population of 74,458; According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Polk County’s 2023 population was 505,255.
When asked about working two jobs, Holm told the Register he wasn’t convinced the supervisor position is full-time.
“I’m going to respectfully disagree with you on the fact that it’s a full-time job,” he said, though he did agree that he was paid a full-time wage.
He will also receive credit for his job as a supervisor, as well as through the DOT for IPERS, the state pension system, as long as he does both. He said he turned down health benefits at one of the jobs.
Holm said that even if he didn’t preach from the pulpit, he would serve in both jobs. A donor and some others asked him about it when he was running for office. He said he may make changes accordingly as he learns more about what the supervisor position entails, but he always said it was only a four-year position.
Former Supervisor Robert Brownell said Wednesday he didn’t want to discredit Holm and Altringer, but he thinks taxpayers expect supervisors to work full-time. In fact, he said, “I find that if you try to do two things at the same time, you will do one of them poorly.”
The supervisor position requires frequent meetings with constituents and other groups, Brownell said. He said early on that he owned a business as a supervisor, but others ran it for him. He left that company in 2016.
Reached Wednesday after a physical, Brownell said he was doing well now that he is retired. His doctor joked that his life would be three to five years longer if he were no longer a member of the Polk County Board of Supervisors.
This article originally appeared in the Des Moines Register: New Polk County supervisors plan to keep their full-time jobs
