Floyd County hires new county engineer

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County hired a new county engineer at the Board of Supervisors meeting Monday morning, offering the position to the assistant county engineer from Kossuth County.

Adam Miller verbally accepted an employment offer at the meeting, and signed a written agreement after the meeting. He said he has been a licensed professional engineer for 12 years and has worked for Kossuth County for about 16 years.

Miller will begin his full-time position with Floyd County effective March 1, but he will be working part time for Floyd County one day per week during February so that Floyd County has a county engineer on staff who can fulfill the requirements of the Iowa Department of Transportation regarding bid lettings on construction contracts using federal funds.

The county supervisors have been looking at county engineer options since early December, when previous Floyd County Engineer Jacob Page announced he was resigning effective Jan. 10.

At first the supervisors considered sharing an engineer with Cerro Gordo County. Before hiring Page to work exclusively for Floyd County in March 2022, Floyd County had for many years shared a county engineering position with Chickasaw County.

Some of the Cerro Gordo County supervisors were initially reluctant to share their engineer, Brandon Billings, but eventually agreed to consider a sharing agreement, at least on a trial basis.

Miller, from Kossuth County, had applied for the open Floyd County position soon after it was known Page was leaving, and the supervisors interviewed him in a closed meeting held on Jan. 9. Supervisor Chair Dennis Keifer said Miller was the only applicant for the full-time position by the deadline Jan. 23.

Supervisor Gloria Carr presented information at the meeting Monday showing that splitting the cost of a county engineer with Cerro Gordo County, including salary, taxes, benefits and mileage, would be $120,381 the first year for Floyd County.

Carr said Miller had requested a salary of $130,000 annually, and the total cost for that, plus taxes and benefits, would be $173,859.

Comparing the two figures, the cost of hiring Miller full-time for Floyd County versus sharing the Cerro Gordo County engineer would be about an additional $53,500, Carr said.

She also said that former county engineer Page’s total annual compensation, with his $111,395 salary plus taxes and benefits, had been about $152,000.

Carr presented information showing the average engineer’s salary for the five Iowa counties with the population closest to Floyd County above and the five below Floyd County’s population was a little over $136,700. The average state salary for all county engineers is $135,234.

She said based on that, Miller was not out of line asking for $130,000. If anything, she said, it showed Page had been underpaid.

Miller said he could potentially save Floyd County on the cost of bridge designs and inspections, because he had been doing that in Kossuth County. He said he had designed about 30 structures as an engineer, and could also teach other engineering department staff to do inspections.

Carr said, “I believe it is our due diligence to look at options here. We have two options on the table, so it’s just what’s the best decision for Floyd County? Is that $50,000 a number that has value to consider doing a shared engineer, or do you feel it’s best to do a single engineer?”

She said the county engineer budget had enough money to pay the additional $21,859 cost of Miller’s salary over what Page had been making if they wanted to forego the engineer sharing idea.

Supervisor Keifer said it was clear to him that Floyd County needs a full-time engineer, and “I think this $21,000 shouldn’t be considered a reason not to do it.”

Supervisor Boyd Campbell has repeatedly said he was worried that a 20-hour per week shared engineer would not be enough, especially in emergency situations such as major weather events.

The supervisors unanimously approved offering Miller the contract as full-time engineer beginning March 1, and unanimously approved paying Miller $1,000 per week for one day per week as interim engineer for the four weeks in February.