County Board Approves New 30-day Engineering Agreement With Pottawattamie County

Mills County Engineer Jacob Ferro is serving his second month as the interim engineer for Pottawattamie County.

The Mills Bounty Board Of Supervisors approved a new 30-day agreement with Pottawattamie County during its regular meeting last week. The new contract includes increases in the hourly rate Pottawattamie County is paying to Mills County and the pay Ferro is receiving for his work.

Under terms of the new agreement, which began Sept. 16, Mills County is charging $215 per hour for Ferro’s services. Of the $215, Ferro receives $75. The rates are an increase from the original 30-day agreement signed in August, which had Pottawattamie County paying Mills County $200 an hour and Ferro receiving $70.

Although the new agreement was passed unanimously, the three supervisors discussed the increase before a vote was taken. Supervisor Jack Sayers said he favored a higher increase to the hourly rate.

“I am OK with $215, but I don’t see any problem with us going to $230 because at the end of the day, if they have another option that is cheaper, they’ll take it,” Sayers stated. “We’re in a good position, we have the ability to do it. I would be more in favor of $230.”

Supervisor Richard Crouch said Mills County should act as a good neighbor.

“We have to be good neighbors - the shoe could be on the other foot at some point,” he said. “We’ve worked with other engineers from other parts, including Montgomery and Page counties, when we went back and forth with engineers. Back when we did that, we weren’t near as expensive as this. So, my feeling is $215 (per hour) is not a bad price for the county or $75 for the engineer.

“Jack and I are splitting hairs here, but I believe in being good neighbors. They haven’t always been up to par with us on some things, but we still to be able to work with them and help them out when we can.”
Sayers questioned whether Pottawattamie County has been a good neighbor to Mills County.

“From the time that I have become a supervisor for the last nine months, there has been no instance where Pottawattamie County has necessarily been good neighbors,” said Sayers. “The instances that I know is one of their employees being down here trying to access information from public health to have those grants so they can put them into Pottawattamie County Public Health and we had this instance with them trying to take our engineer, so if there is an instance of them being good neighbors, I haven’t seen it over the course of almost a year. I don’t want us to be a big brother, little brother situation and I don’t really necessarily know if there is any downside to us trying to get a little bit more funding for the county.”

Sayers said if the shoe were on the other foot, Pottawattamie County would likely be charging Mills County more than $215 an hour.

“If we were in their position and we made all the mistakes they made, I 100% think they’d be charging us buku bucks,” Sayers said.

The first 30-day agreement was signed by the two counties in August, just two weeks after the Mills County Board Of Supervisors agreed to raise Ferro’s annual salary from $140,425 to $165,000, matching an offer from Pottawattamie County to become their full-time engineer.

While the agreement is in place, Ferro will continue receiving his full salary from Mills County along with the hourly pay for the time spent working for Pottawattamie County.