Governor Kim Reynolds gave four of her top staffers raises ranging from 13 percent to 17 percent several months after Republican lawmakers approved a major boost to the governor’s office budget.

The large pay increases took effect in early September, according to salary records Bleeding Heartland obtained through a public records request. All staff in the governor’s office had already received a 3 percent raise at the beginning of fiscal year 2024 in July.

Public employees often receive a small bump in compensation at the start of a new fiscal year, but few are able to obtain raises of 10 percent or more without a promotion or a significant change to their job duties.

A spokesperson for Reynolds described the salary hikes as an “important investment” and asserted that “offering salaries commensurate with experience and job responsibilities is critical to ensuring optimal performance and continuity of state government.”

However, data the governor’s office provided to Bleeding Heartland did not support the claim that many of Reynolds’ staffers were previously underpaid compared to counterparts in similar states.

HINTING AT SALARY HIKES

At Reynolds’ request, the Iowa House and Senate approved a 21 percent increase to her office budget during this year’s legislative session, bringing its annual appropriation from about $2.3 million to a little more than $2.8 million for the fiscal year that began on July 1.

The governor’s office regularly spends far more than its appropriation, and personnel costs make up the lion’s share of those expenses. When Reynolds’ chief of staff Taryn Frideres met with Iowa House members of the Administration and Regulation Appropriations subcommittee in February, she argued that raising the governor’s office allocation would be “more transparent” and ensure that “our actual appropriation is closer to our expenses, so that we can budget in a more straightforward way.”

Under questioning from Democratic lawmakers at that meeting, Frideres said the extra $500,000 requested for the governor’s office for fiscal year 2024 would not be “a salary adjustment for our staff.” But she indicated the office “has worked to hire more senior, experienced personnel.”

While floor managing the Administration and Regulation appropriations bill in the Iowa House in May, Republican State Representative Michael Bergan read out a statement provided by the governor’s office, which said increasing the general fund appropriation would help “recruit and retain the talented staff necessary to support the significant, whole of government work that Iowans expect the governor to lead.”

The annual salaries for Iowa’s governor and lieutenant governor are fixed by state law at $130,000 and $103,212, respectively. Budget bills limit the number of full-time equivalent employees Reynolds can have in her office (25 for the current fiscal year). Otherwise, the governor has a free hand to set her staff’s salaries.

NORMAL RAISES, FOLLOWED BY ABNORMAL ONES

Through occasional requests for state employee salary records, I’ve learned raises typically go into effect during the first pay period of July (the beginning of a new fiscal year), or when an employee takes on greater responsibilities. You can tell when someone received a promotion, because the records show the person has a different job title and/or job class as well as a higher salary.

The governor’s office salaries haven’t followed the usual pattern lately. The Department of Administrative Services (which handles payroll for state government) provided this file covering the last two biweekly pay periods of fiscal year 2022, every pay period in fiscal year 2023, and all pay periods through early September in fiscal year 2024.

Be warned: the records are difficult to read because they are in a pdf format, and the pay periods are not listed in the usual chronological order. Public information officer Tami Wiencek did not respond to my request for an Excel spreadsheet with pay periods in sequence, like the salary records the Department of Administrative Services has sent me on many other occasions. Nor did she explain why the agency converted the data to a user-unfriendly pdf.

Another important point: “terminated” next to a person’s name on Iowa salary records does not mean the employee was fired—only that the person stopped working for the agency or department in question.

What’s normal: everyone working in the governor’s office except those with fixed salaries (Reynolds and Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg) received a 3 percent raise at the start of the current fiscal year.

To my surprise, some staff received larger raises beginning in September 2023:

• chief of staff Taryn Frideres (biweekly gross pay went from $6,686.40 to $7,692.80, a 15 percent increase)
• communications director Heather Nahas (biweekly gross pay went from $5,748.80 to $6,731.20, a 17 percent increase)
• chief operating officer Jacob Nicholson (biweekly gross pay went from $5,942.40 to $6,731.20, a 13 percent increase)
• senior legal counsel Steven Blankinship (biweekly gross pay also went from $5,942.40 to $6,731.20, a 13 percent increase)
• chief speechwriter and communications adviser Damian Bell (biweekly gross pay went from $4,588 to $5,000, a 9 percent increase)
• education policy adviser Jane Dufoe (biweekly gross pay went from $4,161.60 to $4,423.20, a 6 percent increase)
• workforce and public safety adviser Laura Book (biweekly gross pay went from $3,763.20 to $4,039.20, a 7 percent increase)

I’ve never seen state government employees receive multiple raises in such a short time span, especially since none of the above were moving to a new position within the governor’s office.

Frideres and deputy communications director Kollin Crompton did not explain why the larger raises took effect in September (rather than at the beginning of the fiscal year), and did not clarify whether additional salary hikes are planned in Reynolds’ office before July 2024.

Crompton did answer some of my other questions—but the details he shared didn’t line up with the narrative.

NUMBERS DON’T SUGGEST GOVERNOR’S STAFF WERE UNDERPAID

In a November 28 email, Crompton confirmed that some of what he called a “long overdue” increase in the governor’s office budget “was used to raise staff salaries.”

After analyzing state government pay ranges, it was found that salaries for several positions in the Office of the Governor were lower than equivalent positions in executive branch agencies. Similarly, a comparative analysis of salaries for equivalent positions in surrounding and similar-size states showed many staff in the Iowa governor’s office were paid less than their counterparts in those states (see attached). […]

The most important investment any business can make is in its people, and government should be no different. […] The salary increases for the governor’s staff further positions the office to deliver the type of results Iowans expect and deserve.  

In our subsequent correspondence, Crompton did not specify which executive branch agencies were used for comparison, or how much they were paying employees with similar jobs.

He did share this table, purporting to offer a “Similarly Sized & Surrounding States Salary Comparison” (click here to enlarge or download).

The numbers in the second column from the left represent salaries for Reynolds’ employees after the 3 percent raise in July, but before the second round of raises September. Crompton did not provide an updated chart listing current salaries for all positions in the governor’s office.

A few problems are apparent.

IOWA SALARIES FOR SOME POSITIONS WERE ALREADY ABOVE THE “AVERAGE”

Before September, Frideres was making nearly the average salary for a governor’s chief of staff. Following the 15 percent raise, she is making substantially more than most of her counterparts, except those working in Connecticut and Utah. (More on that in a moment.)

Nahas was already making more than the communications directors of most states shown here. Yet she received a 17 percent raise in September.

Bell’s salary was far higher than other states’ speechwriters before his 9 percent raise.

Dufoe and Book were compensated better than policy advisors in other states, yet they received raises of 6 percent and 7 percent.

Blankinship was making a little more than the average salary for a senior legal counsel when Reynolds raised his pay by another 13 percent.

Following Nicholson’s 13 percent raise, his salary will exceed the average for chief operating officers.

When I raised these points with Crompton, he repeated a paragraph from his earlier message.

Governor Reynolds has prioritized hiring and retaining experienced professionals to fill senior staff positions. These demanding roles require a level of commitment above and beyond standard work responsibilities and schedules. Attracting and retaining talent demands competitive compensation, and offering salaries commensurate with experience and job responsibilities is critical to ensuring optimal performance and continuity of state government. 

Staff have always worked long hours in the Iowa governor’s office. Not all of Reynolds’ employees have extensive experience either; Bell graduated from college in 2017 and has worked as a speechwriter for less than six years.

More to the point:

CHART DOESN’T REFLECT COST OF LIVING IN OTHER STATE CAPITALS

Oklahoma, Connecticut, Utah, Nevada, and Arkansas may not be far off from Iowa in terms of statewide population. But the number of people living in a state, or its location near Iowa, has no bearing on how much you need to earn to maintain a certain standard of living. To understand whether a salary is “competitive,” you need to know how far money goes in your city of residence.

According to 24/7 Wall Street.com, the cost of living in Carson City, Nevada is comparable to that of the Des Moines metro. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is also in the ballpark, with a cost of living about 2 percent below Des Moines, per NerdWallet’s calculator. The cost of living in Topeka, Kansas is 3 percent lower than Des Moines.

Look at the chart again. Assuming the numbers Crompton provided are accurate, most of Reynolds’ staff were already earning more than counterparts in Kansas, Nevada, and Oklahoma before the September raises. In addition, the Iowa governor’s office has a few well-paid staff positions that don’t appear to exist in the other states.

NerdWallet tells us that Little Rock, Arkansas has a cost of living about 11 percent higher than the Des Moines metro, and it costs about 18 percent more to live in Pierre, South Dakota than the Des Moines area. Again, staff in the Iowa governor’s office were paid more than most of the equivalent positions in Arkansas and South Dakota—before the September raises.

Reynolds’ staff may look underpaid compared to counterparts working for the governors of Utah or Connecticut. But it costs about 25 percent more to live in Salt Lake City or Hartford than Des Moines. Some disparity in salaries is to be expected.

“SHE’S CREATED A BLOATED BUREAUCRACY IN HER OWN OFFICE”

Democratic State Senator Claire Celsi is the ranking Iowa Senate member on the Administration and Regulation Appropriations subcommittee. After reviewing the salary records I received in November, Celsi commented, “Governor Reynolds is the least popular governor in America for a reason. Simply put, she has grabbed money from other state budgets to inflate the salaries of her staff by an astronomical percentage compared to hard working rank and file state employees.”

Bleeding Heartland exclusively reported this month that unbeknownst to state legislators or the public, other state agencies spent more than a million dollars on expenses in the Iowa governor’s office during fiscal year 2023, which ended on June 30. Those funds included some $734,000 to cover portions of individual staffers’ salaries, plus $289,000 in assessments to cover the “enterprise-wide efforts” of Reynolds’ staff.

From Celsi’s perspective, “Using the government reorganization as a smokescreen and a ‘whole of government’ mantra as an excuse, [the governor]’s created a bloated bureaucracy in her own office. Instead of creating efficiency through cross-training or job sharing, she’s simply creating new layers of bureaucracy.”

Celsi finds “the total lack of transparency and accountability” to be most troubling. The Administration and Regulation Appropriations subcommittee “is supposed to oversee the governor’s office budget,” she noted. But Iowa Senate Republicans haven’t held regular meetings of the panel for several years. “That means senators of the committee have to go to extraordinary lengths to find the information they need to stay on top of each budget under their purview,” Celsi told me.

Crompton acknowledged in a November 29 email that the $2.8 appropriation for fiscal year 2024 won’t cover all of the governor’s office expenses. “In light of the type of work completed by many of our staff on behalf of our agencies, we expect to continue to use MOUs [salary-sharing agreements] as appropriate, but likely at differing amounts.”

By my calculation, salary hikes will add at least $50,000 to the governor’s personnel costs during the current fiscal year, and more going forward, when higher pay will be in effect for the whole year and not just September through June.

Top photo of Governor Kim Reynolds is cropped from an image first posted to her official Facebook page on August 31, 2023.