The Iowa City Council started considering the proposed budget for the Ad Hoc Truth and Reconciliation commission Tuesday, including a request for a $1,000 monthly stipend for its nine members.

With most of the TRC commissioners present, the council made no decision on the budget, but will discuss it more at the next work session. The proposed stipend received pushback from a majority of councilors and some members of the public.

Besides Councilor Laura Bergus, who said she was in favor of giving the stipend, only Councilor John Thomas seemed open to approving that portion of the budget. Mayor Bruce Teague and Councilors Susan Mims, Mazahir Salih, Janice Weiner and Pauline Taylor were largely against the stipend but were willing to work with the TRC to build its budget further.

The stipend amounts to $500 per meeting for each commissioner, including backpay for previous members and previous meetings. The stipends make up about a third of the preliminary budget the commission is seeking.

The TRC’s $337,500 budget request for 2021 includes:

• $130,000 for board operations
• $104,000 for the stipends
• $36,000 for experts and training
• $30,000 for a board facilitator
• $17,500 for advertising
• $17,500 for videographers

City Manager Geoff Fruin said in an email that no one serving on the city’s 21 commissions currently receives a stipend. City staff made no recommendation on whether to approve the proposed TRC budget.

Why is the Iowa City TRC asking for pay?

TRC Chair Mohamed Traore started the discussion by reading the purpose of the commission outlined by the city council when it was first created, and explaining that commissioners need a stipend to help them carry out their mission.

“We are individuals who are committed to structural change, truth-telling, healing trauma and repair,” he said. “We share in common a vision of an equitable and sustainable community free of violence and systemic racism. We believe the time has come to foster change.”

Traore said the nine commissioners deserve a stipend for their work if the TRC is going to continue acting as consultants to the city on important issues like racial equity and police reform while undergoing the trauma he says comes with holding listening sessions and carrying out truth-telling about systemic racism and injustice in the city.

“As we hear more cases, the weight we bear will only intensify. We are asked to volunteer our time to harm our mental states, miss quality time with our families and more,” he said. “Why do this for free?”

Traore specifically mentioned listening sessions related to the Excluded Workers Coalition, which is pushing for American Rescue Plan funds given to Johnson County and local cities to be distributed to populations that did not have access to stimulus funds from the federal government as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Traore pointed to pay increases to Iowa City councilors in late 2018, which he said councilors at the time supported because it made serving on the council economically viable for people that would otherwise need to work a job. He said the same could be said about what the TRC is seeking to do.

Traore also pointed to a decision by the City Council this month to provide almost $150,000 to a consulting firm to study future recreation programs and facilities in Iowa City.

Traore asked Councilors to think of the stipend as an investment, which is even more urgent because of the issues the body faced in its first few months. The commission’s efforts to carry out its mission have been bumpy, including numerous resignations and the Iowa City Council suspending it for about a month.

The ad hoc commission is temporary. Much of its work has been done with little to no support staff outside of Iowa City Equity Director Stefanie Bowers, who helps Traore run the meetings.

Councilors question whether TRC does unique work 

Bergus said she was initially against giving the TRC a stipend but her mind changed after she watched hours of deliberation among the nine commissioners. She said “this is different from other commissions,” and the city needs to recognize that difference and how transformational the work the TRC does is to the city.

“We councilors tasked this commission, unanimously, to carry out this work,” she said. “If we don’t compensate them, who is going to do this particular work?”

Thomas said he is open to providing a stipend, but wanted to explore providing the TRC with more support staff that is paid.

“There is something perhaps unique about a TRC. The nature of the work is difficult and there is a great deal that a commissioner airs when serving on a TRC,” he said.

Thomas said it is unprecedented that the TRC is “doing the work” of a commission that usually falls to support staff. He said it is made even more difficult that there isn’t much precedent for a TRC and thinks the budget needs more work and is currently “abstract.”

“In principal, I feel given all the circumstances you are working under, the idea of compensation makes sense,” he said, adding that the TRC will continue to be overworked until support staff is provided.

Taylor said she sees promise in the preliminary budget proposed by the TRC but opposes the stipend proposal. Taylor said she was glad to be a part of the unanimous vote to create the commission but was disappointed by the hostile environment of the first meetings, which she said were ineffective and unproductive.

Taylor said providing payment “does not make any sense” and she was astonished the TRC would ask for it. She said she is open to further discussions with the TRC on the larger budget.

Teague said he would not support the stipend, but the commission did not have to shoulder the full responsibility that it is currently handling. He and other councilors said they wanted to work with the commissioners to provide more staff to bear some of the burden.

Former TRC leader takes issue with stipends

Johnson County Supervisor Royceann Porter, who used to chair the TRC, read a prepared statement and said she had volunteered for 20 years, including five years on the Iowa City Police Citizen Review Board and didn’t get paid.

“Anything that I have volunteered for, any commission that I have been appointed to and other people in our community … they did it because they had a love and compassion to change what was going on in our city,” she said.

Porter said the only board or committee in Johnson County that has ever been paid was one for veterans issues, which she said is paid by the federal government in the amount of $50 per member.

Porter told councilors they need to “take back your council,” and questioned them, asking “where is your power?”

Under the proposed budget, Porter would benefit from the pay offered to past and present commissioners and receive $500 for every meeting she took part in as an appointed member before she resigned.

During the Tuesday night council meeting, some of the TRC commissioners who spoke referred to the toxic environment created by past TRC commissioners. Vice Chair Amel Ali was initially against giving backpay to former commissioners because of what she viewed as harassment and trauma inflicted by the toxic environment.

George Shillcock is the Press-Citizen’s local government and development reporter covering Iowa City and Johnson County. He can be reached at GShillcock@press-citizen.com and on Twitter @ShillcockGeorge