County Officials

For information on individual counties, please visit the Iowa State Association of Counties' web site www.iowacounties.org.

• ISAC's most recent county directory

(Information below is provided through the cooperation of county auditors.)

The origin of the American county is from the French word "conte," meaning the domain of a count; however, the American county, defined by Webster as "the largest territorial division for local government within a state of the U.S.," is based on the Anglo-Saxon county, sometimes called a shire. The head of the shire in the British Isles was the Shire Reeve, the origin for today's county sheriff.

Today, elected county officials in Iowa are the board of supervisors, recorder, treasurer, auditor, sheriff, and attorney. The board of supervisors is the chief administrative body of county government. It consists of either three or five members.

The functions and services of counties can be grouped into three categories: functions of state government which are administered by the county; services that are of a local nature; and internal administrative functions that the county performs for its own operation or on behalf of other local taxing jurisdictions.

The functions and services of counties can be grouped into three categories: functions of state government which are administered by the county; services that are of a local nature; and internal administrative functions that the county performs for its own operation or on behalf of other local taxing jurisdictions.

• election administration: auditor

• social/human services: board of supervisors, county director of human services, and local board of human services

• recording of documents: recorder

• prosecution of state laws and county ordinances: attorney

• licensing: treasurer and recorder

• jail administration, law enforcement: sheriff

• road maintenance: engineer

The local services provided by counties can be broadly categorized under the following headings: public works services, social/human services, health services, and law enforcement.

The internal administrative functions performed by counties are: property tax administration, finance, and miscellaneous management and record-keeping functions.

County government in Iowa has gone through many changes since Dubuque and Demoine were the only counties in the territory, but most of those changes have taken place quite recently. Over the years, counties acquired home rule powers, county funds were consolidated, human service programs were reorganized, the court system was taken over by the state, and enabling legislation was enacted to provide for the option of county government reorganization. Iowa currently has 99 counties.