Board of Supervisors
The Polk County Board of Supervisors is the county’s five-member governing board, with responsibilities that include acting on official county business, approving personnel appointments, overseeing the county budget process, participating in boards and commissions, and responding to issues raised by residents. This article explains how the Board is organized, how to identify your district supervisor, when meetings and work sessions are held, where to locate agendas and minutes, how to review budget and public information, how supervisor terms and elections work, and which official Polk County pages to use for Board-related business.
Board Role and Authority
The official Board of Supervisors page is the primary county source for information about the five supervisors and major Board services. Polk County describes the Board as an elected body serving residents throughout the county through five separate supervisor districts.
The Board considers and acts on official county business and approves personnel appointments during its regular meetings. Its responsibilities also extend beyond the meeting calendar. Polk County states that the budget process is the Board’s most important power because it gives supervisors a way to monitor organizational units, including elected departments, administrative departments, and other county-related organizations.
The Board also appoints people to, or serves on, various boards and commissions that affect county functions. Residents researching a county policy, funding decision, appointment, or other Board action should therefore distinguish the Board’s role from the work of an individual county department. A department may administer a program or provide a service, while the Board may act on funding, appointments, policy matters, or other business presented at a Board meeting.
Five Supervisor Districts
Polk County has five supervisors. The county currently identifies the district representatives as:
District 1: Matt McCoy. The county page lists the current term as 2026.
District 2: Jill Altringer. The county page lists the current term as 2028.
District 3: Mark Holm. The county page lists the current term as 2028.
District 4: Tom Hockensmith. The county page lists the current term as 2026.
District 5: Angela Connolly. The county page lists the current term as 2026.
Supervisor districts matter when a resident wants to contact the elected Board member who represents a particular part of Polk County. A person should not select a supervisor only because a name appears first on the Board page or because the supervisor is associated with a particular countywide issue.
Finding Your District
Polk County provides an official Supervisor Districts Map for determining district boundaries. This is the appropriate county-operated mapping source when a resident needs to identify which supervisor represents an area.
Using the district map before contacting an individual supervisor can prevent messages from being directed to the wrong district office. This can be particularly useful when an address is near a district boundary or when a resident is unfamiliar with the numbered supervisor districts.
The Board’s official FAQ also identifies each supervisor by district and explains that Polk County supervisors serve four-year terms with staggered terms. Staggering means the five seats do not all follow the same election cycle.
Meeting Schedule and Location
The current Meeting Agenda and Minutes page states that the Board convenes every other Tuesday morning at 10:30 a.m. to consider and act on official business and approve personnel appointments. The Board typically holds work sessions on Tuesday mornings at 9:00 a.m. or 9:30 a.m. with county staff and others to discuss and clarify matters that may appear on future agendas.
Both types of meetings are held at the Administration Office Building at 111 Court Avenue. The county’s Board FAQ specifies Room 120 for regular Board meetings.
People planning to attend should use the current meeting page to verify the applicable meeting information rather than relying on a general description of the Board found elsewhere on the county website. Polk County’s About the Board page contains an earlier schedule describing regular meetings at 9:30 a.m. and work sessions on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m., while the current Meeting Agenda and Minutes page and Board FAQ identify the regular 2026 meeting time as 10:30 a.m. every other Tuesday. The Board’s news page also records a revised 2026 meeting schedule.
Regular Meetings and Work Sessions
Regular Board meetings and work sessions serve different purposes. The regular meeting is where the Board considers and acts on official business and approves personnel appointments. Work sessions are used for discussion with staff and others to clarify matters for future agendas.
This distinction is useful when following a particular county issue. Discussion at a work session should not automatically be treated as final Board action. Someone researching what the Board formally approved should look for the relevant regular meeting agenda, minutes, and associated meeting information rather than relying only on a work-session discussion.
Before Attending a Meeting
Review the meeting page for the specific date you are interested in and determine whether the event is a regular Board meeting or a work session. Confirm the posted time and look at the available meeting materials before going to the Administration Building. The county specifically directs users to meeting notes and details when documents or audio are missing, so the absence of a file should not be interpreted as proof that no meeting or discussion occurred.
Agendas, Minutes, and Audio
Agendas and minutes are central records for understanding Board activity. An agenda shows the business scheduled for consideration, while minutes provide the official meeting record available for a past meeting. Polk County’s Board FAQ also directs residents seeking agendas, minutes, or meeting audio to the county’s Auditor administration system.
When researching a Board matter, begin with the date of the meeting whenever possible. A specific date makes it easier to separate an upcoming agenda from minutes for a completed meeting. If the issue was discussed over several meetings, review each relevant meeting separately instead of assuming the wording or status remained unchanged.
The county notes that some meeting entries may have missing documents or audio and instructs users to read the meeting notes and details. This is an important limitation for historical research. If an audio file is absent from a particular entry, users should review the associated notes, agenda, and minutes that are available rather than assuming every Board meeting has the same set of online materials.
Agenda Versus Minutes
An agenda and meeting minutes should not be treated as interchangeable. An agenda identifies matters scheduled for Board consideration. Minutes are associated with a meeting that has already occurred and are the appropriate record to consult when trying to determine what happened during that meeting.
For a pending matter, the upcoming agenda is generally the relevant Board record. For a past decision, the meeting minutes and other posted meeting materials are more appropriate. Keeping those document types separate reduces the risk of treating a proposed agenda item as a completed Board action.
Budget Oversight and Records
Budget oversight is a major part of the Board’s work. Polk County describes the budget process as the Board’s most important power because it allows supervisors to monitor county organizational units and address inefficiencies through the budgeting process.
The county maintains a Board budget page with links to county budget websites. The reference information identifies separate 2025 and 2026 budget websites. Residents examining Board decisions involving county finances should use the budget materials for the applicable year rather than assuming a figure or appropriation from one budget year applies to another.
Historical Budget Documents
The Board’s Public Information page organizes a broader set of financial and administrative records. Its historical budget section includes certified, amended, and year-end budget materials for multiple fiscal years, including fiscal years 2021/2022 through 2026/2027 in the provided county information.
These document labels should be kept distinct. A certified budget, an amended budget, and a year-end budget are separately identified county records. When looking for a particular number or Board action, first identify the fiscal year and then select the appropriate document type. Comparing a certified figure from one fiscal year with a year-end figure from another without recognizing the distinction can lead to an inaccurate interpretation.
Property Tax Dollar Resolutions
The Public Information page also lists County Property Tax Dollars Resolutions by fiscal year. These are Board-related resolution records and are separate from the general budget documents listed on the same page. A resident looking specifically for a county property-tax-dollar resolution should use that section rather than searching only the certified or amended budget files.
Other categories on the Public Information page include bond ratings, programs and initiatives, Board of Supervisors annual reports, and the Auditor’s Annual Report. Selecting the category that matches the research question is more efficient than treating the page as a single collection of interchangeable financial records.
Strategic Planning and Public Input
The Board also oversees long-term county planning. The official Polk County Strategic Plan page describes a strategic planning process intended to establish a shared vision and direction for the next ten years.
According to the county, the process began with a series of community meetings and discovery sessions starting in December 2025. It was designed to bring together county leaders, residents, community organizations, local businesses, and subject-matter experts. The stated purpose is to assess current needs, anticipate future challenges, and identify priorities that can inform county policy, budgeting, and long-term investments.
The strategic planning page also includes a Polk County Strategic Planning Survey and tells residents to look on the page for meeting times and details. Residents interested specifically in the strategic plan should use that page rather than assuming that a regular Board agenda contains all opportunities for participation in the planning process.
Contacting the Board
The Board office is open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, according to the county’s official Board FAQ. Polk County provides a separate Board contact page listing individual email addresses for each of the five supervisors.
The contact page also identifies Frank Marasco as County Administrator, Sarah Boese as Deputy County Administrator, and Jon Cahill as Community Relations Specialist. Because the county publishes these contacts separately from the five elected supervisors, users should pay attention to the title associated with a contact rather than assuming every person on the Board contact page is a supervisor.
Contacting Your Supervisor
If the matter concerns representation by district, determine the correct district before selecting one of the individual supervisor email addresses. The five district assignments published by Polk County are the most direct way to match a resident with the appropriate elected Board member.
For general Board matters, the Board office itself is the relevant county office. For questions tied to a particular meeting, having the meeting date and the subject or agenda item in mind will make it easier to identify the relevant record before contacting the office.
County Administration Contacts
The County Administrator, Deputy County Administrator, and Community Relations Specialist appear as additional contacts on the Board’s contact page. Their listings include county email addresses and direct phone numbers. Users looking for one of those specific officials should use the title shown by Polk County rather than addressing the request to an elected district supervisor by default.
Supervisor Terms and Elections
The official Board FAQ states that supervisors are elected every four years and that their terms are staggered. The current Board page reflects those different cycles by showing some current terms as 2026 and others as 2028.
The FAQ also states that nomination petitions for someone seeking election to the Board of Supervisors are filed with the Polk County Auditor. Users dealing with candidacy or nomination matters should therefore distinguish between the Board office, which provides information about the sitting Board, and the County Auditor, which is the office identified by Polk County for filing nomination petitions.
The Board FAQ does not make every election-related transaction a Board office function. Contacting an individual supervisor about a nomination filing is not a substitute for following the filing process administered through the Auditor.
Boards and Commissions
Polk County states that supervisors appoint individuals to, or serve on, a number of boards and commissions affecting different aspects of county government. This is another reason a search for a Board-related issue may lead to records beyond ordinary meeting minutes.
The county directs residents seeking definitions for county boards and commissions to the Public Information area of the Board website. When researching an appointment, first identify the particular board or commission involved. A reference to a county board or commission should not automatically be treated as a reference to the five-member Board of Supervisors itself.
Board appointments can also appear in current county announcements. The Board’s public information and news systems should be read together when appropriate: public information contains established records and reports, while news releases provide announcements about current Board actions and county initiatives.
Board News and Decisions
The Board News and Press Releases page provides official county announcements involving the supervisors. The referenced 2026 entries include notices involving budget materials, county investments, a road safety study, property-search functionality, housing and public-service initiatives, and changes to the Board meeting schedule.
The news page is useful for identifying recent Board actions or announcements, but a news release serves a different purpose from formal meeting records. When a release describes something the Board approved, users researching the official meeting record should still identify the corresponding meeting date and consult the applicable agenda or minutes.
Dates are particularly important when reading Board news. A later announcement may update a schedule, program, or county action described in an earlier release. For current meeting information, the dedicated meeting page should remain the primary reference because it is organized around the Board’s actual meeting schedule and records.
Common Board Research Mistakes
Using an older meeting schedule. The current meeting page states that regular Board meetings occur every other Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. An older About the Board description contains different times, so meeting-specific information should be checked against the current agenda and minutes page.
Contacting the wrong district supervisor. Polk County has five supervisor districts. Use the county district map when the correct district is uncertain.
Treating a work session as final action. Work sessions are described as discussions with staff and others about items for future agendas. Regular meetings are where the Board considers and acts on official business.
Confusing agendas with minutes. An agenda concerns scheduled business; minutes relate to a meeting that has already taken place.
Assuming every meeting has identical online files. Polk County specifically tells users to review meeting notes and details for information about missing documents or audio.
Mixing fiscal years or budget document types. Certified, amended, and year-end budget records are listed separately and should be matched to the correct fiscal year.
Using the Board office for election filings. Polk County identifies the County Auditor as the office where nomination petitions for Board candidates are filed.
Confusing other county boards with the Board of Supervisors. Polk County has boards and commissions in addition to the five-member Board of Supervisors, and their records and responsibilities should be identified separately.
Information for Board Requests
When researching a Board issue through Polk County’s official systems, several details can help narrow the correct record. For district representation, identify the supervisor district. For meeting research, identify the meeting date and whether the information concerns a regular meeting or work session. For financial records, identify the fiscal year and whether the needed record is a certified budget, amended budget, year-end budget, or property-tax-dollar resolution.
For a matter involving an individual Board member, verify the supervisor’s district before using the individual email address published by Polk County. For a matter described in a news release, note the publication date and then locate the corresponding Board meeting record when the underlying agenda or minutes are needed. Keeping these identifiers separate reduces confusion between elected officials, meetings, financial documents, and other county records.
Relevant Office Contact
Polk County Board of Supervisors
Polk County Administration Building
111 Court Avenue, Room 300
Des Moines, IA 50309
(515) 286-3120
Board of Supervisors FAQs
Which political parties are represented on the Polk County Board?
Polk County’s official Board of Supervisors FAQ states that the five-member Board is made up of three Democrats and two Republicans. Party representation can change after elections or changes in membership, so residents looking for the current composition should check the county’s Board pages rather than relying on older election information.
Who is the Board chair and vice chair for 2026?
At the first official Board meeting of 2026, supervisors elected District 1 Supervisor Matt McCoy as chair and District 3 Supervisor Mark Holm as vice chair. These leadership positions are separate from the supervisors’ numbered districts: McCoy continues to represent District 1, while Holm continues to represent District 3. Residents checking leadership information for a later year should review the county’s Board news and press releases for official announcements.
Where do I apply for a Community Betterment Grant?
Polk County directs applicants to its official Community Betterment Grant system. The county’s Board FAQ provides the grant application website rather than directing applicants to an individual supervisor. Applicants should use the official county system for the current application process and requirements instead of sending an application directly to a Board member.
Is a Community Betterment Grant the same as a CDBG application?
No. Polk County lists Community Betterment Grants separately from its Community Development Block Grant program. The county’s Community Development Block Grant application identifies participating municipalities and federal program requirements, including eligible national objectives. Applicants should confirm which grant program applies to their project before preparing an application because the programs have different purposes and eligibility rules.