DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Gov. Terry Branstad is standing firm in support of the director of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services, who says no money was offered to former workers for silence about their dismissals.  Branstad, at his weekly news conference Monday, says he believes Mike Carroll when he says no money was offered to keep settlement agreements confidential.

At least two state workers have testified they were offered additional cash to remain silent about their dismissals in 2011. Carroll told a joint legislative Government Oversight Committee last week that no money was offered.

Branstad says he believes Carroll that no state agencies offered money for silence. He says the workers are disgruntled former state employees. Branstad in an executive order signed last month prohibited future confidentiality clauses in settlement agreements.

While legislators in Des Moines continue to haggle over how to raise money to repair, maintain and expand Iowa’s crumbling roads, County Engineers and others keep pressing Iowa’s leaders to increase the Gas Tax. Cass County Engineer Charles Marker is one person who hopes legislators will stop fighting over the matter and get a bill passed that will give him more money to fix the roads that he can’t fix given his current budget.

Marker says the gas tax hasn’t changed since 1989 inflation “Has been eating us [meaning the County Secondary Roads budgets] alive, because [the] Road Use Tax is two-thirds of my budget.” Marker says about half of the property tax dollars he receives locally, are used to purchase road rock. Without an increase in the RUTF, they’re falling being on getting the roads fixed. Even when property taxes go up, according to Marker, his department’s share of the money doesn’t change. He says he has been capped at his maximum Mil levy for the past 12-to 15-years, and when the property taxes go up, it’s caused by something other than Secondary Roads.

Marker says when there’s no money, there’s no improvements in road infrastructure. The Iowa County Engineer’s Association, a trucker’s  lobby, the Iowa Association of Contractors and others are lobbying for an increase in the gas tax, which Governor Branstad has said is “not popular” with Iowans. Marker disagrees. He says from what he hears, people are not opposed to improving county roads. The question remains however, “How do we fund them?” Marker says Road Use Taxes are just that – User supported – meaning they are paid by tourists, truckers and anyone who uses Iowa’s roads, when they fill-up with gasoline, in the state.

Marker understand no one wants to pay more for gas, especially with the day-to-day fluctuations in prices, the gas tax is something that – if approved – would be spread out over a period of three- years. The one-time 10-cent increase would be phased-in three-cents for both the first and second years and four-cents the third year.

He also wanted to dispel rumors that funds derived from the tax would be used for anything other than road repairs. Marker says that’s simply not the case. If the misconception were alleviated, there would be an up-swell of support among the public in favor of the specifically designated tax.

In an update to our earlier story, authorities in Harrison County say a Harlan man was transported by Medivac ambulance to Myrtue Memorial Hospital in Harlan, following a collision Sunday night, about three-miles west of Portsmouth.36-year old Eric Robert Lidgett, of Harlan, was a passenger in a 1999 Toyota Corolla that hit the back of a wagon being pulled by a tractor. Two other people in the car, 23-year old Shawn Mosher and 19-year old Brett Ballantyne, both of Harlan, were also injured, but did not require transport to the hospital.

Officials say the car, driven by 25-year old Kyle Tearney, of Tennant, was traveling east on Highway 44 at around 8:20-p.m., when the vehicle crested a hill near Vienna Avenue and quickly came upon an eastbound slow moving tractor pulling a wagon. Tearney slammed on the brakes and took evasive action but the car, registered to Sarah Koester, of Harlan, struck the wagon, causing minor damage to the wagon, and $3,000 damage to the car. Tearney, and the operator of the 1974 Farmall tractor, 58-year old Bruce Bruck, of Portsmouth, was not injured.

Police in Red Oak report one person was arrested this (Monday) morning on a drug charge. 31-year old Terence Chevy Magill, of Red Oak, was arrested following a traffic stop at 130th Street and Highway 48. Magill was taken into custody at around 6:10-a.m. on a Possession of Drug Paraphernalia charge. He was being held in the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Center on $300 bond.