Butler County legislators hold virtual forum

Iowa Representatives Shannon Latham and Pat Grassley and Iowa Senator Amanda Ragan met with Butler County constituents on Friday, March 5, for a virtual meeting about the latest happenings in the state legislature.

Unable to have their usual open forum at the Allison Library, Butler County REC and Farm Bureau worked with Grassley's staff to organize a virtual meeting over Zoom.

The legislature has just finished with "funnel week" where it gets decide which bills in various committees get moved forward to the full chamber for debate.

Grassley said he expects to see floor debate on major issues like the Governor's broadband expansion plan and biofuel legislation.

"I think there's work that needs to be done on it," said Ragan. "At this point we are just fortunate that it is moving forward."

One of the issues Ragan touched on is population decline, particularly in rural areas, citing a recent study that shows a downward trend in the area and coming up with ways to address it.

"One of the things that it did show was that there was a little bit of a decline in our area. Hopefully we can work on some progress in putting together things that will keep people in the state," said Ragan. "I think it's important especially to invest in education."

Local economic development is a priority in the house as well, with Latham agreeing on the need for more investment in programs that support the local workforce.

"I think those six childcare bills will help do that as well," said Latham. "It's obviously a problem. We can't send people to work if they don't have quality, affordable childcare."

Moving into the Q&A portion of the meeting, the legislators addressed the state's housing shortage and how that also affects area economic development.

"I believe there will be legislation down the pipe that also address that," said Ragan.

"That is a significant issue," said Grassley, who explained that some of the bill looks at making improvements on existing housing stock as well as building new. "I think we need to not only have new construction, but we also need to be willing to invest in that where a much smaller investment becomes a livable piece of property."

The legislators also heard from Herb Copley with the Iowa State Letter Carriers, who asked about the reasoning behind the changes to the state's election system working through the house.

Latham was not those particular committees, but did note that sometimes not to address problems, but to prevent them.

"I believe Iowa has a really good election system in place," Latham. "That doesn't mean there couldn't be some improvements made."

Grassley chimed in, noting that the new laws are in response to a small number of auditors that challenged the laws in place during the last election.

"We pass laws all the time for a small segment of the population," said Grassley. "Almost all the auditors are doing a good job, but it would be very hard to craft a bill where we just punished one or two of them by name."

On mental health, the legislators discussed state support, particularly in how the state could more directly fund programs to ease the burden on area property taxes. Grassley said there is some interest in having the state provide property tax relief without doing away with the levy entirely.

"I think that the state does need to step up and provide some more support in reducing that burden on property taxes," said Grassley. "My fear would be the state getting into a position where if we were to go and pick up 100%, which there are legislators and groups that are asking us to do, my fear would be that we're going to have a program which we are funding completely and then we have very little say as far as what it would be."

Both Grassley and Ragan noted that making a large scale change to the state's mental health system would be a large endeavor that would likely take multiple sessions to fully tackle.

"Some of these regions are adding access centers now and when they do that, there's going to be costs to that," said Ragan. "Finding out who is going to be responsible for that, it's going to be a complex system to change anything over."

Telehealth was also brought up, bringing the conversation back around to broadband expansion.

"It's great to be able to talk on the phone, it's a whole other level to be able to see somebody," said Latham. "I think that's what broadband can help with as well. To get people connected with services."

The legislators have been working on broadband expansion to meet the Governor's plan and so far expect to see something passed with bi-partisan support.

The broadband expansion ideas in Des Moines also seems to have the approval of Roger Kregel of the Dumont Telephone Company, but he did raise a concern with a bill that would prevent local providers from charging for services to county apps.

Finally, teachers JoAnn Hardy brought forward criticisms of the efforts currently being made to offer private education vouchers, particularly for students in what the Governor has described as "failing schools."

"The correct term is to say they are schools in need of assistance and I would like to see us giving them the assistance to be more successful instead of handing out vouchers that will take students out of those schools and decrease their income which will just multiply their problems," said Hardy.

Offering her point-of-view as a semi-retired educator, Susan Bangert expressed her concerns with the voucher plan, noting that many rural Iowans don't have a choice in the first place and that these types of legislation demoralize

"They're leaving in droves," said Banger. "We need to keep those good public teachers that are excellent in place, and pay them, and not making them struggle."

Grassley pointed out that the state has been investing heavily in public education, estimating roughly $15,000 a year per student in the state.

"I understand that there's been pushback about public money going to private, and I understand that, but I'm also not convinced that just more money into these schools in need of assistance is going to fix the problem either," said Grassley. "If it was just more money, I think the significant increases that we've seen in education funding over the last ten years would have began to address that."