Government : In the Statehouse

January 30, 2016

Our third week was great. I worked on everything from school funding and the Rock Island Clean Line to the supervision of Physician's Assistants by doctors and then ended with city wastewater systems...with lots in between. Five bills I was assigned dealt with moving county elected officials to not Democrat or Republican. After putting out an emergency question to my newsletter email list, I received hundreds of good and thoughtful responses that helped in our decision making. Up to that point, I had only heard from people in the county positions and it was important to hear what the person walking into the courthouse might think. The feedback came back almost evenly. With a few exceptions and many more thoughtful responses, the electeds overwhelmingly were against making them non-partisan positions. The Associations for the County Treasurer and County Recorders were against and the County Auditor/County Sheriff/County Attorneys came back undecided because their membership was split. During the subcommittee, the Association of Counties said they would research what other states do and we tabled the bills until we received that information. Late Friday they got back to us and only 8 states are non-partisan. Rep. Mascher, who is on the subcommittee, said, "What problem are we trying to fix here?" and out of all the feedback, not one person said the county offices acted in a partisan manner, but they did their job for everyone. Great news! That would have been a problem to fix. As the chair of the subcommittee, I'm going to indefinitely table these bills. But the conversation was worth having and I very much appreciate the input we received. Thank you! On the first day of the week, we voted to raise the per pupil amount a school district receives from the state to $6,575 from $6,446. This amounts to almost $81 million dollars. Already I'm hearing from school districts they will have to make cuts if we stick to the $6,575. Once again, we come out of the gate with what we can do. Not like a car salesman who wants to negotiate, the honest amount we can do and with the new revenue estimate it will strap us. I hope we can take care of this quickly so the schools can get on with their budgeting process.

Regarding the physician assistants (PA), nobody knows more than we do how important they are to health care access in rural areas. Their valued services in our communities and our respect for their work is unquestionable. I’m not sure if you know that a doctor can have under their license 5 PAs and they are to supervise them to make sure you receive good care. Currently the supervising doctor has to visit with their PA in person, at the minimum twice a month.

Last March, the PA Board came to the rules committee with a rule to take away the ‘in person’ supervision requirement saying it was too hard to meet for the doctors. At the same meeting, the Board of Medicine and DRs came to testify and vehemently opposed the rule change saying not only was it not too hard, it was necessary. After several meetings of the same and denying their rule change, we told them to work together to decide what the minimum supervision should be. Keep in mind, Iowa is the only state in the nation that allows the PAs to decide what their supervision is.

Almost a year and many meetings later, there is a tentative agreement of ‘in person’ supervision, to twice a year and some are still fighting for none. But from twice a month to twice a year, I would say they have made some headway. We have a bill in Human Resources to require the doctors to say what supervision is, instead of the PAs. This would bring our law into line with the other 49 states and prevent this from happening again. We can’t forget, the doctor’s license is on the line if something should go wrong with a patient’s care. Will let you know what happens. You all know I've been working on the senior meal shortage and have had the Fill the Plate telethon for the last four years. December's telethon raised $105,000, but the Area Agency on Aging met with me on Thursday regarding the remaining $115,000 shortage over our 7 county area. This breaks my heart. Don't worry about Benton and Iowa counties, because we had enough donations directed to cover our people. Still. Linn and Johnson will be hit pretty hard. If you have any ideas on raising dollars to help them, let me know and I will drag you in to help too!

If you're visiting the Capitol, please let me know a couple of days ahead of time and we can get together. There were great visitors from home this week. Some I got to see and unfortunately, some I didn't. You can let me know at dawn.pettengill@legis.iowa.gov or 515-281-6879. Victoria, who keeps me on track, will make it happen. Finally, Senator Kapucian and I will be in Shellsburg next Saturday, February 6th, at the American Legion for a Listening Post from 1:30 - 3:00. Stop in, we'd love to visit with you.