Government : Hello, Iowa House District 84 from the State Capitol!

4th grade Students from Central Lutheran School, Newhall have field trip to the Capitol.  Seated is teacher Mrs. Melanie Maddick.

Central Lutheran School 4th graders and parents learn about the Iowa Constitution on display in Secretary of State Paul Pate’s office.

The Iowa legislature has been in session 15 weeks, and the 110th day signifying our target date of being done is this Friday, May 2nd. We are working on budgets for the next fiscal year, where the house budget proposals are a little bit higher than the governor's budget she proposed in January, and the senate having the lowest of the three. These are all subject to change in the coming days, so I'll provide more detailed information as we work through our negotiations.

The Iowa House Republicans have continued to pass bills that help with childcare access. House File 962 removes the cap on income for the Iowa child and dependent care tax credit, so all families with an income over $25,000 will be eligible. We also passed HF 991, which intends to allow childcare facilities to be taxed at the residential rate instead of the commercial rate. Currently, childcare providers that provide these services outside of their home pay commercial property taxes and a 90% rollback rate, meaning 90% of their assessed value of their property.

The house also passed HF 303, which intends to speed up access to healthcare by shortening up the amount of time insurance companies to approve a medical procedure or medicine. Prior authorization is shortened to 48 hours maximum for urgent requests and will allow up to 10 days for nonurgent requests, or no more than 15 days for a complex or unique situation such as high-volume requests.

On the minds of many Iowans is the cancer rate. Radon has been determined to be the second leading cause of lung cancer and Iowa has the unfortunate distinction of being the worst state in the country for radon levels. We passed HF 1027 to address this by creating a tax credit for up to $1000 to be applied to the costs of installing a radon mitigation system.

The house and senate are determined to protect our youth, and SF 150 increases penalties for any person purchasing or possessing child pornography. If a person has multiple pornographic images of the same child, the new bill can result in multiple charges.

These are just a few of the bills we passed this last week. 23 were by unanimous support, 21 were passed with bipartisan support, and none were along party line. We in the house are still working on property taxes. Property taxes are very complex, and county residents might have to decide what budget or service could be reduced. If you would like to share an idea, please email me at Thomas.gerhold@legis.iowa.gov.

On Friday, April 25th, I had the pleasure of meeting with 4th graders from Central Lutheran School in Newhall and showing off the Capitol. The students were very enthusiastic and impressed with what I call the most majestic building in Iowa!

Have a safe and healthy week and support our local businesses. This Friday, May 2nd, the Belle Plaine American Legion is having a fish, shrimp, or combo fry from 5 to 7pm at the Legion, 1208 12th Street in Belle Plaine. Please join if you can - they do a great job!!