Government : Hello, Iowa House District 84 from the State Capitol! The self-imposed date fo

The self-imposed date for the legislature to finish sessions on even years is 100 days, which this year is April 21st and fast approaching.  We continue to pass bills and the Appropriations and Ways & Means committees continued to work on budgets this last week.

One of the top agenda items from last year and now this year is property tax reform.  I’m confident the house and senate will eventually agree on a bill to help government budgets be more efficient across the state.  

Speaking of efficiency, the Iowa House Government Oversight Committee was given a presentation by Tyler Technologies, a company from Texas that has a lot of experience working with the public sector.  This company would look at county and school district budgets across the state and compares how the dollars are spent by line-item.  It will make these comparisons of similar size and demographics – apples to apples.  This will be done using AI and would take only weeks where it most likely would have taken years otherwise without AI!  

Tyler Tech gave an example of results achieved by its services for a county in Florida.  This county budget was spending far more than a comparable county and discovered it was spending about $1 million more for bags of mulch instead of buying in bulk.  You can go here:  https://present.pbblab.com/tyler-county to see an example of data from a county in another state.  This has the potential of providing much more transparency for how taxpayers are having their money spent and where savings can be made.

The Iowa House passed HF 2748, otherwise known as Iowa’s farm bill and does many things to help farmers. It expands the Retired Farmer Lease Income Exclusion to allow retired farmers over 55 years old who lease their land via partnerships, S corporations, or trusts to deduct that lease income from their Iowa individual income tax.  It repeals the excise tax of $0.00025 per bushel on all grain handled in the state.  This will amount to about $1.4 million in annual savings for the industry.  

The bill increases the maximum weight allowed for annual fluid milk haulers from 96,000 pounds to 136,000 pounds.  This will provide more efficiency for transportation by reducing the number of trips required and lowering fuel and labor costs for dairy operations.  It also expands property tax exemptions for above ground fuel or liquid fertilizer storage tanks that are 91,000 gallons or less.  HF 2748 is now under consideration in the senate chamber.

Iowa House Republicans continue to focus on ways to ensure our communities are safe places to live and raise your family.  HF 2753 intends to ensure our prison system can handle any increase in capacity.  In 2009, Iowa took out bonds to build the new state prison in Fort Madison, and those will be paid off by 2027.  After these bonds are paid off, a new prison infrastructure account will be created where two-thirds of the amount used for bond payments will go into a new prison infrastructure account, and one-third will go towards reducing recidivism.  

Hope you have a safe and healthy week!