This Week at the Statehouse - Week 13

Less than two weeks to the "target" adjournment date of April 21. The focus this week shifted to budgets and major policy pieces that are the hurdles to get over before the end of session. Other policy work was minor, as much of floor debate was focused on reconciling differences on amendments that had been passed between the House and Senate on various bills the past few weeks.  

Budget Bills on the Move

The Senate moved most of their budget bills through committee on Wednesday making them eligible for floor debate.  The House introduced their first couple of budget bills, but haven't released an overall budget target, yet.  It's also worth noting that the Senate has stated that the bills they are moving are the governor's proposed numbers and to expect amendments from the Senate revising those numbers at some point.

Here are the proposed changes (increases or decreases) - all other Regents lines are status quo from FY26:

This week also saw the session’s first floor action on a property tax proposal. The Senate debated their proposal on Wednesday and passed SF 2472 to the House with a 41-4 vote. 

The pieces are falling into place to wrap up session, but it remains to be seen how long it’ll take for everything to line up. Floor debate will continue, focusing mostly on bills that have bounced between the chambers to finalize amendments.  The House will likely be continuing their introduction of budget bills next week, and the property tax bill having passed the Senate will be seeing some discussion in the House now.  The biggest remaining questions at this point are what will happen with the eminent domain/pipeline issue and what other policy issues will rise to the surface (or resurface) of importance to finish the session.  

Each week the spreadsheet below will be updated to show the latest action on the many bills that the Board of Regents staff is tracking throughout this session. Some of the below bills may not apply specifically to UNI, but we closely monitoring legislation all session that may affect our students, faculty, and campuses at all three institutions. We have been collaborating with lawmakers to ensure UNI’s voice is heard and will continue to advocate for initiatives that support our mission.

Bills that have passed both chambers and will go to the governor for signature:

Updated list of bills still alive for the session:

Bills in Appropriations and Ways and Means committees are "funnel proof," meaning they also survive the funnel. They will require passage by their respective committees to be eligible for floor debate. Here is a list of those bills: