May 15, 2018

The Iowa Legislature Adjourns: End of Session Highlights

The 2018 Iowa Legislature adjourned on Saturday, May 5th. From this date, Governor Reynolds has 30 days to sign or veto legislation. Here are highlights of legislation adopted this year that have an impact on UNI.

SF 2117 Mid-Year Deappropriations bill for Fiscal Year (FY) 18

  • Cuts $10.9 million of current year funding to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University; specifically included language to hold UNI harmless from any mid-year budget cuts.

SF 2415 Education Budget bill for FY 19

  • Appropriated a new, lump-sum $8.3 million to the Board of Regents for allocation to the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and UNI. The funds are to specifically support new strategic initiatives, meet enrollment increases, meet the demand for new courses and services, to fund new but unavoidable or mandated cost increases, and to support any other initiatives important to the core functions of the universities.
  • All UNI budget line-items are funded at the same level as FY 18: 
    • General Operating Budget funded at $93,712,362 
    • Recycling and Reuse Center funded at $175,256 
    • Governor's STEM Advisory Council funded at $5,446,375 
    • Real Estate Education Program funded at $125,302

 HF 2493 Economic Development Budget bill for FY 19

  • Status quo funding for UNI’s business and community services (BCS) from the Skilled Worker and Job Creation Fund. This includes $1,066,419 for UNI’s economic development programs, where at least $617,638 of this amount is to be allocated to support entrepreneurs through the Center for Business Growth and Innovation and Advance Iowa. Expenditures for research must go toward projects that will provide economic stimulus for Iowa and emphasis must also be provided to services to Iowa-based companies.
  • The Regents Innovation Fund is also provided status quo funding of $3 million to the three public universities where $900,000 is allocated to UNI.

SF 2414 Infrastructure Budget bill

  • No funding to UNI for the renovation and modernization of the Industrial Technology Center. We had requested $36.2 million over three years. We've laid some great groundwork and in the year ahead we are encouraging legislators and legislative staff to tour the building in the hopes of securing this funding next year.

HF 2502 Standings and Miscellaneous Budget Bill

  • Makes changes to the Iowa Energy Center’s funding. Currently, gas and electric utilities collect an assessment from customers and remit the funds to the State with 85% of the amount collected appropriated to the Iowa Energy Center and 15% to the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research. Last year, legislation was enacted to discontinue this remittance to the state starting July 1, 2022.  HF 2502 changes how the funding to the Iowa Energy Center will be allocated, as follows:
    • FY 2019 – All to the Energy Center
    • FY 2020 – the first $1.28 million to the State’s general fund, with the remainder to the Center
    • FY 2021 – the first $2.91 million to the State’s general fund, with the remainder to the Center
    • FY 2022 - the first $3.53 million to the State’s general fund, with the remainder to the Center

Other policy bills of interest:

HF 648 – Makes technical changes to Iowa’s career and technical education programs and partnerships law. The bill went into effect upon enactment of April 26, 2018.

HF 2235 – Requires the K-12 statewide assessment be developed by the Iowa Testing program within the University of Iowa.

HF 2253 – Construction projects and improvements built by a private contractor under a lease or a lease-purchase contract with the Board of Regents and other state and local governmental agencies would be subject to the same competitive bidding requirements currently in law as they relate to contract bidding. The bill applies to lease-purchase contracts entered into on and after April 4, 2018.

HF 2297 – Makes changes to when boilers and water heaters need to be inspected.

HF 2354 – Restricts third parties who receive K-12 student data from using it for targeted advertising.

HF 2390 – American Sign Language would be considered a world language to meet accreditation standards, as part of a foreign language class taught in Iowa high schools.

HF 2458 – Implements the Governor’s Future Ready Iowa recommendation to help 70 percent of Iowa's workforce have education, training or recognized certification beyond high school by 2025. The scholarship programs contained in the bill are effective on July 1, 2019.

SF 385 – Makes revisions to the uniform athlete agents law.

SF 475 – Provides several changes to Department of Education requirements. Contained in the bill is a provision that requires a financial literacy course for all high school students before they graduate, starting July 1, 2019 (this language was amended in SF 2415, the education budget bill). The bill also allows all of Iowa’s 333 school districts to have an online program.

SF 481 – Requires enforcement of immigration laws and prohibits sanctuary cities.

SF 2113 – By July 1, 2019, school boards would be required to have one hour of nationally recognized training on suicide prevention and post intervention for all licensed school personnel who have contact with students in grades K-12.

SF 2114 – Moves the teacher preparation requirements within the Board of Educational Examiners Code Sections to the Department of Education Code Sections.

SF 2131 – Allows home-schooled children to take classes from Iowa Learning Online, at their own expense. An Area Education Agency Online Learning Working Group is established where the AEAs, in collaboration with the community colleges and the department of education, identify effective means by which students may access educational instruction and content online and identify partnerships between existing providers of rigorous and high-quality online coursework. They are to report their findings to the Governor and Legislature by October 15, 2018.

SF 2235 – Creates a criminal penalty for critical infrastructure sabotage, which includes any publicly owned land and buildings.

SF 2318 - Relates to the issuance of high school credit for satisfactory completion of high school-level units of instruction.

SF 2360 – Creates a Dyslexia Task Force, which over the next 18 months is to come up with recommendations relating to dyslexia response. The recommendations must include student screening, interventions, teacher preparation and professional development, classroom accommodations, and assistive technology. UNI will provide a higher education representative on the task force and a representative of the University of Iowa Reading Research Center will also be on the task force.