This Week at the Statehouse – Week 12

We are seeing signs that the end of the legislative session is nearing. There is a lot of time waiting for debate to happen while legislators are in caucus for hours going over all the bills on their respective debate calendars. There is some floor debate and committee work on bills that pertain to budgeting or taxes. Some of the controversial policy bills are being sent to the other chamber for consideration.

We are still waiting for the Senate to start debating on the state budget. The 100th day of the 2022 General Assembly is April 19, which is also the lawmaker’s last day to receive their per diem pay.

This week, the House passed their education budget bill, HF 2575, by a vote of 58-36. The bill freezes all three Regent universities’ operating budgets for the next fiscal year, FY 2023, which starts July 1, 2022, and creates a new $12 million scholarship program within the Iowa College Student Aid Commission for Iowa resident students who attend a Regent university. The bill also provides a new $300,000 appropriation for UNI@DMACC. The House amended the bill and:

• Removed most of the reporting requirements for the Board of Regents to the General Assembly. If this language remains in the final budget bill, the Board will continue to require the universities to report on their activities, which includes all the financials, income and expenditures as well as grants and gifts, economic development activities, and all things relevant to student development, enrollment and graduation rates. The reports will still be made to the Board of Regents; the Board has a statutory governance role to ensure that the institutions it governs complies with the statutory requirements imposed by the Legislature. The bill is now in the Senate Appropriations Committee awaiting a subcommittee meeting.
• Requires the college student aid commission, in collaboration with the Iowa department of public health, to convene a task force that will study how to consolidate and improve health-related student financial assistance programs and submit a report by December 15, 2022.
• Requires the Board of Regents to issue a request for proposals for a higher education needs assessment for northwest Iowa, including the Sioux City area. The objectives of the assessment is to determine the current and long-term demands for various undergraduate and graduate degree programs and certificates in northwest Iowa, determine the current and future demands for higher education programming from the Western Iowa Regents Resource Center and the center’s capacity to respond to current and future demands for higher education programming, and to identify the information necessary to ensure that efforts to meet current and future higher education demands in northwest Iowa are effective, efficient, and responsive to the higher education needs of the students and stakeholders of the region and the postsecondary institutions that serve the area. The assessment is to separately assess and determine the current and long-term prospects for online learning and distance education in both undergraduate and graduate degree programs for students residing within Iowa and out of state. The results and recommendations must be reported to the General Assembly by October 1, 2023.

In the House, HF 2580 was voted out of the House Appropriations Committee. The bill relates to AEAs and professional development, and includes a requirement that the legislature create their own committee during the 2022 and 2023 legislative interim, to review teacher practitioner preparation programs. The bill is currently on the House floor awaiting debate.

The Senate passed SF 2377 by a vote of 49-0. The bill provides an alternative pathway for teacher licensure. It also adjusts the Teach Iowa scholar program and the use of revenues from the school district management levy. The bill is in the House Ways and Means Committee with a subcommittee meeting scheduled for Tuesday, April 5.

Civics instruction requirements are different in the House bill HF 2577, which passed the House and is in the Senate, and the Senate bill SF 2369, which passed the Senate and is now in the House. The House requires the most recent version of the civics test developed by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services be used as the assessment of student’s knowledge of US government and civics, and on or before June 30 of each year, each school district and nonpublic school must submit the results of the assessment to the Department of Education. The Senate bill also requires a student answer at least 70% of the questions on the civics test correctly as a condition of graduation from high school. A student who fails to answer at least 70% of the questions correctly may retake the civics test as many times as necessary.

If you have any questions, please email me at mary.braun@uni.edu.