Fact Checker: Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds scores an ‘A’ and an ‘F’ on AEA claims

Gov. Kim Reynolds was a guest Jan. 19 on “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS and spoke about her legislative priorities for this year.

One of the most contentious proposals has been her plan to limit the role of area education agencies and allow school districts to go elsewhere — like to other AEAs or private companies — to find support for special education and other school needs.

The Fact Checker is reviewing two statements Reynolds made on “Iowa Press” about the structure and leader compensation of the state’s AEAs.

“Right now we have nine AEA districts, nine chiefs, and they were making on an average when you look at their total compensation package, about $310,000 each,” Reynolds told moderators, including The Gazette’s Erin Murphy.

When Murphy asked Reynolds whether Iowa needed nine AEAs, she said no. She dismissed a suggestion that further study was needed before making changes.

“Well, we did a study in 2011,” she said. “That's, you know, the danger of the study. The study gets done. It recommended that time, I think, going from nine down to five. We used to have 15. We went to nine.”

Analysis

When the Fact Checker asked the Governor’s Office for information about the compensation figures Reynolds quoted, spokesman Kollin Crompton sent a spreadsheet of 2023-2024 salaries and benefits received by the chief administrators of the nine agencies.

The total compensation and benefits, including health benefits and retirement contributions, ranged from $264,451 for Stan Rheingans, who leads the Keystone AEA in far Northeast Iowa to $354,289 for William Decker, chief of the Mississippi Bend AEA based in the Quad Cities, who will retire next week.

The average compensation for the nine AEA chiefs this year is $312,273, according to the Basic Educational Data Survey collected by the Iowa Department of Education and shared by the Governor’s Office. Grant Wood AEA said the numbers reported for their agency are mostly correct. Heartland AEA said Chief Cindy Yelick’s benefits were slightly lower than what was reported.

Reynolds is right when she says the leaders of Iowa’s nine AEAs are compensated in total an average of about $310,000 each.

The context missing from this raw number is the scope of the job and how the compensation compares with other education leaders in Iowa.

The Grant Wood AEA serves 74,000 students in public and accredited non-public schools in seven counties in Eastern Iowa, including Linn and Johnson, and employs about 500 staff.

The Cedar Rapids Community School District, which is part of the Grant Wood AEA, pays Superintendent Tawana Grover a $305,000 base salary, plus benefits that include health and dental insurance, dependent care expenses, a medical reimbursement account (or additional salary) and $600 a month for use of her car for work duties. She oversees a district with 31 schools and about 14,700 students. The district has about 3,100 employees.

The Grant Wood AEA board voted this week to share Chief Administrator John Speer with the Mississippi Bend AEA through June 30 since Decker is retiring. Speer is paid a total of $340,850, which includes a base salary of $227,041, additional compensation of $28,963 and benefits.

In Iowa’s largest school district, Ian Roberts was hired in May to lead Des Moines Public Schools at an annual base salary of $270,000, not including other benefits.

AEA administrator pay was examined as part of the 2011 task force study Reynolds mentioned on “Iowa Press.”

“Because AEA chief administrators are required to have the same certification as LEA (local education agency) superintendents, the compensation for salaries and benefits would be expected to be comparable between organizations of similar enrollment and size,” the report noted.

The Iowa Area Education Agency Task Force found the 2010-2011 compensation of AEA chiefs and the superintendents of Iowa’s 20 largest districts was comparable.

Grade: We give Reynolds an A on the compensation claim.

Let’s move on to the claim that the 2011 study recommended scaling back the number of AEAs in Iowa.

The 42-page report, which includes another 57 pages of references and appendices, lists 25 recommendations about how to improve AEAs through funding, communication and transparency, among other means.

The report says there were 15 AEAs when the agencies were started in 1975. Legislation in 2000 allowed for voluntary mergers, and by 2010 the 15 agencies had become nine.

But nowhere in the report is there a recommendation to reduce the number of AEAs. The Governor’s Office did not reply to an email asking whether Reynolds could have gotten her information from somewhere else.

One recommendation in the report said the AEAs should consider where consolidation of physical service centers, such as print shops and media centers, would bring more efficiency while still providing the same services to school districts. But that’s a far cry from Reynolds’s claim that the 2011 study recommended the state go down to five AEAs.

Grade: F

Conclusion

The Fact Checker isn’t checking whether Iowa “needs” nine AEAs, because that’s a matter of opinion.

Reynolds was right when she said Iowa’s nine AEA chiefs receive an average of about $310,000 a year in pay and benefits. That’s a big number compared with Iowa’s 2022 median per capita income of about $38,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However it’s on par with compensation of superintendents in Iowa’s largest school districts.

Reynolds brought up the 2011 study of AEAs, it appears, to say studies often don’t result in major changes. But she quotes incorrectly from that study, which did not recommend reducing the number of agencies.

Averaging an A and an F, we give Reynolds a C overall.

Criteria

The Fact Checker team checks statements made by an Iowa political candidate or officeholder or a national candidate/officeholder about Iowa, or in advocacy ads that appear in our market.

Claims must be independently verifiable. We give statements grades from A to F based on accuracy and context.

If you spot a claim you think needs checking, email us at factchecker@thegazette.com.

Members of the Fact Checker team are Tom Barton, Elijah Decious, Erin Jordan and Vanessa Miller. This Fact Checker was researched and written by Erin Jordan.