How did Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ legislative agenda fare this year?

DES MOINES — Speaking to lawmakers at the beginning of this year's legislative session, Gov. Kim Reynolds promised a "bold vision" for Iowa: raising teacher pay, overhauling the agencies that help deliver special education, cutting taxes and reorganizing large state health care and administrative systems.

The Republican governor proposed more than a dozen bills this year dealing with health care, education, economic growth and the structure of government to fellow Republicans who control both chambers of the Iowa Legislature. She was able to usher in many of her proposals largely as written — but with others, like the one dealing with special education, undergoing significant rewrites.

That special education proposal was the cornerstone of Reynolds’ agenda this year. She proposed to reorganize the funding and function of the state’s area education agencies — of which there are now nine — that provide special education and other services to Iowa school districts. The bill met significant resistance within her own party, as House Republicans initially tabled the bill.

Ultimately a compromise was reached, retaining the AEAs as the state’s primary special education providers.

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That same law also set the starting salary for Iowa teachers at $50,000 by 2026, increasing starting pay from its rank at the bottom half in the nation to among the highest. Current starting salary for Iowa teachers is $33,500.

Reynolds also proposed a major tax bill that would have set a flat state income tax at 3.5 percent by next year. That bill saw significant changes as well: Leading Republican lawmakers settled on a plan that instead sets a 3.8 percent flat tax next year, which Reynolds then signed into law.

Other tax measures in Reynolds' bill, including changes to the unemployment tax employers pay and cutting property taxes for child care centers, did not make it into the final law.

During a news conference Wednesday, Reynolds said she felt good about the results of this year's session. She said her office was working on nearly 20 bills going into the legislative session, joking that it was “way too many.”

“We took on a lot, and I really feel good about where we landed,” Reynolds said. “I’m really proud of the fact that we passed the largest teacher salary increase in the history of the state.”

Democrats argued during the session that Reynolds’ agenda was politically motivated and did not address the major needs of Iowans in areas like housing, health care and wages. They took specific aim at the proposed AEA changes, saying they served corporate interests and would weaken special education in Iowa.

House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, noted as the session came to a close that Republican lawmakers did not come into the session with AEA reform being a major goal.

“The governor runs this building with Republicans. Her agenda, her politics, always center stage,” Konfrst said. “I continue to remind my colleagues that we are a separate branch of government, and that we don't work for the governor. But the Republican leadership and Republican legislators sure act like we do.”

House Speaker Pat Grassley signaled support for Reynolds' policy agenda as the session ended, but he noted lawmakers reviewed and made changes to some of her proposals.

“The governor laid out a very bold agenda when it came to things like the AEA issue, and we were able to work with all interested parties to, I think, really land in a really good place,” Grassley said. "... Not every single priority that's laid out, but some of those really high-profile ones, we were able to advance the ball on those."

Area education agencies, literacy

Education has been at the fore in Reynolds’ legislative agendas in recent years, and last year she guided the passage of a private school choice program expected to cost $179 million next year.

This year, Reynolds’ initial plan for the area education agencies would have eliminated their services outside of special education support and diverted nearly all their funding to school districts. The districts would then have had the option to contract with an AEAs or an outside party for services.

After hearing from parents of students with disabilities and educators, legislative Republicans landed on a proposal that will require schools spend 90 percent of their state special education funding with the AEAs. Districts eventually will receive the full amount that the AEAs now receive for media and education services, and they will have broad discretion over where and how to spend it.

Reynolds said previously the final law, which she signed in March, was a “phenomenal place to start” toward restructuring special education delivery.

For Democrats, Reynolds’ education agenda has been a constant target, as they’ve argued her policies have transferred large swaths of tax dollars from public schools to unaccountable institutions.

Democrats pointed to dozens of AEA staff who have either resigned or retired this year, citing the new law as a motivating reason.

“Imagine what will happen next year,” Konfrst said. “So many unintended consequences here, and will really continue to hurt our rural communities especially. … In rural Iowa, when you’ve got small districts, the AEAs provide those services that can’t otherwise be afforded because you’ve got one child who needs them.”

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Reynolds said the AEA system is changing as a result of the law, but she noted it will be a slow transition as funding for media services, education services and special education gradually change hands.

Some of the staff leaving the AEAs, she said, will likely be employed at the state Department of Education under the new Special Education Division that will oversee the agencies. Lawmakers transferred $10 million from the AEAs this year to the education department, which will in part support 62 new full-time employees for special education oversight.

“It’s still going to be bumpy. I’m not naive,” Reynolds said. “But they really want to provide the best service that they can for the kids, so we’re putting the kids front and center. When you do that … you’ll be surprised at where we can go.”

Reynolds also made literacy instruction a focus this year. She proposed a bill that would allow parents to hold students back in school if they are not reading proficiently by third grade, and require a Massachusetts reading instruction test of all teachers educated at Iowa’s public universities.

Though that bill saw some changes in the Legislature, it retained components requiring schools to create personalized reading plans for students who are behind and allowing parents to hold a student back who is not reading at grade level. Reynolds has not yet signed the bill into law.

“It makes all the difference in the world. And so we want to make sure that our teachers have the tools, with the science of reading,” she said. “I’m really excited about the effort that we put into that.”

Health care initiatives

Reynolds proposed several health care and social services initiatives this year, including reorganizing the state’s behavioral health system, extending postpartum Medicaid coverage while lowering the eligibility threshold and making birth control available without a prescription.

Two of those proposals that did not pass were the birth control measure and a proposal to provide paid parental leave to state employees. Reynolds said she was disappointed the paid leave bill did not pass, which she proposed for the second time this year.

“What century do we live in, for Heaven’s sake?” Reynolds asked. “They get nothing. I want young people to experience the opportunity to work for state government and to serve Iowans.”

The bill would have given four weeks of paid leave to an employee who gave birth and one week to a new parent who did not. Reynolds said she intends to propose the bill again next year.

One of Reynolds’ agenda items that passed, which she has not yet signed into law, will allow some new mothers to receive postpartum care under Medicaid for 12 months after giving birth, an increase from the two months currently offered.

But the bill will change the income threshold for pregnant women to qualify for Medicaid coverage from 375 percent of the poverty line — the most generous in the nation — to 215 percent. An estimated 1,700 women and infants will no longer qualify for Medicaid coverage each month under the new eligibility level.

The behavioral health system redesign, which Reynolds also has not yet signed, will eliminate Iowa's existing mental health and substance use treatment networks and bring the services under a unified behavioral health network, with seven regions administered by local agencies.

Reynolds' health officials said during the session that money for those services was not being efficiently spent, and centralizing the system will improve service delivery.

Opioid settlement spending

Reynolds proposed one of several competing proposals to spend money out of the state's Opioid Settlement Fund, which holds more than $25 million won in lawsuit settlements with companies over their role in fueling the opioid crisis.

The bill called for about $20 million in spending on specific projects. Lawmakers debated different proposals in the final hours of the session but failed to reach an agreement — leaving the funds unspent for the second year in a row.

Defining 'woman' in law

Later in the session, Reynolds proposed a bill that would define terms like “man,” “woman,” “male” and “female” in state law to reflect a person’s sex assigned at birth. Lawmakers did not pass it.

The bill caused an outcry from transgender and LGBTQ Iowans, who said it was an attempt to erase transgender people and discriminate against them. An early version of the bill would have required a transgender person’s driver’s license to include both their pre- and post-transition sex. That bill passed out of a House committee, but it was not brought up for a vote and died.

Cutting down boards and commissions

Following up on a large state government reorganization law she signed last year, Reynolds proposed a bill this year to reorganize the boards and commissions that oversee administrative rules and large expanses of the state government.

Rather than taking up Reynolds’ bill, House Republicans proposed a much slimmer bill that would eliminate the boards and commissions that had only bipartisan consensus. Through negotiations with Senate Republicans, who took up Reynolds’ bill as proposed, lawmakers passed an agreement that to eliminate or merge more than 70 boards and commissions.

Among those boards being eliminated are minority-focused commissions serving the African American community, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, Latinos, women and persons with disabilities. The bill also takes rulemaking authorities away from several boards, vesting it instead in the executive agencies that oversee them, which report to the governor.

“It just kind of follows along what we’ve been trying to do to streamline state government,” Reynolds said of the bill.

Foreign land ownership

As scrutiny increases among national policymakers over entities from countries like China owning land in the United States, Reynolds proposed, and signed, a bill that increases restrictions on foreign owners of agricultural land.

Iowa law already has significant restrictions on foreign entities that own farmland. The new law requires foreign owners of farmland to report more to state officials and gives the attorney general more power to investigate and punish entities that don't comply.