Citing need for business mindset, Iowa Gov. Reynolds establishes government efficiency task force

DES MOINES — Saying state government needs to operate with a business mindset, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Monday signed an executive order establishing a task force on government efficiency.

Reynolds named the task force Iowa DOGE, echoing the federal Department of Government Efficiency created by President Donald Trump and led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.

During a news conference Monday at the Iowa Capitol, Reynolds said the state task force will be led by business leaders and include government representatives. The full task force roster was not yet completed Monday, Reynolds said.

Leading the task force will be Emily Schmitt, chief administrative officer and general counsel of Sukup Manufacturing, an agricultural manufacturing company based in Sheffield.

Reynolds said she has charged the task force with three broad goals: maximize Iowa taxpayers’ return on investment in their government, advance job training to feed Iowa’s workforce, and leverage new technologies like artificial intelligence.

“Unlike government, which is largely insulated from the pressure of competition, their organizations, their businesses are constantly faced with the need to adapt, streamline and upgrade to survive,” Reynolds said of the business leaders she plans to appoint to the task force. “Their work on the task force will involve applying this mindset and approach to government and developing recommendations on workforce, innovative hubs, best practices, strategic performance metrics and more.”

Reynolds said the task force will hold its first meeting within the next 60 days, and from that starting point will produce recommendations to the governor and state lawmakers within 180 days. The goal, Reynolds said, is to have those recommendations in place for lawmakers ahead of the 2026 session of the Iowa Legislature.

Reynolds said she expects the task force’s meetings and final recommendations will be public.

  Buy Photo

Reynolds said the task force will not have the authority to implement any changes to state government. She said like previous task forces, it will make recommendations and it will be incumbent upon the governor and state lawmakers to act.

She also said the task force will not “get into personal information,” but will speak to agency heads about their respective agencies’ budgets.

Reynolds said she could not rule out the possibility that the task force will recommend layoffs in state government.

When Reynolds in 2023 structured her proposal to reorganize the executive branch of state government, she proposed — and Republican lawmakers approved — eliminating 600 vacant state government positions. But no state workers were laid off in that reorganization, Reynolds said.

In that executive reorganization, Reynolds reduced the number of cabinet-level state agencies from 37 to 16 and removed 1,200 state regulations in the first year.

Reynolds’ office says the reorganization has saved the state $217 million in the first two years, more than the Reynolds’ administration’s early projections for the first four years.

The new task force also will examine the relationships between the state and federal and state and local governments to find potential efficiencies, Reynolds said.

“The local government officials who will serve on the task force will bring an invaluable perspective and expertise to the question of how we can continue to collaborate more strategically,” Reynolds said. “We need to work with the federal government. We need to work with local government, figure out how we can streamline all of our processes. And if there’s duplication happening … then that’s a cost to the taxpayers.”

  Buy Photo

Schmitt has served on previous state task forces during Reynolds’ administration. In 2018, Schmitt served on the Growing Rural Iowa Task Force, which was established to explore ways to grow Iowa’s rural communities. And in 2021, Schmitt chaired the state’s Child Care Task Force, which was created to generate recommendations for addressing Iowa’s child care shortage.

“It just is ingrained in me,” Schmitt said. “My father Steve at the manufacturing company walks around with papers every day saying, ‘Maybe we should switch this piece to this machine.’ We cannot keep saying we have solutions if they’re not being sustained. That’s the trick here.”

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com

Get the latest Iowa politics and government coverage each morning in the On Iowa Politics newsletter.