Iowa legislative panels to tackle school funding, Medicaid transition, Cedar Rapids casino

DES MOINES - How to provide more equitable funding of the state's public schools. Whether there should be a nonsmoking casino in Cedar Rapids. Oversight of the state's transition to private management of its low-income health care program.

These are among the issues that will be studied and monitored by legislative committees, leadership in the Iowa Legislature decided Monday.

Interim and study committees are composed of state lawmakers and tasked with investigating issues while the Legislature is not in session. The committees will form and meet before the 2016 session.

The school funding committee will examine inequities in the state's school funding formula. In particular, it will examine how some school districts are allowed to spend more per pupil than others and how many rural districts spend a significantly larger percentage of their general fund on transportation.

Davenport schools Superintendent Art Tate drew attention to the per-pupil funding inequity when he pledged to use the district's reserve funds to spend more per pupil than allowed by state law. Davenport is among the many districts whose maximum per-pupil spending is up to $175 per student less than allowed in districts at the top of the per-pupil scale.

The transportation funding inequity was brought to light by rural districts that cover a large area, because transportation funding comes out of the same general fund as books and materials.

A health policy oversight committee would provide legislative oversight of the state's shift to private management of its Medicaid program.

'We thought we'd like to have somebody being updated all the time,” said Sen. Amanda Ragan, D-Mason City, chairwoman of the Senate's Health and Human Services budget subcommittee.

Gov. Terry Branstad in January announced the transition to private management, which will begin next year. Some lawmakers and advocacy groups have expressed reservations about the move.

Legislation designed during the 2015 session to create an oversight panel was not approved.

A legislative committee will examine another issue that failed to produce legislation in this year: a nonsmoking casino in Cedar Rapids.

Sen. Wally Horn, D-Cedar Rapids, was unsuccessful in pushing for a casino during the session.

'I don't think it hurts to look at it,” Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, said Monday. 'I think the way all that was handled (during the session) wasn't the best.