From a study of public employee salaries and benefits, to teacher bonuses for student achievement and incentives for shared government services, the Iowa DOGE Task Force report includes a number of recommendations for making Iowa government more efficient.
Plus, Republican Iowa Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver announces he will not seek re-election and will step down as leader and Iowa DOGE holds its final public meeting.
Iowa Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Rob Sand blasted Gov. Kim Reynolds’ efficiency task force as partisan, vowed to veto changes to Iowa’s public pension system, and pushed for more oversight of private school vouchers at a Cedar Rapids town hall.
New public employees would be given the opportunity to opt out of the state retirement program, and teachers would receive financial bonuses for student achievement under recommendations being put forward by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ citizen-run task force on government efficiency.
Plus, two more Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate, and how Democratic candidates are talking to voters thus far this cycle.
Republican House Speaker Pat Grassley and other statehouse leaders say they have no interest in pursuing changes to the state-run retirement program for public employees despite a proposal from a state government efficiency panel last week.
Allowing some cities to become independent of counties, aligning public sector employee compensation and benefits with the private sector, and basing teacher compensation on student outcomes were some of the emerging recommendations discussed by the Iowa DOGE Task Force on Wednesday.
Governors have always made political hay out of slashing waste or taming bureaucracy, but DOGE has, in some ways, raised the stakes for them to show that they are zealously committed to cutting costs. Many drive home the point that they have always been focused on cutting government, even if they're not conducting mass layoffs.
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